PREVENTING DEATHS BY DROWNING

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 15

PREVENTING DEATHS BY DROWNING

Learn-To-Swim Movement PLANS FOR CAMPAIGN IN HAWKE’S BAY Dominion Special Service. NAPIER, December 9. Full approval of the aims of the National Committee of Swimming and Lifesaving was expressed at a meeting addressed by the secretary, Mr. N, A. Ingram, in Napier last night. There was a good attendance of swimming officials and others from both Napier and Hastings. The chairman, Mr. W. E. Barnard, said the promotion of a national campaign to teach swimming was a patriotic appeal in the best sense of the word. Hawke’s Bay was fortunate in swimming facilities available for the public, aud should prove a strong and active centre for the learn-to-swim movement. Far too many people, mostly young people, had been lost to the country through inability to swim, a defect which he felt could be corrected.

Though the swimming season extended over only five months iu the year, said Mr. Ingram, the number of deaths from drowning was far in excess of motoring fatalities during the same period. His organization had come into being only last year, when it was too late to do anything in the way of nation-wide education, but it was hoped this year to do a good deal. The organization hoped to obtain the services of 1000 swimming instructors throughout the Dominion, and with their help it aimed to teach 75,000 adults and children to swim during the coming, season. Many instructors had already been enrolled, and they included many leading swimmers. Appeal for Co-operation. Mr. Ingram appealed not only to swimming organizations in the district but to publie bodies as well for co-operation in the work. They could give consideraole assistance when the campaign readied its height in February. The success of the campaign depended on the full co-opera-tion of every ■ member of the community. The vice-chairman of the Hawke’s Bay Swimming Centre, Mr. C. Atkinson, said Hawke’s Bay probably led the rest of New Zealand in the organized campaign to increase the number of swimmers. There had been all-the-scason campaigns iu Napier and Hastings for some years past, and’ he was pleased to see that

Hawke’s Bay’s efforts were being followed on a nation-wide basis. The temperature of the water was. an important factor in teaching swimming. An instance of that was in Havelock North, where the water was seven or eight degrees warmer than that of other baths . in the district, and 97 per cent, of the school children could swim. Tepid baths offered a great advantage in encouraging learners to overcome their first fear of the water.

■The meeting carried a motion pledging itself to full support of the campaign, and- arrangements were made for the formation of a district committee. Mr. Atkinson suggested that the conduct of future campaigns should be under the Education Department. A special staff for teaching swimming would give more widespread and permanent results, lie said.

Mr. Ingram was accorded a vote of thanks for his address.