If you have been before—you needn't read any further. If you haven't—then you would be well advised to think it over. What is it?

Congress is all things to all men. It's certainly something different in the way of a holiday, a paradise for the swot-sickened and lecture-ridden where you can get away from all the drudgery of a year's work in your particular vocation and for one splendid week skim the intellectual cream of the country with no more effort than lying in the sun.

Someone called it once the University of New Zealand come to life. That's not a bad description. You meet fellow students from the other colleges in the country (including some of those rare eves, agricultural types), about 120 of them, perhaps 20 or 30 of them from your own scat of higher learning.

Stimulating setting

Freed from the restraining bonds of timetables, orthodox convention, landladies and/or fond parents, and exams, you can explore all sorts of problems, initiate or take part in an infinite number of discussions, listen to the wisdom of the wise, and enjoy life in a stimulating university setting.

At varsity you are to some extent circumscribed within your particular field. Even the Arts student, the backbone of the university, is becoming more and more of a specialist. But Congress helps to break down these barriers and open up A wider view. Admittedly it is something of a bird's eye view—you get the cream without all the milk at the bottom-but the pleasing feature of the programme is that you are made aware of so many things that you were not aware of previously. The scientist finds value in what a musician or philosopher has to impart, the historian realises there is more in this chemistry business than bottles, and so on.

The speakers who come there to provide the meat of the discussions do have something really worthwhile to offer. They have been chosen because they are experts in their field and they have the gift of putting it across.

Old bottles, new wine

With the ton speakers this year there will be rich diversity. Old bottles perhaps, but new wine, and the drinking is the most enjoyable part of it all. If you want to you can tire the sun with talking and carry that afternoon's argument with Dr. X on through the night till the next morning and through till breakfast, and maybe start again in the afternoon.

If you're a little timid, don't worry. You may not have much to contribute, but you'll find you can say something sooner or later. Even just listening to the pearls of wisdom dropping can be quite beneficial.

After all, apart from the lecturers and their families, everyone else is a student just like you, with problems just like yours and this is just the place to get things straightened out and compare notes.

Or perhaps you are not crazy, mixed-up and twisted, like most of the students I know. You haven't got any problems, intellectual or otherwise, and everything is quite cut and dried as far as your life is concerned. Good. Come along and help the others. They need people like you.

Don't think there is an intellectual power-house atmosphere permeating every activity, though. Life at Curious Cove—how aptly that place is named!—has its many diverse diverting divertissements.

Sunshine holiday

Even if you didn't go to a lecture at all you could still have a wonderful holiday in the sun, swimming in the warm water by day or night, fishing from the jetty or boats, spearfishing, trying your ungainly bulk at water skiing to everyone's amusement, rambling over the bushy hills, bending a bow, or whatever else took your fancy.

The talks, however, do give each Congress its peculiar orientation. You branch out in a tangent from them. One in the morning and one at night with an afternoon of sunshine in between and a night of films, dancing and parties afterwards makes a pretty full day. To fit everything in, sleeping seems to be the thing you toss out. You'll find it's quite surprising how little you need when you get stimulated.

Often the talks, and the discussion which inevitably follows from them, carry on most of the time. This is a fairly good index of how interesting the speaker has been. You don't just lie around, listen to him, and loaf off when it's all over. You seem to find yourself mulling over what's been talked about, dissecting it, till you've got things clearer. If this is something you haven't tried at Varsity during term time, you'll find that it's valuable not only for Congress, but for afterwards, too.

Chance to think

Congress also provides that rare opportunity so important—the chance to think. It gives you material to think about in great quantity, and if you really want to, you can just sit down somewhere and think out not only your immediate concerns, but the ones you left behind or are perhaps going back to face.

Our modern curriculum-planned existence doesn't let us do that often enough.

Well, that is a brief outline of some of the more, significant happenings at the Cove. The place itself is also a delightful surprise.

You get to Picton and from there a launch runs you out through Queen Charlotte Sound for about an hour. Then it turns shorewards and nestling at the bottom of two sun drenched hills is the Cove, climbing out of the water, acres of it stretched out in the sunshine, your home for the next week.

Here you'll meet Captain Charlie, master of the Rongo, Stan Higgins, who runs the sporting side, the Mannings who look after everybody, and Clarrie Gibbons the student controller who has organised the Congress.

International flavour

Students from all over the place, Aussies and Colombo planners from Ceylon, Pakistan and elsewhere, give it an international flavour.

You don't have to worry about meals: you eat appetite-sized platefuls in a modem dining room and locally generated power is on tap for light and electric razors and the milking machines. Accommodation is mainly two-bunk huts, very comfortable, clean and airy, newly painted. Best of all, it is cheap.

Right from the word go the fun has started and you are made to feel right at home. And that week will have gone too fast for you.

You'll enjoy Congress and you'll enjoy meeting the people there. In fact, the friendships you make there are some of the most enduring. When all the talking and the parties ore forgotten they remain and linger on, old friends now.

Congress 1957 will be from January 25 to February 1, that is from Friday to Friday. Fees for VUC students will be £7/10/- for the week, of which £2 is payable as deposit when you make your application. Ferry transport will be available to and "from Picton. Application forms are available at the Executive Room (in Lower Gym.)