PEACE TIME SERVICE OF RED CROSS

Chronicle (Levin), 4 May 1946, Page 3

PEACE TIME SERVICE OF RED CROSS

ADVENTURERS IN BETTERMENT "There is work for all of us in the different stages of service," said Mr& J. Campbell (Havelock North) in her presidential address to delegates attending the conference of the North Island Voluntary Aid Coinniittee of the New Zeaiand Red Cross Society,, held in Palmerston North yesterday. "We must teach the youth that is growing up under our care that the Red Cross is not a matter of first aid and homenursing, hut that lt is also a hrotherhood of service throughout the whole world— fifty million people working to help those who are in distress of mind or body in every country, in war and in peace. We have something to give our young people, a torch to liand on to them and those members who want to go forward and- work and be responsible for the future of the Red Cross have a wonderful chance. Let us today be adventurers in betterment." In her thought for the day Mrs. Campbell asked the delegates to give attention to the meaning of three verbs in comiectiou with the Red Cross Voluntary Aid work, the verbs being lo have, to be and to become. "Many of us may have felt we have obtained our goal as Red Cross workers with the deciaration of peace," she said. "We kuow that the Red Cross through these long years of war, has established itself throughout the world as a'power for good. It has the conlidence *of the general public in a way no -other orgaiiisation has ever had. People of all classes of life turu with coiuplete trust to the Red Cross, but if we as leaders in the WA. movement, stop short of the verb to have,' we shail have lamentably failed in the recognitiou of our present and future responsibility. New Zeaiand Red Cross Y.A.D. 's are a trained, orgauised aud discipliued body of 8000 members. Now that peace is declared, ■ are we goiug to let all this melt away and vauish? We tliink of what we have — the conlidence of the public. We tliink of what we are — a trained, organised and discipliued body. We are dill'crent from any other voluntary j society. We do not claim to be biggei or better but ihe diirereuce is that our ideals are contained in a great trcaty sigaed by the Governments of ail nations, that there shall be a measuro j of humanity in war aud international coojieration of sull'eriug iu peace. We are servants of the Red Cross. What of the Future? j "Aml now we tliink of what we are j lo become," .Mrs. Campbell contimied. "That, 1 tliink, is the verb uppermost in our miuds today. The Rt. llon. Lord Wooltou, chairman of the Executive Committee of the British Jied Cross ■Society, when addressing the J 944 National Couference, said: 'Thc State, in war, verv wisely leaves in a- large deg ri'c to Ihe Red Cross the problems oJ' deaJing with hiuiiau sult'eriijg arising from war, and 1 eoneeivo this to be becau.se it knows that a personal rolationsliip is wautcd. In peacetime we sh.all slill need social pathiinders — people with seusitive minds, people with imagination, people who are cxperimeulers, people who are adventurers in betterment' (continuing with the remarks with which this report opened). "We nccd to plan on the broadest, Ihe widest and the highest lines for this peacetime," Mrs. Campbell said in conciusioii, "so lliat the Voluntary Aid organisation becomes not a rushed training school for wartime service but au organisation that offcra to the young women of New Zeaiand unliniited avenues of service for Ihe mitigation of suffering. Aud what tliey become — the organisation becomes."