OLYMPIC GAMES APPEAL

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28080, 22 September 1956, Page 2

OLYMPIC GAMES APPEAL

LACK OF SUPPORT BY SPORTS BODIES

£l6OO YET TO BE FOUND IN CANTERBURY

The Canterbury Olympic Games Appeal Committee’s efforts to raise part of the province’s quota of £3175 by selling Olympic transfers through sports and men’s wear shops have brought in £5 10s. Yesterday was the official deadline for the appeal. Before the committee attempted to sell transfers through shops it had raised between £BOO and £9OO by direct approach to business houses, said the chairman of the committee (Mr W. J. Cowles) yesterday. That measure had been preceded by several other suggestions. One was. that sports bodies provide collectors for a house-,to-house appeal, but the suggestion had tb be rejected when it was found that no-one was available on a Saturday morning. Dunedin had already filled its quota by that method, said Mr Cowles, yet Canterbury, which was the leading sports province and should have been the first to raise the money, was lagging behind. The boy scouts were also approached with the suggestion that they sell transfers at 2s 6d each, and keep 6d for each sale, but there had been no response. “Generous Gestures” Generous gestures had been made by some sports bodies which had no direct interest in the Olympic Games The Canterbury Rugby Union gave £lO 10s. the Canterbury Football Association £33, and the Canterbury Rugby League £2 2s. and £3 3s came from golf clubs. Numerous appeals had been made to sports bodies, however, said Mt Cowles, but from many of them, such as fencing, yachting, water polo, and wrestling bodies, nothing had been received. Bodies such as the racing and trotting clubs, each of which had given £lOO, but neither of which had direct interests in the Olympic Games, had shown considerable and practical interest in the appeal, yet “among the very people who should be most interested” there was only too much apathy, Mr Cowles said. The bodies administering some sports, especially whene teams were concerned, were in some cases holding their money until the final team was announced. Their principle seemed to be that only if their particular nominee were chosen would they give to the appeal. Other sports associations had not even passed the committee’s circulars on to their affiliated clubs, said Mr Cowles. f

The small St. Albans Swimming Club’s donation of £lO reflected on the rest of the clubs, he said." The Kaiapoi Swimming Club, also a small club, had given £3, and that was also a generous contribution. “Had every club in every sport In Christchurch given £lO we would have raised our quota in no time,” Mr Cowles said. “It seems to me that the sports clubs have simply said, ‘Well, a committee has been formed—let them raise the money,’ and have just sat back and waited for the public, not the competitors, to fill the appeal.” “Desperate Date”

Canterbury had to collect about £l6OO to meet its quota, said Mr Cowles, and this could be done if the sporting bodies made more worthwhile attempts to raise the amount by the end of the month, the extended deadline set by the Canterbury committee as “a sort of desperate date.” Mr J. H. Skinner, a member of the committee, said that “contradictory and ambiguous statements issued by the central appeal committee in Wellington have, to a large extent, hindered the appeal by leaving certain sporting bodies undecided as to whether to participate now or to hold any available funds in case they are called on later to assist their particular nominees to the games.” The central committee’s action in fixing the original price of transfers to be sold to business houses at £1 and then, without notifying the Canterbury committee, selling them in Wellington at 10s had retarded the local committee’s progress from the beginning.

“The policy of the central committee has been at fault from the start.” said Mr Skinner, “in that money had to be raised either by public subscription through the central committee or individually by the various sports hoping to participate—not both.”