A.A.A.’s Big Year

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 402, 10 July 1928, Page 6

A.A.A.’s Big Year

Annual Meeting OPPORTUNITY TO AIR GRIEVANCES The year 1928 has been the biggest in the history of the Auckland Automobile Association and at the annual meeting to be held in the Wattle Tea Rooms to-morrow evening, the president. secretary and officers of the association should be warmly congratulated. During 1925, not only did the membership increase by over 2.000, but the service to members was immensely developed by the appointment of the motor patrols, sign-posting truck and technical engineer. The association can. therefore, look back on the most important year of its history. With the A.A.A., as with every other organisation, there are members who are dissatisfied. In this case their dissatisfaction is that, in their opinion, there are no very definite benefits from membership. Quite a large number of motorists state that the usefulness to them of maps and signposts is not worth the recurring yearly subscription. and that they do not need the free legal defence and technical advice available. In the opinion of many, also, the patrols have not proved their worth, owing, it is stated, to the system of paying commission on new members, which is an inducement to the patrol to be hunting up new members rather than patrolling the roads. A case occurred recently where an old member of the A.A.A. had slight engine trouble along the Great South Road near Otahuhu, but although he waited all day for a patrolman, not one passed along. The lack of any social activities or even of a reading room is stated by