OUT AND ABOUT

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14637, 5 April 1948, Page 2

OUT AND ABOUT

Private Traders Sought Seventy ex-servicemen residing in the Taita State housing area, Wellington, decided at a meeting recently to petition Parliament to grant permission to selected private individuals, preferably former servicemen, to open and operate business premises in the area. A committee was set up and instructed to proceed with framing the petition. Country Racing Clubs “Too long have the country clubs been the Cinderellas of the racing fraternity,” stated Mr F. W. Doidge M.PI when speaking as patron, at the Bay of Plenty Racing Club’s meeting on Saturday. He added that at the recent National Party Caucus, ways and means of giving the smaller clubs a better deal, and more encouragement, had been discussed in connection with the Gaming Commission’s report. Women Accountants

Although the total of women members of the New Zealand Society of Accountants is not quite 100, there is evidence that the proportion will increase. An old notion that women are ‘not good at figures” has been thoroughly disproved. The Wellington district branch is the first to have a women accountants’ group and is the first to have a woman (Miss M. Dwyer) on its executive.

Progress Of Esperanto The uphill fight of Esperanto against apathy, disbelief, and even, in some cases, strong antagonism, was the theme of a talk by Mr E. G. Bernfield at the monthly meeting of the Esperanto Rondo in Wellington. In spite of these difficulties, the language had continued to expand, and although the rate of progress was not satisfactory to its sponsors, there definitely was a progress, slow but sure.

Ties Of Family Life The conviction that there is a tendency towards losing the deep personal relationship of family life which was so strong 40 or 50 years ago was expressed by the Rev. Martin Sullivan in an address to members of the Women’s Special Progress Movement, Wellington. “I think it is a disaster that the impersonal relationship is creeping in because of the family’s disinterest in finding entertainment at home,” he said. They now looked outside to “canned” entertainment, dancing, and other pursuits. Decrease in Students

The number of day students enrolled at the Wellington Technical College this year was 1148, compared with 1282 last year, stated the Director of the College (Mr R. G. Ridding), in his report to the Board of Managers. Mr Ridding explained the decrease in the number of firstyear students as being due to the low birth-rate 14 years ago, while other students had not returned because they preferred jobs they had taken during the long vacation to school. The director said that it would take at least two years to lose the effect of the fall in enrolments, and that it may have serious repercussions, if not this year, then the next. The total enrolment was over 1400.

Appeal To Pilots An interesting item concerning the reporting of forest fires by airpilots—epecially significant after a very dry summer —appears in the latest edition of “Notices to Airmen.” In this publication, which is circulated monthly by the Air Department, any pilots, in addition to regular air patrols, who see dangerous scrub fires burning from the air, are asked to make a report of them immediately upon landing. Emphasis is placed mainly on fires likely to endanger forests. The airfield control officer is the official authority to whom the reports should be made, and early and accurate information, it is stated, is essential. • A request is made that reports should be sufficiently accurate to permit authorities to locate the fire on the standard military gridded map.