YEAR OF PROGRESS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 937, 2 April 1930, Page 7

YEAR OF PROGRESS

BLIND INSTITUTE MEETING ACCOMMODATION PROBLEMS A busy year and one of progress was reported at the annual meeting of the Jubilee Institute for the Blind, held yesterday afternoon. Mr. A. J. Hutchinson presided. According to the annual report, a tax on accommodation had been caused by the steady increase in the number of pupils and workers at the institute, and consequently an increase in goods. It would soon be essential to provide more space, particularly storage accommodation in the workshops. Valuable additions to the institute were the establishment of a boys’ band, a jazz band and a girls’ orchestra, but this would mean that a music room must be provided. The cubicle accommodation for IS women, which was opened last April, had solved present residential accommodation problems and had indeed proved a great boon to the women. There was, however, the problem of providing quarters for the married men. Possibly the institute’s most difficult task had been to provide a satisfactory solution to the case of the married man, who, in the prime of life with a young family dependent upon him, found himself, through accident or illness, bereft of his sight. A gift of four acres of building land at Mount Roskill, made recently by Mr. George Winstone, had given the trustees the opportunity of mapping out a scheme for the erection of married men’s homes. It was proposed to build three houses immediately, and it was expetced that before long there would be a model garden group of a dozen attractive brick homes. These men would come daily to the institute to work. The director, Mr. Clutha Mackenzie, had been abroad for eight months, and had spent a considerable amount of time visiting institutions and organisations for the blind in Britain, France, Italy, Egypt and Australia. In the summer another member of the staff, Mr. G. Bodley, had inspected institutions in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Both had gained much valuable information. The number of men, women and children under active training or in permanent employment at the beginthe year was 126 > and a t the end 138. The sales of goods had risen from £9,000 to approximately £11,660. The payments of wages and allowances to blind workers, apart from pensions, amounted to £ 6,750. The fine services the institute was rendering to the blind community in other parts of the Dominion, numberng 700, had been actively continued. This field of outside work was possibly not so obvious to the public, but it was of equal importance with what was being done at the institute itself. Complaining that no such great progress had been made as mentioned in the annual report, Mr. M, Aldis said the annual report published in + 1 9 “ 7 i?^ V f . £1 ’ 229 as th e wages paid to the blind in 1923, whereas the report published in 1928 gave the figures for wages in 1923 as £2,123. .He also alleged that the blind inmates had no representation on the board of trustees, and that they were dissatisfied to some extent. By a recent drastic reorganisation of wages, many had had their wages cut down. According to the assistant-director, Mr. J. E. Broadfoot, the error in the figures occurred before his time, and was due to crediting less than a year’s \ wages. The figures had been discussed many times before, and the second figures were correct. There being no other nominations, the two retiring trustees, Mr. H. E. Vaile and Mr. C. E. Abbott, were declared re-elected. Mr. A. J. Hutchinson was again elected chairman.