WAR MEMORIAL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 38, 16 October 1946, Page 5

WAR MEMORIAL

POSITIVE ATTITUDE NEEDED CAMPAIGN FOR £3OOO “I do deprecate the habit of saying that we won’t have a hope of’ raising the money (£3000) in the Borough,” said the Mayor (Mr B. S. Barry) at the meeting of the Borough Council last Monday evening when refering to the War Memorial project. “If we have a Memorial it should be a worthy one, and we should not enter into a campaign for funds with a defeatist spirit.”

The matter was introduced through a letter from the Municipal Association, which advised that no definite lead had yet been given by the Government. Projected memorials ranged from Community centres and Town Halls, to Hostels and Sporting areas. Reporting on the well-attended public meeting, Mr Barry added that he had not been altogether enamoured of the schemes put forward and he hoped to hear of others. Cr Good: It is somewhat significant that in the memorials for the present war few have supported the old ideas of statues or memorial columns. Cr Sullivan: What do you intend to raise?

The Mayor: About £3OOO. Cr Armstrong: We recently had a very intensive campaign for the R.S.A., and in spite of all the work put into it, the Borough only raised a bare £2OOO.

“The Mayor: I’ll be very disappointed if the town doesn’t raise £3OOO. ’

Cr Canning thought that the merging of the Winter Show and A. and P. interests should act as a nucleus for the establishment of the strongly favoured Community Centre. In this way he thought town and country would have a . common object and could then pool their resources in a common memorial. Cr Warren: There is one suggestion which was overlooked at the public meeting and that was the filling-in of the mud-hole (flats) on the road to the Heads, reclaiming it and laying it out as a recreation area. This would be a great improvement to the seafront of the town and could be worked in conjunction with the Borough Council and the Harbour Board.

The Mayor again repeated his request that all proposals should be handed in to the Town Clerk in readiness for production at the next public meeting which he would convene.