New Building Will Mark Centenary Of Y.M.C.A.

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30129, 13 May 1963, Page 17

New Building Will Mark Centenary Of Y.M.C.A.

A public building fund appeal for £53.000 was officially opened by the president of the Christchurch Y.M.C.A. i iMr A. T. Watson), at the I association's centenary dini ner on Saturday night. i This amount would supplement money from other sources to meet the cost of a new £140,000 building in Christchurch, Mr Watson said. The present property in Cambridge terrace, w>hich was first built in 1908, had been zoned for Government purposes, and at some time in the future the land would have to be vacated. Negotiations had been set in train for a new site, and these centred at the moment on land bounded by Montreal and Bever idge streets. Plans were, of course, very much in the embryo stage, and the final site might be in a different location, but the building appeal was being launched in the centennial year in an assault on the tremendous tasks that the association had before it. The guest speaker at the dinner. Sir James Hay, said that the Y.M.C.A. had become one of the permanent institutions of the city working in the interests of boys and young men. From its founding in London during the industrial revolution, the organisation had spread through 50 nations, and now had more than 10,000 units. He had been grateful to the

Y.M.C.A. when he airrived “a raw youngster from Central Otago” in 1909, said Sir Jaimes Hay. His work with the 4th Division in France for the Y.M.C.A. had been the most important and satisfying years of his life, he said.

“People talk of the work involved in building a business—it is absolutely nothing compared to the opportunity I had to work with the Y.M.C.A. during World War I,” he said. The Y.M.C.A. had been born in a period of social turbulence, and today the cycle had turned full circle, facing its directors with a situation no less challenging than that faced by earlier men.

There was not the social injustice, but there was a bewilderment in the change of political forces, the emergence of new nations and the advancement of science and

technology, which had produced a fatalism and neglect of values among the young people of the world. “Whatever changes the future may bring, the essential message of the Y.M.C.A. will 6e an adherence to the Christian faith, that has served it so well in the last century,” said Sir James Hay. Among the 300 guests at the centenary dinner were the Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt. Rev. A. K. Warren), Mr R. M. Macfarlane, the representatives of New Zealand on the World Y.M.C.A. Council (Mr W. A. Bascand) and the president of the national Y.M.C.A. council (Mr G. Skipworth). Among the former officers of the association present were the hostel matron from 1923 to 1945. Miss Clara M. Rogers, and Mr J. B. Reese, secretary from 1901 to 1906, who cut the centenary cake.