PAPANUI EXAMPLE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 159, 18 April 1947, Page 2

PAPANUI EXAMPLE

COMMUNITY CENTRE CLASSES MAINTAINING PUBLIC INTEREST With a view to gleaning information regarding the operation of community centres elsewhere, a party from the Ashburton Community Centre Committee paid a visit to Papanui on Wednesday, evening and spent an interesting time examining activities in that suburb of Christchurch. Commenting this afternoon on the visit, the chairman, Dr. W. R. Ryburn, mentioned that the' Papanui plan provided an excellent means of keeping up interest in the project, pending the construction of necessary buildings locally, a stage which might not he reached for some years yet. With the co-operation of the authorities in charge of the Papanui Technical School, the committee there had arranged a number of educational circles which were proving exceptionally popular. Rooms at the school were made available, and also instructors from the school for classes in such activities as gardening, woodwork,, dressmaking and*drama. All these attracted keen support from residents, and pupils, atending ranged in age from 10 to SOc.years. For the gardening circle, for instance, visits were arranged to special points of interest, and novel competitions were carried on. An example was the handing of a single potato to each member of the circle. This was planted and, at the due date, the grower was required to bring his yield, whatever it might he, along to the class. Experts, too, paid visits to the gardens and gave advice on various points. Dr. Ryburn mentioned that the charge per- person for these classes was only 2s 6d a year. Other costs were paid hv various forms of entertainment and communal effort, such as bring-and-huy’ evenings. The instructors were paid by the Education . Department which, it appeared, was very strongly in favour of such schemes.