RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29228, 11 June 1960, Page 20

RANDOM REMINDER

HIGH LEVEL CONFERENCE • d - '. . I

There seemed to be something slightly bizarre about the Press Association report of a Wellington firm holding its annual staff conference bn a train which had been hired for three days and which, for most .61 the time, was on a siding at . Dannevirke. The same firm, a year earlier, had held a similar conference during two nights and a day spent on the steamer express. A staff conference, conducted on the steamer express would have but a faint chance of success should the sea become a little turbulent It is difficult to. efface from the mind the picture of someone putting a motion to the meeting, and having to withdraw before he could speak to it Indeed, the ' comings and goings could?

become so swift and endless that the whole thing would begin, to look like one of those bedroom farces which made the Aldwych Theatre known throughout the Englishspeaking and thinking world. In such circumstances, it must be difficult to produce one's best work. But there is something in the pattern of the arrangements —steamer express one year, railway., train the next—which suggests that the management was, after all, intent on those at the conference applying themselves - to the agenda with all diligence.. At sea, a diet of tea and water biscuits would encourage quite unseemly haste in disposing of the business before the meeting. And a railway ham sandwich, taken four times k .a day in lieu of meals,

would undoubted!/duce ’» Similar’ Then, of tbaw of Dannevirke woy| courage any' Mrtfl thoughts of diseM| for a while in aafl the fleshpota. At-ft virke, it would be better to stay to train. It seems probable IM flrm next year wfllff to hold its confato* an. air liner, trawM and down the eM And could there M| thing more hm»M for toe avetoge manager, in the.mM an. . energetic haranguing his tNM flsts hanging for M sis, voice announcer crasMMK to be told by young woman hairy or less to please Ji!) and do up