Advertising Fund “Not Dignified”

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30677, 17 February 1965, Page 1

Advertising Fund “Not Dignified”

It was quite inconsistent with the dignity of Sir Winston Churchill that the national committee of the Churchill Memorial Trust Fund should lend itself to any type of highpressure advertising campaign, said Mr H. C. McQueen, organising secretary of the committee, in Wellington yesterday.

He was commenting on the remarks made by Mr L. H. Govan, the Rotary representative on the Christchurch committee of the fund, who described the publicity at national level as “pitifully inade-* quate.” Mr Govan advocated a “plug” every night on radio and television.

Mr McQueen said he wondered why Mr Govan should be worrying about publicity at all. It appeared that about

£lOO,OOO had been contributed to the fund by the people of New Zealand and this was over and above the initial Government grant of £50,000. Considering that the campaign only began two weeks ago the national committee thought a reasonable degree of success had been achieved

already, Mr McQueen said. In some places fund-raising had not yet begun. He said there were quite a few boroughs and cities which would be having house-to-house collections and independent appeals in the next week or two. “We also know of a considerable number of organisations and firms whose donations are almost certain, but which cannot actually make their donations firm until after their directors’ meetings.” he said. "The purpose of this fund is to express our gratitude to Sir Winston Churchill. It will be a living memorial and not a thing of stone. “The national committee has deliberately left fundraising to local organisations as it believed decentralisation was the most effective way of doing things. “It allows local committees to use their own ideas and to adapt their individual methods to local circumstances,” said Mr McQueen. The total collected for the fund in Christchurch up to 5 p.m. yesterday was £7976 18s 9d.

Contributions of £5O and more received yesterday were £7l 9s from individual members of the Royal Commonwealth Society, £250 from the New Zealand Farmers’ CoOperative Association of Canterbury, Ltd., £5O from Miss Noeline Vale, £lOO from Mrs H. Vale, and £250 from Austral Standard Cables Pty., Ltd.

The total given at the stand in Cathedral square is now £833 15s 6d.