COUNTRY GIRLS’ CLUBS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27396, 8 July 1954, Page 2

COUNTRY GIRLS’ CLUBS

ANNUAL MEETING OF N.Z. FEDERATION

During the year ended on June 30, the number of country girls’ clubs in the Dominion had increased from 49 to 69, and the combined membership to 1500. There are two more clubs in the North Island than in the South. These details were given by the retiring president (Miss Julie Morrison, of Canterbury) at the annual meeting of the Federation of Country Girls’ Clubs, held recently in Hamilton. “Nevertheless, there are large districts where there are few or no clubs,” said Miss Morrison. “There are none in Nelson, only one in Marlborough, one in Westland (at Hari Hari), and only two in southern Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne.”

About 100 delegates and' many observers attended the conference.

The annual report said that, during the year, the clubs had become more widely known, club activities had widened, and there was a greater tendency for clubs to regard themselves as links in the federation’s chain, rather than as isolated bodies. The federation had had helpful association during the year with the Women's Division of Federated Farmers, the Country Women’s Institutes and the young farmers’ clubs. Among club activities had been catering for dog trials, holding stock judging -days, sending parcels to CORSO, “adopting” children in homes and hospitals, helping needy persons, and visiting patients m hospitals, said the report. Dominion officers were elected at the conference as follows: president, Miss Mary Hopping (Tauranga); vice-presi-dent, Miss Noeline Clark (Southland); Dominion executive, Misses Agnes Telfer (Te Awamutu), Marie Donovan (Taihape), Irene Baird (Halcombe), Margaret Ward (Tauranga), Brenda Neal (Blenheim), Peggy Robinson (Ohoka and districts), Joan McQuilkin (Eiffelton), Netta Burnside (Otago) and Julie Morrison (Sheffield).