BRITISH JUNIOR RED CROSS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27875, 25 January 1956, Page 2

BRITISH JUNIOR RED CROSS

VISIT OF DIRECTOR NEXT MONTH

Miss Barbara Coke, director of the ■ ri j2u . un i°r Red Cross, will arrive in Christchurch on February 9 for two days’ visit. She is travelling on a King George VI Leadership Training Memorial Scholarship granted by the Kmg George VI Foundation, which was set up last year as a permanent memorial to King George VI. In 1952, a nation-wide appeal was made for funds for a suitable memorial, and within two years £1,500.000 was raised. Daughter of a colonel. Miss Coke went from a business career to the intelligence department as a confidential private secretary early in the last world war. In 1940 she founded the Duke of York’s Evacuee Club at Olney, Buckinghamshire. In 1941, she became county welfare officer for East Berkshire, and in that capacity drew up emergency feeding plans for two boroughs and set up and staffed nine war-time nurseries. For two years she looked after the welfare of men and women fire guards. When the war ended she was a regional welfare officer for the Women’s Voluntary Service. Miss Coke is a justice of the peace of the county of London, specially apSointed to the juvenile panel. She as been director of the British Junior Red Cross for nine years, and her work has taken her to many parts of Europe and to Newfoundland in Canada. Miss Coke will spend three months in Australia before visiting New Zealand, and will study Junior Red Cross activities there. She is attending the International Training Camp at Point Lonsdale, near Melbourne, this month. Visit of Frenchman Mr George Tracewski, assistant director of the Junior Red Cross Bureau at the League of Red Cross Societies, will arrive in Nev/ Zealand on February 2. He was born at Marseilles, France, and he received his education in Geneva. At the University of Geneva, he obtained in 1946 a degree in law, and in 1947 a degree in economic and social sciences.

At the beginning of 1948, Jhe was engaged by the Swiss Association of Scientific Labour Management as an editor and edited the periodical “Chefs,” dealing with relations between employers and employees. Towards the end of 1948, he was appointed assistant to the secretarygeneral of the association. In 1949, he entered the Secretariat of the League of Red Cross Societies as a French translator. Because of his special qualifications, he was transferred to the Junior Red Cross Bureau, and became assistant to the director of the bureau on January 1, 1954, and was appointed assistant director on August 1. 1955. Before joining the League of Red Cross Societies, Mr Tracewski took an active part in the scout movement in Geneva for many years. He entered the senior branch of the scout movement in 1952. and was in charge of a rover crew from 1947 to 1953. In 1949, he was leader of a delegation of 60 Genevese rovers to the World Rover Scout Moot at Siak, Norway. In 1944. in spite of his French nationality, he was elected to the Geneva central committee of the Swiss Scout Federation. Mr Tracewski is married and has two small daughters.