Well, the ShelterBox conference yesterday was great. We had updates on ShelterBox numbers and deployments and also some stories from the field from several SRTs (ShelterBox Response team members). There was also a talk by Roy Peter Clark on good story telling and a talk on how SRTs are selected, trained andhow and when they get called up.
Then of course, was the part I should have expected, but the "shy one" never quite gets, which was the smoozie part of having a drink and dinner with these wonderful folks. (Awful sentence I know) I was able to speak at length with some of the dedicated ShelterBox volunteers who are Rotarians. I was "networking" woo! I told them about the Netroots convention and a couple seemed interested to know more.
I wish more young adults joined Rotary. Rotary is an organization with a true humanitarian mission right in your own backyard, or even consider serving as a ShelterBox Response Team member you don't have to be a Rotarian for that. They get serious vetting and training for this work. These are regular people living regular lives until the get called up within hours of a disaster. I love these people!
About ShelterBox.
http://shelterboxusa.org/...
A bit more detail over the squiggle about today.
One thing that amazed me was the size of the organization and the conference. The organization is fairly small and the attendees were about 100 including support staff. Which means ShelterBox USA really depends on all the donations and volunteers to keep things going.
Since the Haiti crisis, other NGO's love ShelterBox because they get to get to the disaster site first even before first responders sometimes. Plus with the Rotary connection, ShelterBox has Rotary Club people on the receiving end. These Rotarian folks are usually the town business leaders and local activists who can pull strings, tap into local organizations and people, including the military of that country.
The stories told by some SRTs were amazing. One was Beverly Hill, who told her story of the neonatal section of a tent hospital on the tarmack in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti that caught fire and how with no gurneys to wheel the patients out and the chaos. How She helped feed the 1 lb babies at night because the be few nurses had to sleep with all the airplanes and helicopters coming in and out. How many of these babies were born during the earthquake and who's mothers had nowhere to go.
Then sort of funny story was one where two male RST's were exhausted on foot looking for a place to sleep and had to rent a room for the night at a place that usually rented rooms by the hour. The small bed they were given was wrapped in plastic and rubber, LOL. They went to bed but sleeped "head to toe" with no chance of spooning. This became know and the Love Motel story for rest of the day. It was funny but then more of the story was how in the middle of the night they heard someone coming into their room. They feared as the only foreigners in town that they were about to be robbed. They leap to meet force with force and found a scared janitor who didn't expect them to be there.
Oh and um, click this link for the Netroots for the Troops fundraiser. I gave, did you?
https://bos.etapestry.com/...
Well there ya go. I gotta get ready and go as my hotel is a short walk to the conference hotel.