THE METHODIST CONFERENCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 23 February 1931, Page 7

THE METHODIST CONFERENCE

0 SITTING AT DUNEDIN (By Telegraph—Press Association) DUNEDIN, 20th February. The Methodist Conference resumed this morning under the chairmanship of the president, the Rev. E. D. Patchett. CHURCHES IN HAWKES BAY At the instance of the Rev. J. Copeland (convener), the Conference Home Mission Committee was appointed a special committee to consider the situation of the various churches and parsonages in the stricken Hawkes Bay area. A WELCOME . A cordial welcome to the conference was given to Sister Margaret Gibson, a Methodist deaconess from Edinburgh, now visiting New Zealand. The visitor briefly acknowledged the welcome and conveyed greetings from the deaconess order in the Old Country. THE CIRCUITS Arising out of the business of the Committee on Circuits, the following adjustments regarding status and staffing of circuits and Home Mission stations were agreed to: —That in the present circumstances in the devastated Hawkes Bay area, the appointment of a second agent to the Napier circuit be deferred; that no second agent be appointed to Greymouth for 1931; that Hawarden (North Canterbury) continue as a circuit with a probationer and a suitable grant; that in view of the problems of the Geraldine circuit the question of status of this circuit be referred to the Conference Home Mission Committee, with a request for adequate financial assistance; but in order to enable Wanganui North to maintain its probationer the home mission fund make a suitable grant.

SUPERNUMERARIES The Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt introduced Supernumerary Fund Board business, and stated the fund showed an aggregate of £144,649 17s Bd, the income being £12,001 8s 4d. Allied funds administered by the board amounted to £14,802 11s Bd. A good deal of consideration had been given by the board to the scale of annuities and certain anomalies that, required adjustment in the existing gradient of benefits, and these matters had been the subject of correspondence with the actuary. Whilst satisfied that the state of the fund at present would warrant an increase of benefits yet, owing to the present worldwide economic depression and the uncertainty caused by it, the board deemed it wise at this juncture to defer proposals for such an increase in annuity rates.

The report was adopted.^ Conference approved of the setting apart of the Rev. J. D. Grocott as organiser of the Young Men’s Bible Class movement for a period of two years. The transfer of the Rev. W. Beckett to the Victoria and Tasmania Conference was approved.

UNEMPLOYMENT LEVY The attention of the Unemployment Commissioner (Mr Malcolm Fraser) was called to the fact that thirty-one supernumerary ministers who were never likely to become claimants on the fund administered in the interests of the unemployed were compelled to pay unemployment levy. Exemption was asked for in these cases. The Commissioner stated that the general question of exemptions was under consideration, and when a decision was reached publicity would be given to it through the Press.