Lessons

Volunteer Professionals for Medical Advancement

Initiating a New VPMA Chapter (South Bay Chapter)
by Warren Schwarzmann

When learning of my retirement from TRW, Herman Bank called me and requested that I volunteer as a member of VPMA. I was not particularly interested in volunteering to support doctors, but since Herman invited me I decided to help him expand VPMA. In order to contact a number of potential volunteers, I was able to arrange a special meeting of TRW Retirees (the TRW Retirees Association or TRA). I arranged for Herman Bank and Lon Isenberg to attend the meeting. They presented selected activities accomplished by the members of VPMA. They also included a presentation of the VPMA video.

Lesson Learned: The descriptions of past VPMA achievements and identification of future medical needs that these volunteers might be interested in providing is necessary to stimulate interest. Of the thousand or so local TRW retiree members (over 3000 in all of California), 50-60 were interested enough to attend the meeting and 16 signed up. Unless a group of volunteers who are interested in medical science is readily available, access to a large number of potential volunteers is needed to find members that are sufficiently interested in volunteering. Obtaining access to a large number of potential volunteers by utilizing a retirees organization, scheduling a VPMA meeting and publicizing it in the retirees news letter and providing a meeting place was very useful.

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