SHOWING THE WAY

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1765, 15 December 1917, Page 1

SHOWING THE WAY

THE Y.M.C.A. AND THE MUNITION DEPARTMENT. To make and keep the munition worker, as well as the soldier and sailor, interested in clean, helpful, things, both mental and physical, is one of the great aims of the Y.M.C.A, Not by compulsion or argument are they attempting to do this, but by having the right inducement always at hand, doing its own propaganda work of healthy development. Responsible for 150 munition workers’ canteens, serving approximately by this means some 200,000 workers daily, the Association has in addition ten hostels, accommodating 3,000 men. The largest of these hostels is able to take in 700 men, and the service at the canteens never cease day and night maintained largely by voluntary workers. Regular weekly concerts are arranged for those centres in the London area, and educational lectures are given. Athletics in every branch are encouraged, not merely the gymnasium idea, but by employing that strongest of all stimulants, emulation. The recreative leagues formed for football and cricket are offered contests, when all the good old contentious spirit is let loose in tugs of war, races, and other feats of strength. League cricket during last summer included clubs from twenty-one different factories, represented by 700 players. These were enrolled, and amongst them were to be found several first-class county players. Where football is concerned the club is formed of men from forty different factories, and these constitute a playing personnel of nearly 1,500 men.' These games and sports are never allowed to interfere with regular work, and works managers declare in favour of games as promoting a corporate spirit in the factories, So‘ valuable has the Y.M.C.A work among munitioners become that they are opening new canteens at the rate of sis each month* and they have been enabled to give valuable assistance to munition workers in France. At the invitation of the French Minister, the head of the Association’s munitions department went over to help in forming a social and educative centre in Paris.