General News

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31661, 23 April 1968, Page 14

General News

Wahine Fund The North Canterbury centre of the Red Cross Society has received $lO5 to aid victims of the Wahine disaster and their dependants. The secretary of the centre (Mr R. J. Lipscombe) said yesterday that an additional $2OO had already been paid to a Christchurch widow of one of the victims with four children. No date had been fixed for the closing of the appeal. $7O From Walnuts The Avonside Girls’ High School has a large number of mature walnut trees, and staff and girls of the homecraft department have gathered the crop and sold it for $7O. The board of governors yesterday approved expenditure of the proceeds on a clothes drier for the department. Bright Object Several persons in the New Brighton, Redcliffs and Sumner areas were puzzled yesterday by a long vertical object gleaming in the sun and poised high above them. It was a cylindrical ballon, 23ft long and 3ft in diameter, used by the Project Ghost atmospheric research team. It bad been launched from the seashore in an experiment to get oceanic data at low altitude. It was expected to drift to sea in a south-easterly direction, but lack of wind kept it almost stationary for a time. Shorn, Spun, Knitted At the St Columba fair at Oxford on Saturday two teams of six took part in a “shear-spin-knit” contest. The winning team took two hours 34 minutes to spin the wool and knit a child’s 24in jersey and the second team was 12 minutes behind. Because of the bad weather and a change in location for the contest the sheep (a Romney) had to be shorn beforehahd, and two minutes was added for this, making a total time of two hours 36 minutes. Storm Damage The cost of storm damage in Lyttelton should be made known—the borough had suffered as much as any other area, but not enough bad been made of it, Cr I. G. Render son said at a meeting of the Lyttelton Borough Council last evening. “If you stuck to “The Press’ and the ’Star’ you would think that other areas were the only ones affected,” he said. Medals Awarded Long-service and goodconduct medals were presented to two master signallers at a Flying Training Wing parade at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Wigram yesterday. The recipients were Master Signallers L. F. Parker and M. B. Southam—both instructors. The medals were presented by the commander of the R.N.ZA.F. Training Group (Air Commodore A S. Agar). S.C. Examination Another conference of high school principals will be held in Wellington in June to consider the new school certificate examination. After the last conference there were complaints that the Education Department had not consulted schools sufficiently, and that principals had to meet in their own time and at their own expense, even though they were discussing matters of national interest Gallery Additions Two paintings offered to the Robert McDougall Art Gallery by an anonymous person have been accepted by the Christchurch City Council on the recommendation of the gallery’s director (Mr W. S. Baverstock). They are an oil, “Old Man Reading,” painted by the donor, and a water-colour, “The Veranda," by Olivia Spencer-Bower. Two other paintings offered were by Charles Simpson, R.A., of whose work the gallery already has examples. The council has also bought for $25 an example of the work of the English potter, Michael Cardew, to add to the gallery’s small pottery collection. House Blazer A distinctive new blazer pocket, with the words “Acland House” replacing the school motto below the regular blazer monogram and coat of arms, is proposed for boarders at the Christchurch Girls’ High School. The board of governors approved the proposal last evening, subject to parents of boarders being consulted. The principal (Miss P. Robinson) said it was suggested that the house blazer be worn for dress occasions and travel and later used as second-best for daily school purposes with the regular school pocket Educational Tests About 12 Christchurch secondary schools have recently provided up to 150 pupils each for trials of a new series of educational tests being prepared by the Australian Council for Educational Research.