$25,000 given to combat cuts

Press, 1 December 1982, Page 3

$25,000 given to combat cuts

Parliamentary reporter BP New Zealand, Ltd, has decided to contribute $25,000 to support next year’s Performers In Schools programme. Earlier this year it was feared that the programme would run for only two terms next year because h $25,000 Education Department grant was cut. The Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council provides $40,000 for the programme. ■ After a meeting with the Minister for the Arts, Mr Highet, yesterday, the managing. director of BP, Mr John Milward, said that his company would review its involvement with the programme at the end of 1983 with a view to making

a longer-term commitment. Mr Milward said that BP had decided to sponsor the programme because all the money would be spent in New Zealand, it was a scheme for young people, and it would give a needed helping hand to a scheme that was already under way. “I have seen this sort of thing working in England and it is tremendously valuable. It brings the dry old textbooks to life,” he said. The programme was a valuable source of stimulation for children in schools outside the main centres, he said. He hoped workers in BP branches would become actively engaged, in the programme when groups visited communities.

It was difficult to explain why a company wished to support sports and the arts. Mr Milward said. “We try to be a good corporate citizen. If you are getting a fair living out of a country you have to put something back into it," he said. The trouble was that the amount that could be put into community activities was small because there was “an almost bottomless pit.” Both Mr Highet and the chairman of the Arts Council, Miss Joan Kerr, welcomed the contribution. Mr Highet said that he would like to see a time when the private sector matched Government contributions to the arts dollar for dollar. •