WOMEN'S CORPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 273, 18 November 1941, Page 11

WOMEN'S CORPS

Fine Patriotic Service Throughout Past Year At the close of its second year the Women's National Service Corps is well to the fore in giving assistance to the war effort, according to the annual report which will be presented on November 26. The actual working hours carried out voluntarily by the members since November, 1940, total 43,549. The report shows that a wide variety of work has been carried out by the various sections of the corps, which include transport, clerical, telephone operators, canteen, cooks, signallers and the band. In the past 12 months six cooks have been installed at Waiouru military camp, two at Narrow Neck and two at Papakura, and there are many more who are awaiting the call to go.

The signallers' unit has progressed considerably, several of the girls now going for army tests. There are also many girls now fitted to take up duty as telephone operators. The canteen at district headquarters has been maintained; members of the transport section have undergone special training in motor transport drill, and a new development in the clerical section was the formation of typewriting and shorthand classes early in the year.

The report also points out that the service corps has the distinction of being the only women's organisation in New Zealand to have a band of its own.

Assistance has been given to many patriotic organisations in whatever direction it has been required, such as ushering at public concerts and street collecting. In particular the report mentions the collection by the corps of £680 for the fighting forces fund earlier in the year. Members of the corps have been admitted to the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and to herd testing work, and with the establishment of the Home Guard, members were requisitioned to man the huts for enrolling purposes. Typists have also been supplied to the Home Guard on request. Over 100 girls, a large majority of whom were accepted, offered themselves to the Auckland Hospital Board as blood donors, and several have already been called upon.

The membership of the corps is now 560, an increase of 137 over last year's figures. The corps has a bank balance of £67 17/.