General News

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32214, 5 February 1970, Page 10

General News

Royal Visit No special display would be put on for members of I the Royal family when they i visited the Cashmere High School next month, the head'master (Mr T. H. McCombs) i told a meeting of the school’s board of governors yesterday. "The whole purpose of the visit is to see a normal school functioning normally, and they will see only normal school activities,” he said. The party would go through the school observing various classes at work. There were various apocryphal stories going round as to why the school had been chosen, said Mr McCombs, a former Minister of Education. There was no foundation to any of them, and he could think of 'no particular reason for the • honour. Lake Protest A protest against any Government decision that would result in the raising of the normal level of Lake Manapouri has been made by the Canterbury Botanical Society. The society has written to the Minister of Electricity (Mr Allen), and has asked members to write in protest to their local members of Parliament. Building Permits A marked drop irrthe value of building permits issued by the Christchurch City Council for the 10 months of the financial year, compared with the same period last year, is mostly accounted for by the issue of the building permit for stage one of the Town Hall, valued at $2,434,592, in January, 1969. The total value of building permits issued for the 10 months to the end of January is 89,872,961. compared with $13,197,869 in 1968-69. Gold-Rush Murals I A series of 27 murals depicting the Otago gold-rush days, painted by the Christchurch artist, Russell Clark, in 1962, has been offered for sale by the City Hotel in; Dunedin to make way for alterations to the club bar. An earlier series, painted by the same artist in 1936, was destroyed in a fire in 1961. The murals, each 4ft 4in by sft 6in, tell the story in cartoon form of a Scotsman’s departure from Dunedin for the goldfields and his subsequent return. Mr M. G. Hitchings, librarian of the Hocken Library, is trying to find a home for the murals in Dunedin. He feels they are peculiarly appropriate to Dunedin and Otago and should remain in the city. Language Laboratory A full-scale language laboratory using equipment worth $2649 will be set up soon at I the Cashmere High School. The school’s board of governors received a letter from - the Department of Education at its meeting yesterday apI proving a grant of this I amount for the equipment, which includes taperecorders, monitoring devices and enough headsets for the! teaching of 40 pupils at a time. The laboratory will re-; place a temporary one improvised by school staff. Counselling Course ( A course for persons inter-j ested in. helping the counsel-1 ling work done by Life-Line in Christchurch is to be held I at the Christchurch Methodist j Central Mission early next: month. The liaison officer for the Life-Line service (Mrs N.I Johnston) said yesterday that' persons interested in the course should apply to the Mission. At present the ser-j [vice has 53 active telephone counsellors, 13 counsellors in training, 18 persons in the caring division and 33 members of the trouble team.