On the campaign trail

Press, 4 May 1978, Page 2

On the campaign trail

If the Labour Party’s Selwyn candidate (Mr W. E. Woods) is successful in November, he will surely be the fittest man in Pailiasnent.

Mr Woods, aged 35, will on Saturday run 70km from Darfield to Halswell.

"I am doing it to try to get a little publicity, and to raise money for campaign funds," he said.

He is being sponsored by local people but he does not Jcnow how much has been pledged. "I do know 15 Labour members are sponsoring me at 5c a kilometre each.”

Mr Woods, a Springfield poultry farmer, hopes to gain support along the way as well. Brief stops are

planned at just about every hotel in the new Selwyn electorate: Rolleston, Templeton, Islington, Prebbleton, Halswell, and possibly Lincoln and Tai Tapu. He will be accompanied on his run by pacemakers, back-up vehicles, a nurse, and his two daughters, Angela, aged 10, and Carmen, aged nine, riding bicycles. They will be sponsored by people who prefer not to support the Labour Party. The money they raise will go towards the Templeton Farm School.

The group will set off from Darfield at 830 a.m. “unless it snows.” The journey is expected to take about six hours.