For Greg Vickery, the Red Cross has always been near to his life. His late mother,  Audrey Vickery,  was a member of the Coorparoo branch of the Australian Red Cross and was actively involved in several services,  especially driving around the elderly and working in a hospital canteen.  Greg’s wife, Dr Sally Vickery, also has a Red Cross background, being a member of the Junior Red Cross at school. Despite this he notes “I knew remarkably little about the Red Cross when I first joined apart from the fact that I knew it was a great humanitarian organisation and I was certainly able to see the valuable work my mother and her friends were performing in Coorparoo, my local suburb.” His three children, Philip, Andrew and Katrina,  will certainly know more and often helped out with the annual house to house collection for funds. (All have followed Greg into a career in law and two work in England).

Greg joined the Australian Red Cross in 1973 aged 26.  He was invited to join a Young Executive’s Committee of the Queensland Division and shortly after became a

Member of the Appeals and Fundraising Committee and the Youth Committee. In 1974 he became Deputy Chairman of the Appeals and Fundraising Committee and a year later Chairman, a post he was to hold for 16 years. As Greg recalls “As you can see, my primary service role, apart from my involvement in governance, has been in appeals and fundraising”. In time, however, he was elected to overall governance positions, first as Vice Chairman of the Queensland Divisional Board, then in 1998 as State Chairman and since November 2003 he has served as National Chairman of the Australian Red Cross.

Margaret Ivers had been a member of  Red Cross Youth in her primary school days and was very happy to become involved again.. As Greg recalls, “Margaret was the

first person I recruited to the Australian Red Cross, in 1975. She was a school teacher that my wife and I knew and she took on leading the junior Red Cross group in her own school. She went on to become Chairman of the Red Cross Youth Committee and a representative on the Divisional Board of the Queensland Division”.

Greg is still in touch with some of the members of the original committees he served on in those early years, although many have now retired or died. “Certainly, most of the original Board I served with in 1975 in Queensland are now deceased. However, there are some members, like Joan Lindsay who served on the Appeals Committee with me and who was until recently Vice-Chairman of the Queensland Division, with whom I have maintained close contact.”

“The most memorable event from my early years was with Red Cross Calling – our annual house to house door knock for funds. When I first became the chairman of the Appeals and Fundraising Committee we had only a small group of branch members who participated and $10,000.00 was raised. Within 2 or 3 years we had recruited school children to assist and we increased the total 10 times, to over $100,000.00, (within a further 5 years it increased to$300,000.00) and of course today, it has increased to almost $2 million in the State of Queensland. I particularly remember some of the dedicated women who not only ran Red Cross in their local area, but who also conducted a very successful house to house and street collections. In particular, Pat Gosper from Cairns, who is still going strong today, although in her 80’s, and Laurie Fisher from Redcliffe who is similarly in her 80’s now. These were women of undoubted strength, passion and enthusiasm for the Society. They worked hard in all aspects, including fundraising and helping those in need in their local communities where they were the public face of the Red Cross. In fact, there was great competition between their 2 branches for the title of the branch which raised the most amount of money for Red Cross in Queensland.”

“I first became involved in Red Cross at the national level in the early 1980’s when on two occasions I was a Queensland delegate to National Council meetings. This was the first time I met two significant national and international Red Cross figures – Leon Stubbings, the then Secretary General, and Noreen Minogue – the Deputy Secretary General, both of whom became firm friends and mentors for me. In the mid 1980’s I became a member of the first National Fundraising Committee as a representative of the Queensland Division. I attended these meetings for several years after that. Upon becoming Vice Chairman of the Queensland Division in 1994 I again became a member of the National Council and have been a member of National Council ever since. In 1996 I was asked to join the Australian Red Cross Blood Service as an inaugural board member with company expertise (as a company lawyer) and I was a member of that Board for 4 years. Our blood service prior to 1996 had operated as stand alone units in 8 separate States and Territories.  In 1996 for the first time we had a combined national blood service and a specialist board to help guide it.”

Greg notes that his perception of the Red Cross has changed over the years, “particularly as I have become more aware of the International Humanitarian Law  (IHL) underpinning our basic principles and philosophy”. In fact it was through attending IHL Committee Meetings that Greg first became more aware of the international work of the Red Cross. This became a real area of involvement when he became National Chairman.  “I attended my first General Assembly, Council of Delegates and International Conference one week after my election as National Chairman in November 2003, and enjoyed that thoroughly. I have since attended three Donor Forums as a representative of Australian Red Cross and also the General Assembly and Council of Delegates in Seoul in 2005 and the special meetings in Geneva in June 2006. At Seoul, Australia became a member of the Governing Board and I have now attended two Governing Board meetings. In May 2005 I attended a Pacific Meeting of Red Cross in Samoa where I got to meet key personnel from all of the 12 Pacific National Societies, which was an enormous pleasure for me, and I have made some lifelong friends there.”

“The work of Niki Rattle from the Cook Island Red Cross Society and Mauala Tautala (Tala) and from Samoan Red Cross Society are typical of the many dedicated representatives we have in the Pacific.  They have had huge workloads and their work is truly inspirational”.

The Red Cross is all about the commitment of individuals to a set of humanitarian principles and to the service of those in need. Greg recalls,  “I have met so many people through my position in Red Cross who have inspired me. In the first instance, it was a person like Laurie Fisher from Redcliffe (who is still actively involved in that branch after 33 years) who impressed me with the endless hours she put into the role of a local Red Cross leader, both in service delivery and fund raising, as well as running efficient and large branch meetings. She has been a vital part of the local community. There were many others like her, including Pat Gosper in Cairns, the late Elsie March in Rockhampton, and in Brisbane, Mrs Bateman and Mrs Sanders. Later in the Queensland Division,  Mrs Airlie Bell and Mrs Joan Lindsay were of great assistance to me when I was both Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Queensland Division. These were extremely dedicated women who, apart from their husbands and families, have dedicated the rest of their lives to Red Cross. At the National level, I found Noreen Minogue particularly inspiring and of enormous assistance to me in better understanding IHL and how International Red Cross worked. Ron Green who was National Chairman in the 90’s was a great inspiration as well and he brought extraordinary communication and interpersonal skills to the role of National Chairman and was a great personal mentor for me. He also served with me for 4 years on the Blood Service board, where we became close friends. He was able to give me his own special insight into the operation of the International Governing Board and Finance Commission on which he served for many years.”

From over thirty years of shared experiences with fellow Red Cross volunteers, Greg finds it hard to pick out any as the ‘most amazing’, but if pressed to do so “I would name Laurie Fisher, Pat Gosper, Niki Rattle, Joan Lindsay and the late Ron Green as the most inspirational for me (but there are so many others I could name). These people have all inspired me with their amazing dedication over very long periods of time, two primarily at the local and regional level, one at State and National level and the other two at the National and International level.”

Today Greg Vickery continues to play a key leadership role in the Red Cross both nationally and internationally, while also continuing to work as a full-time lawyer. He also manages to fit in some relaxation time as he is a keen golfer, a regular spectator of cricket and rugby,   and a regular attender of art galleries, theatre, ballet and his favourite art form,  opera.