The Golden Jubilee Ball

Southland Times, Issue 21832, 8 October 1932, Page 19

The Golden Jubilee Ball

To-morrow begins the Golden Jubilee of St. Catherine’s Dominican Convent, which, for the younger people at all events, will reach its high-water mark at the Jubilee Ball on Wednesday evening. It will be interesting to see how the old Zealandia Hall in Esk street will react to renewed dancing activities. Invercargill lacks a dance hall big enough to accommodate the three or four hundred dancers who are expected to attend this ball, and the committee has shown not a little enterprise in casting its eyes on the Zealandia. A great deal of preparation has been and is still necessary to convert it into a pleasant background for dancing, and the decorating which has already begun (in the school’s black and white, intermingled with the gold of the jubilee) is not going to be a simple matter. A portion of the hall (as big as the area of the Victoria Hall) has been set aside as a supper room, and an almost similar area is to be transformed into two lounges—one for the dancers, the other to take the place of an onlookers’ gallery. The remaining floor space is estimated to hold some 400 dancers without a crush; so that if the floor reacts to the strenuous treatment it is undergoing, this should create a precedent that will be followed for many of the big balls one is assured are coming back. I was much impressed too, by the fact that the whole of the extensive catering for this Jubilee—including to-morrow’s Breakfast, Tuesday’s Banquet and Wednesday’s set supper—has been undertaken by a committee of thirty or forty ladies who during the last few months have raised £lOO for this purpose by a series of small socials and other entertainments.