SUNLIGHT LEAGUE

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23715, 13 August 1942, Page 2

SUNLIGHT LEAGUE

RECORD ANNUAL MEETING The Chamber of Commerce hall was crowded last evening, when the Sunlight League of New Zealand held its annual meeting. Dr. C. Coleridge Farr presided and specially welcomed the Mayor, Mr E. H. Andrews, and the Mayoress, Miss E. Couzins. He said that the league had recently had great trust reposed in it and it must be worthy of that trust. It must increase its activities for the good of the community, especially in building for the future by caring for the children of today, The matter of smoke abatement, too, which was of great interest to the league, needed renewed attention. On the motion of Dr. D. E. Currie, it was decided to urge the Government to reintroduce the milk-in-schools scheme, which was inaugurate! by the Sunlight League, and to ask that this be done, if possible, at the beginning of the next school term. The speaker at the meeting was Dr. I. L. G. Sutherland, whose subject was “Mental First Aid in War Time.” "Among the comprehensive objects of the Sunlight League,” said Dr. Sutherland, “I note that one is to work for the better mental health of the community. Th' object takes on a new significance in time of war, especially under conditions of present-day total war. When whole populations are involved in war, it means that mental and psychological factors play an important part, for total war is, in many respects, a war of nerves Civilian morale is deliberately attacked and its maintenance becomes a problem of the first importance.” Dr. Sutherland described some of the methods adopted by the Nazis to destroy the morale of their enemies, methods worked out in minutest detail, and said that never, in any previous war had civilians had to endure such attacks and such losses as in the present war, and probably never was the need for courage and the actual display of it so great, and never was the question of morale, which is the kind of courage that exists in groups of people, so important. Fear, he said, was universal. It was the emotion that accompanied the working of the fundamental instinct of selfpreservation. Courage was not the absence of fear, but the ability to control fear and to act as if one were not afraid. Dr. Sutherland described the technique of mise as a powerful way of arousing rear, which is essentially paralysing to initiative and is contagious. Good leadership and helpful employment would, he said, do much to keep individuals steady and antidotes to fear were mental preparedness—knowing how one may feel and what one would do in an emergency—and effective action, which meant carrying on with some useful job. After the address Dr. Sutherland answered many questions. Mrs J. Mowbray Tripp and Dr. Currie, for the Sunlight League, and Mr A. Anderson, for the E.P.S., thanked Dr. Sutherland for his excellent address, and Mrs John Montgomery thanked the chairman for presiding. Election of Officers Officers were elected as follows: Sunlight League: Patrons, their Excellencies Sir Cyril and Lady Newall; honorary organiser, Miss Cora Wilding; honorary secretary. Mr W. S. Baverstock; honorary minute secretary, Miss M. E. Powley; treasurer, Mr A. Owen Wilkinson; honorary‘auditor, Mr Q. T. Bullock; honorary solicitor, Mr T. D. Harman; committee, Mesdames H. Wyatt, R. J. McLaren. J. S, Kelly, G. T. Hill, W. Waugh, J. K. Hardle, T..A. Fleming, Misses C. Wilding. M. Enright, M. McLean, A. Buckley, B. Joyce, M. Kennedy, M. Reese, M. E. Powley, M. Sansom,- Dr. C. C. Parr, Dr. D. E. Currie, Major E. B. Reilly, Dr. I. L. G. Sutherland. Mr W. S. Baverstock, Mr A. V. Winchester.

Health Camp Committee; President, the Mayor (Mr E. H. Andrews); vicepresidents, Archbishop West-Watson, Bishop Brodie, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, the Hon. S. G. Holland, Captain T. H. McCombs, M.P., Dr. D. E. Currie, the Medical Officer of Health, Chief Postmaster, president National Council of Women, Mr E. L. Smith, chairman Education Board, Misses C. Wilding, M. Enright, and J. Musker; honorary secretary, Mfs G. T. Hill; committee, Mesdames J. Montgomery, J. Lorimer, H. Wyatt. R. J. McLaren. A. Rose. E. Friedfander, G. T. Hill. W. Waugh, J. Furby, J. S. Kelly, Misses M. Enright, M, Reese, E. Tod, B. Nurse, M, Corkill, B. M. Sloan, M. E. Saunders, B Joyce, Colonel P. A, Ardagh, Drs. D. E. Currie. W. T. Glasgow, T. Fletcher Telford, Captains McLean and T. H.' McCombs, M.P., Messrs J. S. Barnett, W. S. Baverstock, D. J. Lattimore, A. M. Hosking.

A war work that no other woman in Britain has yet undertaken is ascribed to an 18-year-old Edinburgh girl, Ellen Steed, who drives a 15-ton crane lifting loads of molten metal direct from a foundry furnace. She is dpspribed as "a girl without nerves.