£20,000 Appeal For Templeton Chapel

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 20

£20,000 Appeal For Templeton Chapel

A South Island-wide appeal for £20.000 for an interdenominational chapel at the Templeton Hospital and Training School will be launched on Saturday, February 22, with a fete in the hospital grounds. A house-to-house appeal will be held in Christchurch on March 7. The children of the hospital have already contributed about £6O towards the chapel through offerings in their Sunday services. The chapel Will be in a modern design, with internal arrangements planned specially to suit the mentally handicapped. In particular, there will be no pulpit, a clear area being.left between the sanctuary and the pews

where visual aids can be conveniently employed and drama staged. The chapel will seat 160, with another 40, if required, in the wide aisles. The architect is Mr G. W. Lusking. In change of the project is a general committee under Mr E. A. Lee, SjM. Below this committee; is a working committee of which the chairman is the Rev. D. G. Shaw, Presbyterian chaplain to the hospital. On the working committee are representatives of the major Christian denominations, the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers, the Townswomen’s Guild, the Country Women’s Institutes, and the Friends of the Hospital; there are also a number of individual' per-

sons prominent in service organisations in the aity. The fete is being run by members of the hospital staff with the help of many outside persons including nurses from the Christchurch, Princess Margaret, and Sunnyside hospitals and members of organisations represented on the working committee. Among the attractions will be a police dog demonstration, a vintage-car rally, gymnastics by the Crichton Cobbers’ Club, an “awkward squad” display by the Army, and music by the Ricearton Highland Pipe Band and the Band of the Ist Canterbury Regiment. A brochure is being prepared to be given out in connexion with the house-to-house appeal, which is being organised by the working committee.. The house-to-house collection will later be extended to otter parts of Canterbury and possibly elsewhere in the South Island.