GUIDES GIVE THANKS TO CRACROFT HOUSE DONORS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28999, 14 September 1959, Page 2

GUIDES GIVE THANKS TO CRACROFT HOUSE DONORS

Mrs and Mrs J. F. Cracroft Wilson were the guests of honour at an afternoon party given by senior members of the Girl Guides movement in North Canterbury on Saturday. The function, which was arranged by the Cracroft House committee, was a thanksgiving ceremony to the couple for the gift of Cracroft House and grounds to the guides. Since the handing over of the house last year, the committee, which consists of divisional commissioners, chairman, secretarytreasurer, camp advisers, and a representative from each district, has been working on a big programme of repairs, improvements, and changes. Among those present were Mrs J. H. Powell, provincial commissioner for North Canterbury; Mrs S. J. A. Bent, chairman of the Cracroft House committee; Mrs L. C. L. Averill, a past-president of the North Canterbury provincial executive; Mrs M. McNab, president of the Trefoil Guild, which is a society of past guides; Mrs A. E. Small, secretary of the guild; divisional and district commissioners, and eight Rangers who served tea to the guests. “Faith in Guides’* Mrs Powell spoke of the generosity of Mr and Mrs Cracroft Wilson and thanked them for the property on behalf of the guides of the North Canterbury province. Mrs Bent presented the couple

with a special guide badge of thanks made of silver and paua shell. Mr Cracroft Wilson expressed his great faith in the guiding movement, with which his family had been closely connected for many years.

The visitors were taken on a tour of the house and grounds. The solid old house of two storeys painted white with blue doors and a high grey roof. Is set in more than three acres of garden and camp site, set amid pines and English trees. It was built in the 1860’s by Sir John Cracroft Wilson, who came from India to settle in New Zealand, and who was the great-grandfather of the donor. The two sisters of Mr Cracroft Wilson began the Cashmere Hills company of the girl guides (then called Girl Peace Scouts) in 1920, and Mrs Cracroft Wilson was for some years a commissioner.

In the upper story are dormitories for guides, named after trees and lined with bunks. Downstairs are a lecture and meeting room, a kitchen-dining room fitted with an electric stove, a new sing unit, dining tables which fold into the walls and dining stools. An ablution block at the back is reached by a passage from the house. Much of the “brushing up’ has been done by guides and rangers who have painted and decorated the rooms and made cushions, sewn with their emblem, the trefoil. Cupboards and storerooms contain crockery, pots and pans, cleaning gear and camping equipment. Camping Site

Behind the house is the camp site—an open space, cool, green, and leafy, surrounded by trees with the river on one side and the hill sloping above. The property which is less than four miles from the centre of Christchurch is being used more and more by guides for indoor holidays, rallies, training, camping and other activities, says the committee. North Canterbury guides are proud and grateful to have such a property and take a great interest in it. On most Saturdays there is some sort of activity going on there, guides busy practising for their tests or organising meetings or camps, and property is benefiting not onty North Canterbury guides but members from other parts of New Zealand and from overseas.