Ecumenical Youth Night To Be Held In City

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31017, 24 March 1966, Page 16

Ecumenical Youth Night To Be Held In City

A Christchurch ecumenical youth group which had its beginnings at the New Zealand Ecumenical Youth Conference in Hamilton last December will conduct a public ecumenical youth night at the Durham Street Methodist Church

hall on Sunday evening. The programme will include folk singing, a film about the problem of hunger, and a talk by Mr W. Walker, a member of the executive of the Christchurch 21 committee. The evening is designed to educate church youth representatives in the aims and methods of Project 21, said Mr R. Maddren, a member of the group’s committee. The nucleus of the ecumenical youth group has been provided by people who attended the Hamilton conference, and has been added to since members returned to the city. It is known as the central group, as there are three other such groups in Christchurch which came into existence in a similar way, Mr Maddren said.

All who attended the Hamilton conference were split into committees based on their home centres, and given the task of carrying on the work started at the conference into their local areas, Mr Maddren said.

The central ecumenical group works in the area of the city bounded by the four avenues, and includes 10 churches. The group does not desire to compete with other youth groups working in the area, but to provide extra activities not usually included in their own programmes, said Mr Maddren. The coming education evening on Project 21 is designed to aid other groups prepare their own efforts for the project. A week-end camp in May to examine the tasks which church youth can undertake in the group’s area is a major item planned by the group.