TWO APPEALS A YEAR

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 34, 3 November 1933, Page 10

TWO APPEALS A YEAR

Suggested Big Street Days COMBINATION OF EFFORTS Expressing the opinion that too many street days were held in Wellington to collect money for various deserving objects. . Lieut.-Colonel A. Cowles, president of the Returned Soldiers’ Association, suggested in an interview with "The Dominion” yesterday that a system should be devised whereby two big appeals only should be held annually, and the proceeds divided upon a basis to be decided upon. “My ’idea,” he said, “is that everything should be pooled, and there should be two big appeals only made during the whole year, say for £lO,OOO, the money to be distributed among the various organisations on some agreed basis. I would suggest that the Mayor call a conference of representatives of his own fund, the Smith Family, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Free Ambulance, St, John Ambulance, and any others concerned, and form a very strong executive, which would organise two big appeals a year. “I feel certain that this would be a great relief to the public. I don’t believe they would contribute less generously than when harassed by street days. After all, it is not an edifying spectacle to see women jingling boxes on every street corner so frequently during the year, when goodness only knows what calls are made on the slender purses of 80 per cent, of the people they approach. “If the heads of the various organisations concentrated on two big efforts a year, I am sure the effect would be the same or better, and that some method of pro rata distribution could be devised.”