OTAGO ANGLERS' ASSOCIATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2014, 29 September 1892, Page 32

OTAGO ANGLERS' ASSOCIATION.

The annual meeting of the Ofcago Anglers' Association was held at the Coffee Palace on Friday night. Mr R. Chisholm (president occupied) the chair, and there were 16 members present. The annual report (which has already been published) was taken as read. The Chairman, in moving the adoption of the report, said he had to . congratulate the members present on the good attendance that night. He thought it showed that the interest in angling had not died out altogether yet. The information in the report was so voluminous that it was almost impossible to enlarge upon it. The secretary had unquestionably gone to a great deal of trouble in compiling information. The report not only showed what had been done by the Anglers' Association during the last 12 months, but it contained interesting information gleaned from the reports of the Acclimatisation Society. There was just one thing in the report that was a little disappointing, and that was the reference to the falling-off in the membership. He noticed in the minutes of last annual meeting that his predecessor touched upon the decrease in the number of members at that meeting. If the decrease went on it was rather alarming. He saw that the* association now numbered only 42 members as against 78 last season. This was not vory satisfactory seeing that the Acclimatisation Society issued 517 licenses to men, besides a number to boys. Some allowance, of course, must be made for the licenses issued in the country, but even allowing for that it was certainly not very satisfactory when the association only numbered 42 members. He was satisfied that if the association was to serve the purpose for which it should exist it must chalk out some new lines for itself. An anglers' association, it seemed to him, should exist for another purpose than simply for the purpose of having one meeting at the beginning and another at the end of the season. The information he got when he went Home last season led him to believe that if the memberß of the association met frequently— especially in the winter months, when there was no angling going on — and exchanged information with regard to matters connected with fishing, the association would serve a very different purpose from that which it served at the present time. Mr MacCallum seconded the motion for the adoption of. the report, which was carried unanimously. The following office-bearers were elected for the ensuing year : — President, Mr G. Munro ; vice-presidents, Messrs R. Chisholm and W. Carlton ; secretary, Mr A. Anderson ; treasurer, Mr F. J. Peake ; auditor, Mr J. Edgar ; committee—Messrs Goldsmith, Aitken, Ogg, Nelson, Williams, Fraser, MacCallum, Wilson, Yuill, and R. A. Johnston. A vote of thanks was accorded to the retiring president for his services to the association during the past year, and a similar compliment was also paid to the office-bearers. Mr Chisholm gave notice that he would move in the direction of altering the rule fixing the date of the meeting on the last Friday in September, so as to read— "That the annual meeting of the association shall be held in the month of September.".