GREAT RECORD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 205, 31 August 1933, Page 5

GREAT RECORD.

PRESIDENT'S TERM. TAKAPUNA JOCKEY CLUB. MB, E. W. ALISON'S SERVICE. "I think it must Tie a world's record/' said Mr. J. C. Gleeson, when congratulating Mr. E. W. Alison, the president, on his association with the Takapnna Jockey Club at the annual meeting yesterday, "for he has heen at the head of this club for 52 years." Mr. Alison replied that he was in his fifty-third year as chairman of the committee or president of the Takapuna Jockey Club. "I hold a record that no one has held in connection with public life in. the Dominion, for I have had 56 years of continuous public service. A man must start very young and has to live to be very old —and I am in my 82nd year—to accomplish that, while he has also to secure at all times the confidence of the public, without which he could not retain his position. For 25 years I represented the country racing clubs on the New Zealand Racing Conference and was the promoter of the movement that they ehould be represented on the Eacing Conference. Only metropolitan clubs had delegates in thoee days and it seemed to me entirely wrong that 16 country clubs in the Auckland district, where there was only one metropolitan club, should be governed by rules of racing in which they had no voice in making. Country clubs were later allowed one representative and subsequently two. I was their first representative, and later the late Sir » William Herries was the other representative. I have been a member of the district committee since its inception, and I think altogether that so far as racing is concerned I have a greater record of service, both in the interests of horse racing and racing horses, than any other man living to-day." Mr. Alieon was also chairman of the Deronport Ferry; Co. for 51 years.