IDEAS IMPORTED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 2, 3 July 1939, Page 14

IDEAS IMPORTED

NATIONAL UNION PARTY

GAIETY UNRESTRICTED

Only members of the National Union were invited to the, National Club in Featherston Street on Saturday evening and the party that ensued entirely justified the claims of the invitations. The club was more than comfortably filled for the occasion, many of the guests arriving after the cinema and other functions.

An American idea was the basis of the party and was used probably for the first time in New Zealand- Each guest, on arrival, was given a thick role of "notes" to the value of four hundred dollars, these gradually thinning out as the evening progressed. Every young man who asked his partner to dance was charged what amounted to exorbitant prices for the privilege, but was able to retaliate at

supper-time when they charged as much as five dollars a cake and twenty for a cup of coffee: Ample scope for "sharp practices" was given and many complicated business deals were put through. The idea separates the "sheep" from the "goats" and many who previously had had no idea that then* business acumen was so well developed were surprised, when the time of reckoning came, to discover that they had amassed considerable fortunes. Accountants, qualified or partly so, who attended the party proved to be very popular young men for they, with some of the budding lawyers present, helped to, straighten out many a knotty financial tangle, and put to an; end arguments over involved legal procedure. Of. course, a charge was made for the service.

After a number of deceptive parcels had been auctioned by Mr. Selwyn Toogood, their contents eaten, worn, or added to a wad of "money, the final count took place,,young men being earnestly requested by the committee not to add; to the bankrolls of their partners/Prizes were awarded to the millionaires, the party concluding with the singing of "Auld Lang Syne" and an extravagant shower of countless notes. .-. . '

The committee responsible for the party had carefully stencilled the values of the! dollars on : pieces of coloured paper and were careful to explain away all charges of "fraud" or "counterfeiting." Its members comprised the , Misses Patricia . Hogg, Bdbbie' Gibbons, Lqrria Adams, Beverley Luke, Margaret Evans, Wanda Wyber, , Grace "Beath, and Terry Pecksten, and Messrs. Lan Graves, Dick Morpeth, .Arthur King. Mervyn Elias, Eric Evan-Young, Cliff Camp, Win Withers,' and Lindsay Arlow.

Among those present were Mr. O. C. Mazengarb (president of the National Union), Misses Paddy Burke, Jean Adams; Molly Shearer, Ngaio Thornton, Jocelyn Leary, Audrey Kelly, Jean Hogg, Josephine Russell, Helen Ward, Annette Gunn, Patty Evans, Nancy James, Joyce Chisholm, Ngaire Roberts, June Bell, Pat Ingles, Margaret Farra, Joan Gibbons, Audrey Anderson, Cushla de Lange (Auckland), Paddy Gibbons; and Messrs. Nigel Tosswill, Dennis Evans, Donald Smith, Frank Pennington, Charles [Aitchison, Miles Morpeth, Frank Ford!ham, Bill Waro" (Levin), Pat Kelly, Gary Evers-Swiridell, John Morris, Bernard and Graham Forgie, Douglas and Brian Smith,. Peter, Swan, Bill Clegg, lan Robertson, F. Akel, Arthur Hyams, Arthur Martin, Ken Hood; Pat Morpeth, John Kennedy^ Bill Springhall, Don Holmes, Dudley Bird, Ken James, Sedger Dickens, Ray Ross, Eric Kennedy, Geoffrey Spence, Hugh Walls, Alec Pearce, Bob Munro-George, Lloyd Jenkins, and Rod Campbell.