ROTARIANS TO AID BOY SCOUT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 31, 30 October 1937, Page 6

ROTARIANS TO AID BOY SCOUT

Drive For Funds For Hastings Hall £400 TO BE RAISED " A project like this is surely a community enterprise and to raise £400 in. this town should not -present any insurmountable difficulty," said Mr. A. J. C. Runciman, president of the Hastings' Rotary Club, yesterday, when members of the club decided upon a definite canvass for subscriptions and donations towards the erection of a Boy Scouts' hall in Hastings. Mr. Runciman saidi that tho club had pledged itself jto assist the Boy Scouts' area and hut-building committees in providing the boys with some centrally situated bunding. The committee had been reorganised and strengthened recently and had already begun to function in quite a successful manner. The building was estimated to cost £625 and the committee had in hand a fund totalling £100. Merchants and firms hadi been asked for donations of materials and there had been a particularly good response. Among the donations were the chimney and hre places, eight electric points, spouting, lavatory basin and conveniences, cioor and windows, all the painting and labour involved, first aid outfit, a nag, gas service and a certain amount of timber and otlier material. It was esthnated that the value of these gifts was about £150 so that there was something like £400 still to be raised, either by way of casli or material, or service. "The only way to jobtain such an amount js for a personal canvass to be made," said Mr. Runciman. 'All the townspeople sh'ould be interested' and should contribute towards the project. I would like to see this thing carried througk with spirit." He pointed out that there were two main sources of revenue for such an appeal. One was for donations of consequence to come from business people and leading citizens of substance, and the otker was by way of small donations from staffs of business houses and from the general public. If was proposed that each Rotarian select five people in the town and solicit donations towards the fund and report back to the club the success or otherwise of the canvass. "We will be very happy indeed if we can give the boys a home of their own in the very near future," said Rotarian C. G. "Wilkinson, who is chairman of the area committee, who added that at the present time the boys were in a most unsettled state, having no regular central meeting-place and this was having a detrimental effect on the uevelopmenE" and progress of the movement in this district. "If we all work iiard now W© shcwld have this matter cleaned up in a month, and certainly before Christmas." Tlie club decided to make a personal oanvass and each member selected five liames from a list provided.