A Chat With the Woman Who Initiated Auckland's Splendid Travel Club

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 41, 19 April 1935, Page 56

A Chat With the Woman Who Initiated Auckland's Splendid Travel Club

"66 ELL, I am afraid you are talking to \ i | a woman out of the home," laughed Mrs. Victor Macky, of Auckland, when a "Radio Record" representative asked if she would give an. interview for the "Women at Home"’ series of articles in the "Radio Record." Mrs. Macky was sitting at her desk in the Queen’s Arcade, Queen’ Street, Auckland, where she is honorary director to the Auckland Travel Club, which, with the help of prominent citizens, she has recently founded. Although this would to many women be a full-time job, Mrs. Macky is also a Justice of the Peace, manages to take an.active interest in several other clubs and runs a home, too. One of Mrs. Macky’s favourite hobbies is character reading, from faces and hand-writing, which she learnt from a friend in the Secret Service some years ago. Dark, vivacious, Mrs, Macky is full: of energy, and when asked for her secret for keeping youthful she laughingly declared that her motto was: "Always keep your hook baited," meaning that always

having something to do and occupy the mind is the best. way to keep bright and healthy. Mrs. Macky came to New Zealand 20. years ago from Texas to visit relatives in Dunedin. When she was about to leave this country she met her future husband through the medium of her poems, a _ meeting which Mrs. Macky says herself, was really most romantic.

She has published a book of poems and her articles and stories frequently appear in New: Zealand and overseas magazines, under her name, Edna Graham Macky. . Willow, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Macky, who is 12 and goes-to St. Cuthbert’s College, inherits her mother’s artistic gifts. One of her poems and a quaint little pen and ink drawing appeared on the 1934 Christmas card sent to friends by this popular "three-some" family. | Mrs.. Macky. conceived the idea of forming the Travel Club when she. went for a trip to England about two years ago.. "I found myself‘in the awkward position of not being able to answer many of the questions which people asked me concerning, for instance, travel] arrangements and Maori life and population. I decided to do something definite about.it. when I returned home, because if there-were people overseas wanting

to know about New Zealand, New Zealanders should surely be able to supply the information. True, we have a fair amount of publicity done by the travel bureaux, but we are a very small land compared with the others in the world, and the old saying, ‘the smaller one is the more noise one should make,’ is particularly applicable to New Zealand." After a great deal of careful thought the Auckland Travel Club was founded, the officers being people well known in business, political and social life. At \present the club has a membership of over 400 members. ‘The club has been organised for the purpose of attracting tourists and visitors to New Zealand and to Auckland in particular. The principal British and American shipping companies are doing their best to divert tourist traffic to-the Pacific, and it is essential that New Zealand should make every effort to take advantage of these conditions. This is undoubtedly the psychological moment for action, as exchange is now in favour of visitors from England and other parts of the world.

Australia, whose exchange is on a. par with that of New Zealand, has already established a strong National Travel Board, with ramifications abroad, ‘but New Zealand, up to the present, has not taken her full share in the movement. There is a special committee which decorates tourist liners with flowers from the gardens of the members, and makes bouquets

of welcome, which are sent to important visitors at their -hotels. On Friday mornings there are travel talks and scenic films, which are given and shown during the morning tea parties when. 150 to 200 members and visitors attend, Once a month a big luncheon is held in the city or on a boat. Great credit is due to Mrs. Macky for her enterprise and really hard work which she is daily putting into this successful club. "Auckland the Gateway to New Zealand," her travel booklet, is a piece of really clever work. In it is a map of Auckland drawn to scale, tram, bus and general tourist information, and other useful notes. This attractive booklet is distributed to all who arrive in Auckland from overseas. Arrangements are being made to extend the interesting honorary work of this club throughout the whole of the Dominion.