SECRETARY HONOURED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20291, 28 April 1934, Page 9

SECRETARY HONOURED.

Gas Company Pays Tribute to Mr E. W. Reed. High tributes were paid to Mr E. W. Reed secretary of the Christchurch Gas Company who is retiring ofter 51 years’ service, by directors and members of the staff who met to bid him farewell yesterday. There were present; Messrs F. E. Graham, chairman of directors, F. I. Cowlishaw, C. P. Agar, directors, W. E. Rogers, the newly r -appointed secretary, H. C. Ridley, sales manager, F. W. J. Belton, engineer, and A. W. Price, inspector. A number of old employees of the company were also present. Mr Graham on behalf of the present employees gave Mr Reed a radio set, and on behalf of the old employees Mr T. Newburgh handed Mr Reed a gold pencil. Mr Graham said that the large gathering of the staff was an indication of the esteem in which Mr Reed was held, and it was regretted that a disability’ had caused his retirement earlier than had been anticipated. Addressing himself to Mr Reed , Mr Graham said; ‘‘You have the distinction of being the oldest employee of the company in length of service, and to have grown up with the company for 51 years and risen from a junior position to executive head of the compand must be a great satisfaction to you. Your quiet unassuming manner and unfailing courtesy not only to your staff, but to the many people you have met in your career have endeared you to all, and you will be very greatly missed from the company and the business community generally. As chairman of the company I look on this gathering as evidence of the team spirit which I think operates throughout our company, as I think all of us are working with one object in view—the success of the I Christchurch Gas Company o f which we are nearly all share-holders,’’ Messrs Ridley, Belton and vßogers also paid tributes to the retiring secretary. In returning thanks, Mr Reed said that he had always tried to obtain the goodwill of the staff, and he thought that he had been fortunate enough to'have obtained that goodwill. Since he started 51 years ago as office boyunder Mr R. C. Bishop, there had been many changes, and two instances of this progress would serve to show the advances the company had made. In 1883 there were 1500 consumers; now there were 25.000. In 1883 the companyoperated 42 miles of mains, and now it operated 300 miles. Mr Reed said that he had intense faith in the future of the gas industry’, and believed that progress in the next 50 years would be as great as that he had seen during'the last 50 years. Gas had a thousand and one uses, and its future was brighter than ever it had been in the past.