GIRLS OF THE Y.W.C.A. MEET IN CONFERENCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 243, 4 January 1928, Page 1

GIRLS OF THE Y.W.C.A. MEET IN CONFERENCE

CAMP AT PAERATA COLLEGE GIRL CITIZEN MOVEMENT Although. Wesley College. Paerata, is temporarily forsaken by its boy scholars now enjoying their summer vacation, the college Is at present well occupied, it being the homo of 96 girls of the Y.W.C.A. and their counsellors, who are met in annual conference. The college has been lent to the association by the Wesley Trust Board. Representatives have come from Whangarei, Auckland, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Mrs. H. D. Bennett, chairman of the girls’ work committee of the New Zealand Y.W.C.A., is conference hostess. Miss Leila Bridgman, national chief counsellor, is in charge of the programme, and is assisted by Miss Ruby Pocklington, of Whangarei, Miss Joyce Potter and Miss Audrey McCrae, of Auckland, Miss Nonie Hardie, of Palmerston North, Miss Mary Cole, of New Plymouth, Miss Bertram, of Wellington, Miss Freda Pym, of Christchurch, and Miss Batt and Miss Mattingly, of Dunedin. CAMP ACTIVITIES The daily programme begins at 7 a.m., when the choir walks through the • camp singing to wake the girls. At 7.30 I all assemble for physical drill. The 1 girls are divided into groups and memi bers study the Bible together after morning prayers. The last hour in the morning is the one which gives an outsider the best idea of girl citizen activities, for it is “council hour,” the parliament of the movement. Here the various suggestions and recommendations sent in by the different communities are considered and discussed, and the motions passed here become the law of the girl citizen organisation. Part of the afternoon is given up to recreation, and then members go to their various “interest groups”—literature, music, dramatics, nature study or folk dancing. Miss Herbert, musical director at St. Cuthbert’s College, is in charge of the music group; Miss Joyce Wilson, of Marlborough College, nature study group; and Miss Taylor, of the Dunedin Girls’ High School, is physical director. Each girl chooses at the beginning of the conference to which group she will go. The day concludes with the singing of the choir as a signal for “lights out.” Each year at conference a cup is competed for by the different citizens’ centres, for athletics, dramatics, handicraft and team games. One afternoon has been set aside for a sports meeting, and one of the evening programmes has been given up to storytelling. The ceremonial arranged for the welcoming in of the New Year was a pageant called “The Dream Fire,” at which girl citizens of 1928 impersonated the Knights of the Round Table. The concluding function of the conference will take the form of a banquet, followed by the “ceremony of the lights,” when girl citizens will renew their loyalty to the girl citizen code.