RED CROSS COMMISSIONER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 5 January 1945, Page 2

RED CROSS COMMISSIONER

MK C. MEACHEN APPOINTED TO 2ND N.Z.E.F. Wellington, This Day. With the rank of major, Mr Clarence Meachen, secretary of the St. John Ambulance Association. Wellington, has been appointed Red Cross Commissioner with the 2nd N.Z.E.F., succeeding Major Tweedie. who is returning to New Zealand after a long term of service overseas. The appointment was made by the Joint Council of the Order of St. John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society, agent of the National Patriotic Fund Board for sick, wounded and prisoners of war, and it was announced yesterday by the chairman of the council. Sir James Elliott. Major Meachen, he said, would leave shortly for overseas to assume his new duties. Mr Meachen is considered well equipped for the positiori to which he has been appointed. He has been secretary to the St. John Ambulance Association in Wellington since 1932, a term of years notable for advances in the activities of the association and its membership. For fourteen years he has been secretary of the Otaki Health Camp for Children, and for the past seven years has been secretary of the New Zealand Crippled Children Society. In addition to these many duties Mr Meachen was the founder of the Wellington and National Blood Transfusion Services, which have done much to alleviate suffering in recent years. The performance of his duties in these offices has not prevented his taking part in public affairs, and at the last election he was returned as a member of the Wellington Hospital Board.