Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Spike [or Victoria University College Review 1954]

Socialist Club

page 86

Socialist Club

The Victoria University College Socialist Club has developed quite a lot since the last issue of Spike in 1949. Not only has the club become a fully accepted part of the College (the bogey of the double-breaster boys of the city), but it has adapted itself as the population of the College has changed. The returned-services members have been replaced over the years by younger students,

Club membership stands at a little over 100. No orthodoxy is expected from members, and indeed the qualifications for membership are an interest in social and political matters and a suspicion of the fallibility of the ideas of the Chambers of Commerce. All kinds and degrees of Socialists meet in the club—Christians, Fabians, Communists. Some of the club's best-known members, now pensioned off. are: Harry Evison, Denny Garrett, A. H. Scotney, Con Bollinger, Jim Winchester, Hec MacNeill, Pip and Tilly Piper and Doug Foy. Mr. F. L. Combs had been the club's president for many years.

Over the past eight years club records ("the minutes of the previous meeting were red and confirmed") show that the club has been busy. The club opposed conscription in 1949, and the conduct of the Korean war a year later. During the 1951 wharf lockout, Jock Barnes addressed a meeting sponsored by the club, and last year the Rosenbergs, and trouble with the Students' Association executive kept the club busy.

During the last year the club has become stronger. The N.Z. Student Labour Federation has been transferred to Christ-church and this has given committee members a chance to give more time to the College. The club is concerned over the poor state of student bursaries, and has produced questionnaires with which to get accurate information on student budgets. Many hundreds of these N.Z.S.L.F. questionnaires have been distributed with the co-operation of N.Z.U.S.A., and the results have been used to back bursary claims. The club has also pressed the Students' Association to extract the Government subsidy for the Student Union Building, and start work as soon as possible.

It has tried to come to terms with the changed interests of students by producing, for the S.L.F. a series of Occasional Papers. These are papers of good academic quality on N.Z. topics. Two are at present in print—New Zealand 1953, and a paper on N.Z. Foreign Policy by Professor Airey. A paper by Ormond Wilson, and another on Guatemala, are now in preparation.

This is, of course, in addition to the "normal" club activities—speakers, films, debates. This year Mr. Bertram has spoken of his recent travels, there have been several films and discussions, and some debates are projected. And, of course, the annual weekend school and buffet tea are still to come.

The club's chief problem is that it has no home. Its records, and the rudiments of its library, live under the secretary's bed. After a thorough search of the College, the club conceded that there was no vacant room which it could take over, and so has made every effort to get permission to erect a hut in the College grounds. Negotiations with the College Council are still under way.