Friday, June 19, 2009

Thanks Maryanne!

Tiare Ahuriri helds it AGM on 28 April 2009, where Branch President Maryanne Marsters relinquished her post, having taken on the Assistant Secretary role on the National Executive Committee. The branch is extremely grateful to Maryanne for everything she has done as the inaugural Branch President to get our branch up and running (including setting up our blog) and for being a wonderful representative of PACIFICA and Tiare Ahuriri. We have undertaken to provide her with whatever support we can in her Assistant Secretary role. Maryanne passed on the President's baton to Caren Rangi, who in turn passed on her Secretary/Treasurer role to Saane Unga.

Tiare Ahuriri challenges other branches to get members screened!

Having a Breast and Cervical Screening Health Promoter as one of our members means that we are constantly reminded of the importance of regular screening for both cancers. We have made this a focus area for our branch, starting with ensuring that all our members have the necessary information, and are enrolled/registered with the programmes where they are of the eligible age (20 – 69years for cervical screening, 45 – 69years for breast screening).

We are mindful that PACIFICA plays a role in advising the National Screening Unit on the views and ideas of Pacific women on screening. With this in mind, Tiare Ahuriri would like to issue a challenge to all branches to ensure that all your members are fully informed about the importance screening, and encouraged (gently but firmly!) to be screened if they are not currently participating in screening. As a national organisation, we would be in a much better position to advocate to the National Screening Unit if we were confident that our members were participating in screening.

And maybe once all our members are participating, then we could each identify 2 women who are not being screened and encourage them to participate – (and they could tell two friends, who could tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on.........!)