Annual Convention.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18958, 2 January 1930, Page 12

Annual Convention.

Leaders of the Methodist Young Women’s Bible Class movement commenced their annual convention on Tuesday. Delegates representing each of the eight districts in the Dominion are in residence at Deaconess House, Latimer Square, business sessions being held in the Y.W.C.A. building. The Dominion president, Mrs Harvey Cook, opened the convention, and welcomed the delegates. The district annual reports were dealt with, much being gained from comparison of methods, and results relating to class, leadership training, membership rallies and camps, church membership, and cooperation with the church and Sunday School. The report of the travelling secretary gave each union a review of the whole movement. It was stated that leadership training was of vital importance, and that in subject matter the correspondence course and group studies were meeting a need, as was proved by the lengthening lists of registrations. In regard to method there was still a cry for more classes for the guilding of young leaders. A general desire for greater circulation of the reading lists recommended by the movement was expressed. The Bible Class movement was a healthy, progressive body, at present numbering upwards of 3300 young women in New Zealand. The convention sessions will continue until to-morrow evening. New Zealander Returns. Miss Ethel M. Duff, Wellington, returned by the Rimutaka last Friday after her second stay in England, states an exchange. In 1921 Miss Duff left New Zealand for the Old Country, and stayed there till 1925, being on the staff of the County School for Girls, Cambridge. She then returned to New Zealand and joined the staff of the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, going Home again in 1927 and teaching at the Oldershaw School for Girls, Walasey, Liverpool, where she was English specialist. During both sojourns in England, Miss Duff travelled on the Con-, tinent, visiting Holland, Belgium, and France, and also gained a fairly ex-, tensive knowledge of England. Believing that one sees the country best when on foot, Miss Duff made a walking tour of the coast of Norfolk last September, and has also walked over the Yorkshire moors and dales and through the Lake District. Last winter in England Miss Duff found almost unendurable, especially in the north. There were ice floes on the beach of the Mersey, and it looked like the Antarctic.