CHURCH AFFAIRS

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 102, 30 April 1921, Page 10

CHURCH AFFAIRS

ST. PAUL'S PARISHIONER 3

The annual meeting of the parishioners of St. Paul's Church, Thorndon, was held in the Sydney-street Schoolroom last evening. The Yen. Archdeacon. Johnson presided over a moderate attendance. '

In moving Hhe adoption of the report and balance-sheet, erfcraots fro!nj which have been published in The Post, the vicar referred to the work of the Dorcas Society, of the Sunday school, ' the Churcb kindergarten, and the choir, and expressed satisfaction at the work of the past year and the pleas" ing financial standing of those branches of Church activity. He regretted that tho meeting was not a larger one, but he wished to express his thanks to all for the lasting and loyal kindness shown to him during the ten years he had been vicar of St. Paul's. His thanks went out to the vestry for their action in increasing the Church stipend, an increase which he had not requested. Since November the parish had had no curate, but had the parish its dues, three clergy would' be allocated to it. During the year he had personally attended upon 47 marriages, 61 -funerals, and 60 baptisms, and those facts made it clear that help was urgently necessary. Speaking of the work done at the Church school in Tinakori-road, the vicar said that the Church school movement had come to stay, for the bogey of sectarianism had been raised so often that it had oeased to scare anyone. The parish school dated back far beyond the beginning of the Bible-in-sohools movement, for the Tinakori-road School was inaugurated 40 years ago, and had been carried on with varying fortune 'ever since. At the present time the school was very much on the up-grade, and that success was due to the excellent work of Miss Atkins and her sister. The parishioners, however, had to conaidor the question of increasing the salaries of the teachers very seriously, for their salaries were but miserable stipends in comparison with the payment they would receive for like services in a State school. The school building, moreover, was one of the oldest in Wellington, and, was. outliving its period of usefulness. He looked forward to the time when a modern building would be erected, in the school and other Church and sp^nsh activities could be carried on as they should be. The letting of the Syd-ney-street Schoolroom to the Girls' College had hampered Church activities to a considerable degree, but he was pleased to be able to say that another suitable room had. been secured for the guild's activities. The parish had many willing workers, but an evident need was the service of a manly man who would look to the interests of the young men and boys of the parish. Special reference was made to the wonderfully fine work done by Mns. Warren, ■whose death occurred in March. To Mrs. Warren the parish owed the deepest debt of gratitude. , The good services of the organist, Mr. Robert Parker, were referred to in very happy terms. Mr. Parker, said the vicar, was a man of lasting youth, and to him the, parishioners offered their thanks and expressed the hope that he would -long be able to give his services to the Church.

Votes of, thanks were' also passed to the churchwardens, the vestrymen, members of the choir, and other church and parish workers. The following were elected office-bear-ers for, the ensuing year :—Vicarjs warden, Mr. C. A. Lawrence; people'? warden. Mr. A. J. Curtis; vestrymen, Messrs. W. F. Ward. R. B. Rigg, D. B. Cndiemaille. "E. F. Richardson, 0. M. Yeats, 0; Beere, O. F. Turner. G. Shirtcliffe, B. P. Cofilan, and R. H. Medland; auditors, Messrs. G. Sutton and A. V. Allen.