Feds' Campus Response team seeks casualties

a message from the Campus Response Team (CRT).

Calling all casualties! The Campus Response Team's Casualty Simulation Event (CasSim) will be held on July 6 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Hagey Hall and top-notch actors are needed to play injured casualties.

A Federation of Students’ service, CRT is run by volunteers dedicated to providing first-aid coverage at campus events. CasSim provides these volunteers with valuable practice in emergency situations. It ensures that each member is capable of providing the University community with the best first-aid coverage. At CasSim, members compete against one another in pairs. The pair that displays the most comprehensive treatment will be deemed CasSim champions.

CRT member Justin Vanderheide is pictured above responding to a gunshot-wound casualty (Seve Williams) at the Winter 2013 CasSim event.

"CRT's Casualty Simulation has become a trademark event every term,” said Maaz Yasin, the administrative service coordinator for CRT. “Scenario-based learning is very popular in the field of first aid instruction and emergency medicine. Therefore, while it is supposed to be a fun competition, we try to ensure that there is significant educational value to CasSim for our members." This year’s CasSim will include several outdoor mock-emergency scenarios. The CRT members will have to battle the elements while responding to volunteer-casualties. Signs will be located around the halls and outside of Hagey Hall warning passersby that simulated emergencies will be taking place.

Without its volunteers, CasSim would not be possible. Volunteers will be rewarded with free lunch and will have the opportunity to see the CRT in action. If you are interested in volunteering for the Spring 2013 CasSim event, please contact CRT via email.

More information about CRT is available online.

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Change to preferred travel provider announced

Fellow travelers, take note: Procurement & Contract Services has announced that it has engaged Frederick Travel to act as the university's preferred travel service supplier on a temporary basis, effective Tuesday, July 2.

"Our current travel service provider, VIP Travel, has elected to move its commercial activity in a direction other than corporate travel services," says a memo from Procurement that circulated yesterday.

Frederick Travel has a full array of travel services, including booking the services required, such as airfare and hotels, and charges directly to the university's account. Information about the university travel program is available on the Frederick Travel website.

The procedure for making travel arrangements that are charged directly to the university's account hasn't changed, according to the memo. "Approved travel advances should be forwarded to Finance-Accounts Payable. Accounts Payable will release the funds to Frederick Travel.

A Request for Proposal process will begin in the fall to secure a permanent preferred travel service provider.

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Thursday's notes

Canada's Capital Region (or Ottawa as I'm told it's also called) is no doubt a fun place to spend Canada Day, and a group of University of Waterloo co-op students did just that as you can see from the above picture, submitted by Bridget King, an Arts and Business Co-op student currently working in Ottawa with IBM. The students gathered for a Watpub Ottawa Spring 2013 event to celebrate the occasion. Watpubs are a long-standing work term tradition in major urban centres where Waterloo co-op students congregate, and are social events held throughout the term.

Retired professor Douglas Hoffman (right), who was a professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning in the Faculty of Environmental Studies (now the School of Planning in the Faculty of Environment) died June 26. A veteran of the Second World War and an expert in rural planning, soils mapping and land evaluation, he earned a PhD at Waterloo in 1973 and began working at the university in September 1978 as Director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning, also serving briefly as acting dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies. He retired in September 1985. Weir was 93. He is survived by his spouse, Frances.

And if you only do one thing today, read this blog post about an event that started out as a simple donation announcement, but turned into something else entirely.

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