VICE-REGAL VISIT TO WHAKATANE LIKELY SOON

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 89, 1 September 1948, Page 5

VICE-REGAL VISIT TO WHAKATANE LIKELY SOON

His Excellency’s Informal Hint Whakatane can expect a viceregal visit soon. At morning tea with members of the Joint Council of the Order of St John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society last week at Wellington, the Governor General, Sir Bernard Freyberg, told Mrs A. W. Winstone, Bay of Plenty delegate; that he and Lady Freyberg would be paying an official visit here within the next few months. . The meeting ( Mrs Winstone was . attending, the annual meeting of the Joint Council, was opened by His Excellency, who asked the Council to consider a recommendation from the Patriotic Fund Board that the work of the Board be expanded to include the care of bedridden men. The Council agreed. This Council, together with joint Provincial committees, administers the Red Cross Homes in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, and cares for sick, 7 wounded and disabled soldiers generally. Approval was also given for the amalgamation of the Great War Funds still remaining with Jhe Patriotic Funds from the war just past, to ensure equal care of and no difference in treatment between soldiers of various wars. It is understood that, at a subsequent meeting of the G.W.F.AtC. (the body that administers the Great War Fund) it was agreed to put arrangements in train for this amalgamation. •Members of the Council were able to inspect the ’bus specially built for transport of soldier patients. It is built with the back seats removable to accommodate wheeled chairs or stretchers, with a ramp at the back which slides under the vehicle when not in use. It is fitted with radio and has a special fumigating plant 'for! use after T.B. patients have been out in it.