TEA GARDENS Red Cross volunteers are ready for the warmer weather, having just held their annual general meeting (AGM), at which they started planning several fundraisers for Spring.
The AGM, held in Tea Gardens on 28 July, saw all key officeholders re-elected to their posts, with Tim Fenton taking on a new Assistant Treasurer role.
During the meeting, Karen and Megan Markham were presented with their 20-year service medals and Narelle Murray was awarded a 25-year Certificate of Appreciation, to loud applause and gratitude.
The next big events are the Father’s Day raffles, which will be held outside Tea Gardens Coles and Hawks Nest Newsagency in the lead-up to September, with the first prize being a bottle of 1970 Penfolds Grange Hermitage.
August events have included the Bulahdelah Country Women’s Association’s (CWA) invitation to a morning tea featuring entertainment by the talented students of Bulahdelah Central School.
On Monday 11 August, the Tea Gardens Red Cross volunteers ventured out in unpredictable weather for a visit to the Westpac Rescue Helicopter depot in Broadmeadow to present a donation and look over the chopper.
“It was an interesting morning and they are such a vital service covering all of NSW and relying on the volunteering and fundraising of many supporters to make around 1500 rescue trips per year,” returning President Helen Janes told NOTA.
The visiting volunteers were enlightened about the realities of the Rescue Helicopter, which recently made an emergency night flight out to Myall Park in Hawks Nest, among many other rescue flights in the broader region.
The Rescue Helicopter has stayed busy over winter with multiple urgent inter-hospital transfers, taking patients from regional hospitals such as Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, Moree, Armidale and many more to the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, as well as attending highway accidents, and even winching out a person with a farm injury at Dungog.
The helicopter is a vital service, as John Hunter Hospital is the major tertiary referral hospital for the Hunter New England region and is the only Level 1 Trauma Centre outside a capital city on the East Coast.
Serving a population of up to 1.5 million, it manages over 500 trauma patients, which consistently makes it the largest centre in NSW.
Tea Gardens Red Cross meets at the Uniting Church on the fourth Monday of the month, the next being 25 August.
Anyone keen to see how they can help causes like the Westpac Rescue Helicopter is welcome.
By Thomas O’KEEFE
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