POPPY DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 March 1922, Page 4

POPPY DAY.

THE MEMORIAL FLOWER. DETAILS OF THE PROPOSAL. At a meeting of the executive of the New Plymouth Soldiers’ Association last night it was decided to ask the Mayoress to form a ladies’ committee to undertake the sale of poppies on Poppy Day, Monday, April 24. Poppy Day is a Dominion scheme inaugurated by the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association. The association is in possession of 396,000 small artificial poppies made in devastated France, and of 4000 large ones. It is the intention of the association to sell the small poppies on Monday, April 24, so that they may be worn as a memorial flower on Anzac Day, April 25, the day of remembrance of New Zealand’s dead. The price of each poppy will be one shilling. About one quarter of the net proceeds will be remitted to Paris to be used in helping the widows and children of Northern France, and Ine remainder will be retained by the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association, the disposal to be determined by the Dominion executive. The Dominion association is now circularising all secretaries with a view to getting preparations arranged at once. It is suggested that the committees in the larger towns might consist of, say, twelve, representing soldiers’ widows, widowed mothers, women’s organisations, Red Cross, public schools, churches, and the R.S.A., with the Mayoress as the chairwoman. The committees are to have control of the sale nf the poppies, which are a replica of the Flanders poppy.