CAPPING WEEK TO START TODAY

Press, Volume C, Issue 29501, 1 May 1961, Page 17

CAPPING WEEK TO START TODAY

Students from the University of Canterbury and Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, will be seen in various roles during the annual capping week celebrations, which will start today. The roles will vary from the frivolity and buffoonery of the Avon bike race and the procession to the dignified ceremony of the conferring of degrees on the graduands. With the sale of the capping magazine over oh Friday and the student's revue also starting on that day, capping week officially starts with the Avon bike race, on Monday afternoon. To give the spectators a better view of the race the course has been changed and will now start from the Bridge of Remembrance and finish at a point in Victoria square. Wednesday morning is the highlight of the week for the students and the public—the capping procession passes through the city. This year’s precession will jtave more than 50 floats and ft expected to follow the pattern of previous years. The procession will leave the Students’ Association buildings in Montreal street at 10 a.m. and will move along Hereford street, turn into Oxford terrace and then turn left into Cashel street and then into Manchester street. From there it will turn into Armagh street and then come into the Square from Colombo street. After the procession has left the Square speeches will be made by students from the balcony of the United Service Hotel.

In conjunction with the procession will be the collection by hundreds of weirdly garbed students of funds for the Cholmondeley Memorial Home, the charity chosen by the students to receive the money from procession day. The collection will not be confined to the city. Starting at 5.30 a.m. collectors will leave to meet the inter-island steamer at Lyttelton, and trucks will take students into all the suburbs and to Rangiora, Belfast, and Kaiapoi. The students are hoping to be able to give the Cholmondeley Home at least £3BOO, the total collected last year.

TTie Cholmondeley Memorial Children’s Home is an undenominational home used as an immediate refuge for children in times of family crises. At least £l5OO is needed annually to run the home, and in recent years the home has not had sufficient funds. Each child costs £6 a week, but the nominal charge is only £3 3s. There is an average turnover of 230 children every year at the home, which can take 28 children at one time.

On Thursday the most serious part of capping week will take place, when 383 graduands of the university will receive their degrees in the graduation ceremony in the Civic Theatre. The graduands and the staff will leave the university in a procession for the Civic Theatre wearing the gowns and hoods appropriate to their faculties. The degrees will be conferred by the Chancellor of the University of New Zealand (Sir David Smith) and the Dean of Christchurch (the Very Rev. Martin Sullivan) will give an address. Capping week celebrations will finish officially with the graduates’ ball on Thursday evening. For undergraduates a ball will be held on Tuesday,