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No. 13 (December 1955)
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– 58 –

A Quiet Week-end

In March of this year, the Women's Christian Temperance Union held its 68th Annual Convention. Delegates from Whangarei, in the north, to the Bluff in the south, were gathered together in the lovely city of Invercargill, where the convention was held.

To ensure that proceedings were kept on a high spiritual tone, morning and afternoon sessions were begun with devotional services, the first morning being taken by the Dominion President. Mrs. C. Toomer, of Nelson, who read the story of the Good Samaritan.

A very interesting talk, by Rev. L. Clements, Chaplain of the Boys' Borstal at Invercargill, gave us new insight into some of the causes of juvenile delinquency and pointed out that though so many err they are still God's children, made in His image. The Maori Union delegates had visited and interviewed the Maori boys at Borstal and were struck by the youth of some.

On the social side, we had a civic reception and social evening and an afternoon bus drive round the Riverton district. The convention received a great deal of publicity in local papers, some writers going into verse. Quoting one writer: “Invercargill had its quietest week-end in a long time, due mainly. I think, to two circumstances—the tremendous exodus to the cricket match in Dunedin, and to the presence in the city of the W.C.T.U. Convention. For who could be rowdy when there was such a powerful concentration of temperance or total abstinence in the city? Perhaps it is as well that the holding of the Convention in this city has never coincided with a Rugby invasion for the Ranfurly Shield. Present indications are that such a combination of circumstances is not likely to occur within the predictable future.”

Convention next year will be held at Tauranga, and so the work is onward for “God, for Home and Humanity,” as the motto says.