May 2024

Toni's Message It was lovely to see so many of our club members at the Anzac Day service in Hawera.
I was so proud of the number of men, women, and children that turned out acknowledge the sacrifices made by our armed services.
The annual BPW NZ AGM was held online on Sunday 28 th April. My thanks to Catherine Trowbridge and Marissa Cope, who along with myself were the delegates for our club. The Vaping Resolution was contentious. We all agreed that flavours needed to be removed from vapes, and that vapes should have the same controls as cigarettes. However, the other two clauses were only narrowly passed by the AGM. These were the ones we disagreed with due to the potential barriers they put in the way to those that genuinely want to give up smoking cigarettes – that vapes should only be available if prescribed by a doctor, and only available at pharmacies. Democracy took its course, and the resolution is now part of our BPW policy.

Marissa also spoke well on the Professional Apprenticeships for Health Professionals resolution. There was discussion over the use of the word “apprenticeships”, but the resolution passed unanimously. Well done Marissa!
There is going to be a BPW Leadership forum to be held on the 5 th October in Auckland open to all BPW members. More information will come from BPW NZ as we get closer to the date. Next years AGM will be a face-to-face conference again likely to be held near Auckland airport for ease of travel. If there are any ideas you have on resolutions you think we need to get put into BPW policy, start thinking about discussing and drafting your ideas now.

You will have started seeing information come out about the Pink Ribbon Brunch we are holding on
the 26 th May at Tairoa Lodge (thanks to Linda for the use of her beautiful venue). You can get tickets from the iSite in Hawera. If you have trouble getting in to the iSite let us know how many tickets you need and we can get some put aside for you. All proceeds from the brunch are going to Pink Ribbon.
In addition, we are taking the opportunity to support and raise money for Karrissa Ririkore’s treatment costs. Karrissa used to be a member of BPW Hawera and is battling breast cancer. To spend more time with her young family she has to self-fund oncologist treatment drugs. Let’s help her out! Her give a little page: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-us-get-karrissa-private-oncologist-treatment At the Pink Ribbon Brunch we want to have a fantastic raffle will all funds going to directly to Karrissa. We are asking our members, and friends of our club to support this by providing an item or items for this raffle (any buying tickets of course!) Please bring along items for this raffle to our next dinner meeting on the 20th of May. Let’s make it our best raffle ever.

Our club dinner meeting, we will have our very own Marissa Cope speaking about the changes at Te Whatu Ora, the Pae Ora bill, and health stats.
Tip for the month: Check your breasts at home. Self-checking is about feeling for changes that aren’t normal for you. This may be a lump, thickened area, or anything that feels totally different from any other area in your breasts. Check the Breast Cancer Foundation website for further information.
https://www.breastcancerfoundation.org.nz/breast-awareness/breast-changes/check-your-breasts

Toni Hunt - BPW Hāwera Club President

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