FEDERATION FORMED

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 234, 1 July 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

FEDERATION FORMED

Business And Professional Women's Clubs Linked Up

Tlie need for linking together tlie Business and Professional Women’s Clubs of the Y.W.C.A. of New Zealand has long been felt, and was al last accomplished at a Dominion conference held in Wellington.

Through tlie kindness of Miss Irene Wilson, principal of Queen Margaret’s College, the conference was held in the pleasant surroundings of tlie colBusiness and Professional W omen s Clubs of the Y.W.C.A. of New Zealand were represented as follows: —A hangarei, Miss D. Lupton: Auckland. Miss E. Stubbs and Miss C. Currie: Hamilton, Miss F. Young: New Plymouth, Miss’ M. Allen and Miss N. Gallagher ; Wellington, Miss E. Harper, Miss C. Norris and Miss M. L. 'Poulson: Christchurch, Miss M. Dunean and Miss M. Flindle; Tiinaru, Miss J. Simpson and Miss G. McDonald; and Dunedin, Miss Carson and Miss Duncan. Dr. Sylvia Chapman. Miss Irene Wilson, and Miss Ethel Law were chairmen in succession during the conference. The following officers were elected: Dominion president. Miss Margery L. Toulson, ’Wellington; Dominion vice-presidents, Miss Dorothy Impton, Whangarei, and Miss Eileen Stubbs. Auckland : Dominion executive. Miss Myra Duncan, Christchurch, Mrs. De Muth, Wellington, Miss Gladys McAndrew, Wellington, Miss Irene Madden, Palmerston North, Miss Elsie Harper, Wellington. Miss Mary Seaton. Wellington. The New Zealand federation has now applied for affiliation with _ the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, an organization witli a membership of many thousands throughout the world. The New Zealand federation will thus have two important world links, one with the World’s Y.W.C.A. in Geneva, and the other tlie International Federation of Business and Professional Women, with its presidency at present in New York. The president of the International Federation is Miss Madesin Phillips, New York, and the officers and executive of the federation form a notable group of women from many countries, representative of the highest standard of intellectual and commercial achieve- ! inent. They include Miss Gordon Holmes. London, considered to be one of tlie ablest women financiers in the British Empire; Dr. Maria Castellini (vice-president), educated at Bryn Mawr College, in the United States ot America, a noted European statistician, and head of the Statistical Bureau of the State Insurance organization in Italy, handling insurance problems of upward of 10,000,000 workers; Miss Dorothy Heneker, a leading lawyer of Canada; Miss Caroline Haslett, Great Britain, one of the outstanding women engineers of the world, who is hon. secretary of the Women’s Engineering Society "of Great Britain, and founder and director of the Electrical Association for Women; Senator F. F. Plaminkoya, Czechoslovakia, a member of Parliament in her country’, and a suffrage leader—a greatly beloved woman; Madame Anna Paradowska-Szolagow-ska, banker and economist, of Poland; Miss Caro Aidsen, a widely-known Norwegian publicist ancLeditor; and Hrs. Ellen Libby Eastman, a certified public accountant in the United States ot America, one of the three women chosen to attend the gathering of 2000 which marked the last meeting of the American Institute of Accountants. The first Dominion executive meeting was recently held in Wellington, and it was interesting to note that the annual board meeting of the International Federation was also sitting at the same time, in the beautiful town of Trondhjein, Norway. There matters of world-wide interest to women have been discussed under the comprehensive theme of “The Business Woman and the Social and Economic Challenge,’’ witji such titles as: "Urging Vocational Equality through the International Labour Organization at Geneva,” “The Status of Women,” “The Married Woman’s Cause,” “More Women in Public Life,” “More Women in Executive Positions,” “Unmasking the Fallacies,’’ in which experts will deny the faulty concepts that lack of executive ability and incapacity for working long hours are feminine attributes, and a deterrent to women’s business success. At the Dominion executive meeting in Wellington, the linking up of programmes with these interests was discussed and club programmes now being carried out in the Dominion were found to be strongly in line with tlie International programme, striking evidence of the world-wide interests that are binding women together. . A letter of congratulation from .Miss Gordon Holmes, president of the International Federation of Great Britain, was received with pleasure, also u cable wishing tlie New Zealand federation every success, from Miss Ruth

Woodsmall, secretary of the World’s Y.W.C.A., at Geneva, who visited the Dominion earlier in the year. It is felt that the formation of the federation is a step of importance to women in New Zealand, and the representative group business and professional women steadily gathering under the ever-widening ramifications of the Y.W.C.A., not just of New Zealand, but of the world, will link women still more closely together for the common good.