Y.W.C.A. GIRL CITIZENS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18614, 16 November 1928, Page 15

Y.W.C.A. GIRL CITIZENS.

Girl Citizens of the Y.W.C.A. spent last week-end in camp at Waikuku. They became expert campers and thoroughly relished sleeping on mattresses in a garage with the door flung open to the stars. Cooking, too, was an interesting matter when, in turn, two or three girls undertook the preparation of a meal, and most of the results were really excellent and most appetisnig. The theme of the camp was Robert Bridges’s poem: “I love all beauteous things, I praise and adore them.” And on Friday this was an easy matter. The golden abundance of the broom, the heavy sweethess of the lupins, the shadows and shapes of the pine trees, the varying degrees of colour in sea and sky and mountain made the day wholly satisfying. Bathing, discussion group, rest hour, games, camp fire filled in the different hours. Saturday and Sunday had different moods, but they could still find beauty in the wind and the rain, and most of them felt a curious thrill of pleasure in the sudden violence of the storm on Sunday afternoon, painful though it was to be lashed on face, neck and bare legs by fierce whirling sand. The lines in the second verse of the poem: “I, too, will something make, and joy in the making,” inspired the girls to attempt to be creative. All of them made small collections of favourite poems, illustrated by themselves and bound together in rough books. Two original poems were written, and attempts were made to compose nature dances to records of Grieg and Schubert. Miss Bentham, general secretary of the Y.W.C.A., led discussions on the creative life which seeks to see God’s intention in people and in work as well as in things more obviously beautiful. Miss Bentham and Miss Pym, Girls’ Work secretary, were in charge of the camp.