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The year 1948 saw great improvements in this direction, both in the number and type of recreation leader who received training for community recreation work. These improvements are attributable in part to a slight increase in the staff available for this work, but the major factors have been the increase in experience and accumulating information material resulting from a series of leadership training classes conducted in 1947. Pursuing a definite but experimental line designed to ensure that the limited resources of the Branch should be applied in a way which would result in maximum benefit for a wide section of the community, the training of leaders for Church groups nas been continued and extended. Volunteers have been coming forward in increasing numbers and all volunteers have received at least thirty hours concentrated training. The result has been that the number of leaders for Church and allied recreative activities has been more than doubled in the past twelve months, 343 persons having sucessfully completed a full training course. Acting on the principle that it is desirable for the more active and able of these volunteer leaders to carry on the work by instructing members of their groups in teaching method, 58 of the leaders already certificated have been chosen from among over 150 volunteers to undertake an advanced " live-in " course of one month's duration. The first half of the course, which was conducted by six physical Welfare Officers, took place at Nga Tawa Girls College, Marton, in January of this year. Appreciation of the work done has already been forthcoming from the Youth Committee of the National Council of Churches, which collaborated in the initial organization and choice of leaders. This advanced course is essentially an experiment, and as such will be of great value in planning leadership training courses with national application in other forms of recreational activity. The gradual widening in scope in leadership training apparent last year has received further stimulation. Organized courses with national application have been conducted for the Boys' Brigade and Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. Recreation leaders for the whole of the South Island Air Training Corps also completed similar courses. On a district level, leaders have been trained for recreation clubs, Every Boy and Every Girl's rallies, Scouts, Legion of Frontiersmen, and many other organizations ; this is in addition to the standard courses for Church leaders. In addition, there has been organized instruction for coaches and officials of a variety of purely sporting activities. In this category may be placed the Athletic Coaching School held at Tiniaru, the newly formed athletic coaching panel of Otago, and, in various districts, the training of coaches and officials for cricket, soccer, indoor basketball, hockey, swimming, table tennis, softball,' and keep-fit classes. An instructional tour by a well-known and competent archer was sponsored by the Department. The assistance given by Otago Physical Welfare Officers to the recently established School of Physical Education and the Dunedin teachers and training-college students may be classed as leadership training of a high order, since the students concerned will have such ample opportunities for passing on the knowledge thus gained. Grants The allocation for grants made under the Physical Welfare and Recreation Act, 1937, remained at £50,000 for the period under review. Total expenditure was £46,956, inclusive of grants made conditional on the organization concerned raising its requisite proportion of total cost or complying with any other condition designed to ensure maximum benefit for the whole community or to prevent misuse of grant moneys. Seven hundred and forty-six applications were received, of which 446 were successful.

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