MRC holds women’s safety seminar

Poughkeepsie Police Officer Kristen Norbom was part of a Dutchess County women’s safety seminar on March 19.

Elizabeth Beggan

MRC holds women’s safety seminar

POUGHKEEPSIE —The Dutchess County Medical Reserve Corps hosted its annual women’s safety night on March 19 at the county’s Department of Emergency Response campus.

The seminar was filled with women ranging from the ages to 19-60, eager to learn about the importance of self defense. Female Poughkeepsie police officers Kristen Norbom and Det. Lindsay Chomicki. Amanda Snyder directed the event with slides and videos to go along with the lecture.

The officers introduced themselves and proceeded to make everyone comfortable, aiming for an atmosphere where learners felt confident in asking concerns and questions.

They started off with their training goals:

—Know the important role your instincts and gut reactions play;

—Discover potentially dangerous situations and know how to avoid them;

—Learn how to make a safety plan, and to decrease the odds of becoming a victim.

“There are no fair fights when it comes to safety,” said Norbom, following the showing of a slide of a woman screaming and kicking to escape a situation.

With there police officers teaching the seminar, the women in the audience asked questions about what to do, how to react to situations along with other comments and concerns.

The MRC is part of a national network of volunteers who support public health infrastructure, preparedness, and response in their local communities.

“About 3 years ago we started them (the seminars), on a need basis but requests have been through the roof, it depends on the MRC seeing a need for it is usually how we base these seminars,” said detective Chomicki. “ These events are important because it’s getting people back into the mindset of knowing their surroundings,”she said. Chomicki currently is working with the department to spread the seminars to high schoolers and freshman in college.

College safety with the nightlife culture (especially in the town of Poughkeepsie) has been a problem that needs to be addressed.

Pat D’Antono said “this was definitely a positive thing to come to, I learned a bunch of little things that could help me in the long run.”

The women in attendance seemed to find a common bond, even as strangers. They shared stories about different situations, and answered each other’s questions, at times also sharing laughs.

Latest News

Angela Derrick Carabine

SHARON — Angela Derrick Carabine, 74, died May 17, 2025, at Vasser Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the wife of Michael Carabine and mother of Caitlin Carabine McLean.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated on June 6 at 11:00 a.m. at Saint Katri (St Bernards Church) Church. Burial will follow at St. Bernards Cemetery. A complete obituary can be found on the website of the Kenny Funeral home kennyfuneralhomes.com.

Revisiting ‘The Killing Fields’ with Sam Waterston

Sam Waterston

Jennifer Almquist

On June 7 at 3 p.m., the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington will host a benefit screening of “The Killing Fields,” Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama about the Khmer Rouge and the two journalists, Cambodian Dith Pran and New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose story carried the weight of a nation’s tragedy.

The film, which earned three Academy Awards and seven nominations — including one for Best Actor for Sam Waterston — will be followed by a rare conversation between Waterston and his longtime collaborator and acclaimed television and theater director Matthew Penn.

Keep ReadingShow less
The art of place: maps by Scott Reinhard

Scott Reinhard, graphic designer, cartographer, former Graphics Editor at the New York Times, took time out from setting up his show “Here, Here, Here, Here- Maps as Art” to explain his process of working.Here he explains one of the “Heres”, the Hunt Library’s location on earth (the orange dot below his hand).

obin Roraback

Map lovers know that as well as providing the vital functions of location and guidance, maps can also be works of art.With an exhibition titled “Here, Here, Here, Here — Maps as Art,” Scott Reinhard, graphic designer and cartographer, shows this to be true. The exhibition opens on June 7 at the David M. Hunt Library at 63 Main St., Falls Village, and will be the first solo exhibition for Reinhard.

Reinhard explained how he came to be a mapmaker. “Mapping as a part of my career was somewhat unexpected.I took an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), the technological side of mapmaking, when I was in graduate school for graphic design at North Carolina State.GIS opened up a whole new world, new tools, and data as a medium to play with.”

Keep ReadingShow less