$l000 gift to organ fund

Press, 1 March 1984, Page 1

$l000 gift to organ fund

A $lOOO contribution has been made to the Christchurch Town Hall pipe-organ fund by a Christchurch City councillor, Mrs Helen Garrett, as a gesture of her recognition of the council’s generosity in helping pay for her trip to China in April. The council has decided to give a $lOOO subsidy to each of five councillors joining the Mayoral delegation to Gansu Province, the city’s newest sister city link. “I certainly don’t regard it as the same money,” said Cr Garrett yesterday after some persons at the council were reportedly, if privately, displeased by her gesture.

Cr Garrett said she had never had the subsidy in her hand, since it had been deducted from the bill councillors had received for the trip. She had taken the $lOOO contribution from her private bank account. The donation was something she had wanted to make for a long time, she said. She had not felt she should refuse the council subsidy, and she was grateful for it. Councillors would do a valuable job in China. “I think we will be good ambassadors,” she said.

As a gesture, she had done “this quite separate other thing.” She would have joined the China delegation whether a subsidy had been approved or not. It had been “a suitable time to make a donation to the organ fund,” said Cr Garrett. “The link is coincidental,” she said. “It is contemporaneous with my grateful acceptance of the subsidy.” The Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay, said that he had been surprised to read about the organ-fund gift. “I see the action as one which is entirely for herself to decide,” he said. He did not personally see it as “having any great relevance” to the Gansu trip. Sir Hamish would not comment on whether Cr Garrett should now refuse to accept the subsidy. “I think what she does is her business,” he said.

Cr A. G. James, who has opposed the council subsidy, said he thought the $lOOO would be better spent on the organ fund. “Since she has given her money back to the city in a way, perhaps the other councillors who received the money could do a similar thing,” he said.