Volunteers in the Spotlight:
Reel People
Volunteers are the best! Frequently they are referred to as RBFS Ambassadors because their enthusiasm is contagious and often encourages others to become involved. Volunteering at the Film Society is a year-round activity. At the end of each year, statistics reveal that hundreds of people collectively contribute thousands of hours of service to advance the overall efforts of the Rehoboth Beach Film Society. We would not be successful in our broad scope of work without volunteer help.
The Board of Directors and Staff are committed to expressing appreciation to each and every volunteer for the service, skills, and time he/she donates. Toward that effort, the Film Society has launched Volunteers in the Spotlight: Reel People.
Each month, we will feature a volunteer, see below, highlighting their contributions and extending our heartfelt appreciation.
Thank you to all of our volunteers!
Sue Early
Executive Director
December - Volunteers in the Spotlight
What Makes Us Tick? Team |
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What Makes Us Tick? is one of the Film Society’s popular winter film series (Jan 13 – 15, 2012). Planning for this annual event begins in February with a small group of volunteers. Their goal seems simple: determine a human behavior-related topic that an audience will enjoy discussing, and select three films with a storyline that best illustrates this topic in a way that inspires conversation. The volunteers research and review many films, and meet each month to select the final three films to be shown the next year. The volunteers who bravely take on this task are as follows.
Chairperson Perrin Smith
Roy G. Fitzgerald, M.D.
Kathryn Harris
Beth Joselow
Charlotte King
Jay Schiavo |
Perrin is a licensed clinical social worker/therapist, specializing in treating children and families. This background gives Perrin the ability to steer the group to an agreement on the program’s content. Anyone who has attended a Festival Film Review knows how wildly opposing the opinions about any film can be. What one viewer proclaims as a work of genius will cause another to be bored. Getting a group of mental health professionals—and one business professional—to agree on three films is a challenge that Perrin handles admirably. Perrin also generously hosts the monthly meetings. 
Roy is a retired psychiatrist who conducted research in many fields including aging, blindness, and bipolar disorder during his career. Roy has previous experience in developing film events similar to What Makes Us Tick?, and has the largest mental catalogue of films to recommend to the group for consideration. We can always count on Roy to volunteer his services as discussion leader for any film. 
Kathryn has been a clinical social worker in the Delaware area for over 35 years, specializing in issues related to personal transition, women's experience, trauma, and post-traumatic stress. Always kind and upbeat, Kathryn is a group cheerleader and problem solver. She is the one to suggest how to move forward when the group reaches a deadlock. 
Beth is a licensed professional counselor of mental health, specializing in child or adolescent trauma. Beth is the resident “techie” of the group. When anyone in the group cannot remember the name of film, but can recall the plot and actors, Beth is always ready with her smart phone to provide electronic assistance. Perhaps there is a future What Makes Us Tick? topic to be found right here in the groups’ own experiences: what causes fading memory and/or the reliance on technology to help us?
Charlotte is a retired licensed clinical social worker, who has worked in all areas of family and child services in both the public and private sector. Charlotte, a regular attendee of the program in the past, is new to the selection process this year. She always brings extensively researched film suggestions to the meetings. Charlotte’s fresh perspective is a welcome addition. 
Jay, also new to the group this year, is the only volunteer whose profession is not in the mental health field. But his talents as a marketing communications consultant are valuable to this process. Jay keeps the others in the group from getting too scientific, because while the audience is certainly interested in the human behaviors that “make us tick”, not everyone in attendance is a mental health professional!
