TO VISIT AUSTRALIA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 80, Issue 7181, 27 March 1950, Page 4

TO VISIT AUSTRALIA

MARCHING GIRLS FROM NEW ZEALAND UNION

FIRST TEAM TO GO OVERSEAS

First marching team to represent the New Zealand Marching Union overseas will leave for Australia on April 6. For the 12 girls selected to make the team the Australian tour will be a strenuous one as their four-week tour includes marching at Sydney, Albury, Melbourne, Adelaide, Launceston, Hobart and Tamworth. At Tamworth they will meet the best Australian team in a special challenge contest for the International Trophy and, at Sydney, on Anzac Day/ the team will provide a special Trooping of the Colours display.

The 11 members, so far announced, are P. Whakarau (leader), M. White, I. Platt and B. Windle (Wanganui), S. Reid, H. Russell and N. Burr (Manawatu), M. Lewis and J. Fitzgibbon (Main Trunk), B. Ryder (Wairarapa), and J. Mason (Rangitikei). N. Bradshaw, an original selection, has resigned on medical advice and her replacement has not yet been announced. The talent of the team is not confined to marching. The girls have formed a concert party, with a repertoire of Maori action songs and piano numbers. The special arrangement of “ Now is the Hour,” with P. Whakarau as solist, will be broadcast from Sydney on April 7. A team was originally selected to go to Australia about 18 months ago, but the trip was cancelled because of insufficient funds. President of the New Zealand Marching Union, L. E. Wright (Wanganui) stated on Monday that the original team had been chosen by Majoi’ McCulloch, of Trenthem.

Improvement in the financial position of the Marching Union has brought the team together again. At the week-end members worked out at Wanganui and will reassemble there on 31st March to do intensive training till they go to Auckland for their air transport

Three years ago a team was sent to Australia but was not a representative combination. The New Zealand Marching Union is a totally different organisation to the New Zealand Marching Association. The Union’s activities are in the main confined to the Wanganui District.

Among the few spectators admitted to the New Zealand Marching Championships at Christchurch were two ratings from the Australian Navy, then at Lyttelton. In the course of conversation with a Courier reporter, they stated that marching was not very much in vogue in Australia and that they were witnessing their first marching display. In reply to a question they said that they did not think it would take on in Australia, for that country was busily engaged in racing, boxing and greyhound racing, which they said were the principle sports in Australia. There is now reason to believe that had the Labour Government remained in power two teams from New Zealand would have been sent to Britain in order to popularise marching in the Old Country.