By the time you receive this issue of Azimuth, it will have been over 4 months since the homecoming. Wow does time fly!! I would like to start out with a heartfelt thank you to our retiring President, Linda North, for her untiring effort to improve your club.
Linda put in hundred of hours of work each month to make the HUMMER Club what it is today. From completely running the Publication Azimuth to all of the day-to-day business of running your club. It will certainly take more than one person to fill her shoes. Thank you Linda for introducing me to the HUMMER Community and for all that you have done.
I would like to introduce a new board member, David LaMarca, membre and HOPE volunteer, to our club. David was one of our Katrina response members deployed to Gulfport, Mississippi and was in charge of the Mississippi portion of our hurricane response. With all of the growth we have seen with the HOPE program, I am grateful to have David's help. Feel free to contact him at david @ thehummerclubinc.com with any questions that you may have about signing up for HOPE, trade endorsements, or Red Cross training.
David's and my first task will be to help educate local chapters of the American Red Cross on how the HOPE program works and how it can benefit them in times of disaster. Feel free to contact us with your questions. We will do our best to get you someone that can help get some answers for you. Also don't forget that all membership processing for HOPE is handled via HOPE @ stjoe-redcross.org. We now have additional help maintaining that e-mail address. So please direct all membership questions there.
The report on data transition is that it is 99% complete and your training status should be verified by the end of the year During this process we have discovered that there are numerous HOPE applicants that have completed their Trail Endorsements and then have not gone on to finish their other Red Cross trainings. We do not know if this is due to you not knowing what to do next, or if we have lost contact with you. Having said that, every HOPE applicant that is in our database will start receiving e-mail reminders of what elements we are missing from your packet. By doing so we can get all certifications you may have taken or help direct you to local classes to complete your HOPE training. These winter months are a great time to get all of your certifications up to date before the next disaster.
Speaking of e-mails, if you have changed you e-mail since joining HOPE, or if any of your contact or phone information has changed, please contact us at HOPE @ stjoe-redcross.org (or here) with the new information. This way we can make sure that you are included in all of our e-mail bulletins.
I am happy to report that we are having new discussions with the national office of the Red Cross on how to bring the HOPE program to your local chapter. If you are a HOPE member and have not yet contacted your local office of the American Red Cross, I urge you to do so. Ask them to contact their regional or national office and request information on the HOPE program. With over 200 chapters of the American Red Cross, we are starting with the ones closest to you, our HOPE members, then chapters that have received a donated HUMMER and finally all other chapters that could use our services. Please help us in the PR campaign. There have been numerous changes at the Red Cross and not everyone knows what a great bunch of civic-minded people we are!
I am excited to report that our hummerhope.com website is getting the final detains worked out and thanks to HUMMER Club member Evan Easton and his IT skills, we will soon have a HOPE site that will contain everything you need to sign up and all information that is HOPE related. Watch the club website at www.thehummerclubinc.com for the link when we go live. Thanks Evan for all of your hardwork and patience building this great site.
Without club volunteers all of the progress would not be possible. If you have a few hours a month and can help out for any HUMMER club project, we can use your help. All club directors, event staff, and HOPE staff volunteer their time and resources so that this club can grow. We can only be as big as our membership lets us by volunteering our time. Please contact our President, Marshall Henderson at marshall @ thehummerclubinc.com to see what you can do to help.
In closing, I would like to remind everyone to check our website, click twice on the HOPE logo, and review what requirements you still need to finish up your HOPE certification. There are a lot of exciting things in the works and I hope to be telling you about them in the next issue of Azimuth.
Remember, it's all about being prepared.
Mike Morris