WHAT IS THE ‘MAORI CLUB’?

Te Ao Hou, Royal Tour 1953, Page 40

WHAT IS THE ‘MAORI CLUB’? Some of the students who produced this play have written to Te Ao Hou, describing the activities of their club and their own part in the production of the play. Here follows a story from Bill Murray, Maori Club leader (1953): There are in College 52 Maori students, comprising 24 first-years, 22 second-years, one special trainee and 5 homecraft students. The Maori Club has a membership of 62 students all told, including 12 very interested and enthusiastic Europeans. This year the Club meets every. Thursday afternoon during the College Club period, when hakas, action songs, stick and hand games are practised. In past years the learning of these arts has been invaluable, both as a help to those in the Club who have not had the opportunity to learn them before, and for the occasions when the Club has been invited out by various social, community and school organisations and gatherings, to give items and to take part in an evening's entertainment. This, I feel, has helped the Club in two ways: 1 It has given members the opportunity they might not have had otherwise to mix and share ideas with people of the town, not directly connected with the College, and Action song rehearsal. (Ashton.)

Drawing by Reweti Hagger. 2 It has made the work and function of the Club more widely known to outsiders. The Club in recent years has progressed considerably, both in strength of numbers and strength of purpose. This year the inclusion of the Maori Club as an integral part of the whole College club organisation seems to be a definite landmark in its development. Most of our activities so far this year have been with an eye to making a success of the production of our play, ‘Ponga and Puhihuia’, to be put on at the end of the year.