Community Centres BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, 20 March 1946, Page 7

Community Centres BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN

SCHOOL AND ADULTHOO^ i To bridge the gap between schooldays and adulthood, Rotarian L. J. Wild, of Feilding, speaking at the 53rd Rotary District Conference in Napier yesterday afternoon, advocated the small town and rural centres the establishment o£ community centres. A community centre, he said, was a natural outgrowth fi*om the postprimary school. The centre would provide for continuing the social life of the school in clubs and group activities, and at the same time provide some relief or release from the formalism which characterised school instruction. A link between the centre and the postprimary school instruction. A link between the cenetre and the postprimary shool was essential, as it made for economy in administration —one board and one treasurer. He suggested that there was a rather urgent need for the establishment in New Zealand, well away from any city, of a place where people with different points of view on the same subject could be brought together for the purpose of discussing under suitable benign guidance or chairmanship the subjects of their common interest. "You can imagine a fortnight's conference of representatives of the Diairy Farmers' Union, the Federation of Labour and the Housewives ' Association to discuss the 40-hour week, or a conference on food for Britain between the Farmers' Federation, the Federation of Labour and the Watersiders' Union" he said. "Such an institution, besides providing a home for such conferences and asylum for writers, artists and other creative thinkers, could run, its own short residential courses for various groups." ■