THE Y.M.C.A.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 2 August 1913, Page 7

THE Y.M.C.A.

NATIONAL SECRETARY'S REFORT. The .National Secretary of the Y.M.C.A. 'for New Zealand, Mr A. Jameson,-lias submitted his- first annual report to the National Executive. Agipng the many enconraging facts whicli he records are ..the following:— The year's national finance has been placed in credit, trustees have been appointed for the national endowment fund, the list of corresponding members has been extended, the physical directors are in correspondence regarding the standardisation of their work, an y educational bureau has been established and has made its first recommendations, the New Zealand Executive for the foreign work section has been cci:.itituted at Dunedin and has. entered actively on its work, and .the second annual convention has been arranged for Auckland in the first week in February, 1914. Bible study groups show increase in numbers and efficiency of ! leadership. The plans laid by the committee on work 1 in defence camps have resulted in „ doubling the days' <of service and equipment' pro-' vided: 11m iarnnigratmn work has been developed by the committee, at \Vellinfefan; tajid ' co-operation between our physical work depart-, ments and boys' cfijirch clubs has been extended. The membership campaigns and the subsequent, organised efforts have .resultedm securing about 2500 new members, nearly doubling the membership of the Y.M.Cj.A. in New Zealand." Financial campaigns, vfrequent conferences, addresses , before more than fifty Y.M.C.A. ana other audiences, newspaper articles and in-* terviews, several pamphlets, and united efforts with other organisations of similar purposes and ideals, have helped to make the National Secretary's" programme an exceptionally full one. Mr Jameson refers to the extension work in Auckland, , Dunedin and Wanganui, incident to the erectioti of-Rbe ' neiv buildings in those cities.; He also records the strengthening of the position at Wellington by the election of Mr A. Varney to the general secretaryship, and tlie safeguarding of the work at Christchurch through the coming of Mr E. C. Brownell, formerly secretariat Topeka, Kansas. The general tone of Mr Jameson's report indicates his anxiety that the coming year shq.ll witness the intensifying of the Association spirit throughout the large ' membership now enrolled in the eleven branches in the Dominion. i