WORK CONTINUED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 251, 23 October 1944, Page 6

WORK CONTINUED

SURF LIFE-SAVING REPORT

ENTHUSIASM IN THE ISLANDS

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sunday. The New Zealand Surf Life-Saving Society elected the following officers: President, Mr. G. D. Griffiths; vicepresident, Mr. C. F. Barnett; secretary, Mr. J. Breward; treasurer and award secretary, Mr. F. G. Glackin; delegate to the New Zealand Surf Life-Saving Association, Mr. A. Laurie; delegates to the National Committee of Swimming and Life-Sav-ing, Messrs. O. J. Haworth and N. A. Ingram.

The council discussed whether the McCabe method of group swimming instruction was best. Some excep : tion was taken to a resolution forwarded by the National Committee of Swimming and Life-Saving stating an opinion that it was the quickest and most effective method of teaching group swimming and unanimously recommending the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association to consider the advisability of the adoption of the method as a standardised national basis. If there were a better method, said Mr. Haworth, the national committee would be pleased to consider it, but at the moment it considered the McCabe method best.

The annual report showed that 69 rescues had been effected during the 1943-44 season, 19 of them with reel and line and 50 without. These figures were from 33 clubs. The continuance of the world, war had helped to still further reduce the senior strength of the clubs, but this loss had in many cases been offset by the enrolment of lady and junior members. The ladies' clubs and ladies' sections of clubs were doing a great work, and the patrolling of the many beaches was in their capable hands. The hours of patrol were 39,328, this being an increase of 961 over the previous year's figures.

It was with pleasure that the council reported on the activities of members of surf life-saving clubs on active service in the Pacific Islands. Due to the keen interest of the Defence Department and the military authorities, ably supported by the New Zealand Patriotic Board, opportunity was given to these club members to undertake surf life-sav-ing work in various localities. The soundness of this decision was justified by the number of rescues from drowning secured. Drill and patrol work were undertaken, and the knowledge gained by members in their clubs in the Dominion was widely distributed among the troops overseas and the people of the various islands.