SWIMMING

Evening Star, Issue 18399, 6 October 1923, Page 9

SWIMMING

NOTES AND COMMENTS. [By Teudqkon.] At the annual meeting of the Wailemata Swimming Club discussion took place on the item of £47 2s 6d appearing in the balance-sheet as expenses to the Auckland team to the New Zealand meeting. Mr Mulvihill stated that each season tho Waitomata Club had to foot the bill, otherwise no team would have been sent. It was the feeling of tho meeting that this matter was a duty of the Auckland Centre, and tire club's delegates promised to have the matter discussed at the first meeting of the Auckland Centre.

It is said that a little girl at Auckland, Miss Piri Page, is going to lower the colors of some of the cracks when she ha,s reached tho age at which she can enter for the longer distances. Sho is aged fifteen at present. The annual meeting of tho Waitemata Swimming Club (Auckland) was hold on September 26. Tho animal report showed tho club’s membership to be 84 seniors, 167 ladies and junior members, with a total of 285 persons, who displayed a live interest in the club's activities. The club’s finances are in a buoyant condition. The gross income from all sources was £257 19s. Tho excess of assets over liabilities reaches £179 9s 9d. with cash on hand in tho bank, £1,44 15s 9d. The profit on the season’s operations is £l2 12s lOd, which may bo considered highly satisfactory in view of heavy disbursements for representation at the New Zealand championships. No loss a sum than £47 2s 6tl was expended for this purpose. In outside competition many notable successes fell to members of tho club. Misses V. Waldron and Miss P. Hoeft were again to the fore in New Zealand championship honors; while for tho third year in succession the club captain, Mr J. Enwright, won the 100yds championship of New Zealand. Wanganui has no fewer than nine baths, of whic.li five are school baths. What has Wellington got? last's “ Crawl,” in the ‘Dominion’). Wanganui has a population of some 20,000, a mere fraction of our population here ; but of course it has also artesian water, while many parts of Wellington have not even an adequate water supply. It is said that quite good baths can bo built, for £4OO. A suitable school bath was built, in Wanganui for £520, and it is estimated that it will bn able to pay its way. It is open to the public in tho evenings, and also on Sundays, and is made use of by a very large number of people. Wellington has some 90,000 people, and, cutting out the Wellington and Boys’ Institute baths, it lias only two baths, one of which is really part of tho harbor, and the other Ls only just about to bo used. Whta chance have the young people hero to learn to swim at all, alone to compete with the sprinters of other centres? Now that the Government restrictions on subsidies are being removed in so many cases, the schools would no doubt receive a, hearing S. this direction if they applied for assistance in supplying what is at any rate as great a need as tenuis courts. II may be that tho latter are so favored because they return a quicker profit; but not nearly sis many children can use them at the same time. a.s in the case of baths, which are, to 'ay Die least of it. equally health-producing. Kelbum, with the absence of a. gravitation water supply, is, of course, at a disadvantage in installing baths ; but Newtown, with its big school and space available, should sec what it can do in this respect, as baths in this thickly-populated suburb would pay for themselves.