No. 17 -- 14 Oct 1931

Mr. N.A. Hughes,
C/o Y.M.C.A. College,
5315 Drexel Avenue,
CHICAGO. Ill. U.S.A.

My dear Noel,

There is a mail leaving this afternoon, so I am dropping you a further line to give you additional news concerning affairs of the Association and at home.

Clipping from The Argus (8 Oct 1931), Page 5

The Queen Crowning Ceremony has been quite a big feature of the past month, and we are happy to say that it turned out to be a splendid success in every way. Each of the departments, Junior, Viking and Senior, "pulled their weight in the boat" and we had  such a multitude of fixtures that it became a severe tax upon everybody. I think in all over  40 separate functions were organised by the three committees in the interests of the Queens.

You can well understand what that meant both inside and outside of the Association. The Crowning Ceremony on Thursday last went off splendidly. Ivor Burge characterised it as "one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen". I think all of the folk who attended the ceremony were favorably impressed, and we have not heard one adverse comment. It meant a whale of a lot of work in preparation, but it was well worth while. I am enclosing a copy of the programme so that you will be able to follow the proceedings. The grand entry of the Queens was a very spectacular and impressive affair.

The voting was continued until about 9.15 p.m., then for a quarter of an hour we did not publish any results. this left the issue entirely in doubt, and during that time people were asked to contribute either in cash or promise, towards the voting for various Queens. When I made the announcement there was great excitement from the supporters of each of the Queens. The voting resulted as follows:--

Queen of Youth -- Kath Lilford --      30579 votes       £127  8  3
Queen of Juniors -- Ruby Davis --     30186 votes      £125:15  6
Queen of Vikings -- Lil. Langham --   22664 votes      £ 94   8  8

A total of £347:12:5. Of course expenses in connection with the effort will have to be deducted and I imagine that somewhere in the neighborhood of £300 will be the nett result. The whole effort was an excellent thing in that it welded together the various departments in one useful effort and its by-products in this respect were particularly good.

Kath Lilford stands
behind Edith Hughes

Kath had had a very heavy cold for some days prior to the Crowning Ceremony, but she managed to keep going alright, and is now quite well again. This effort entailed a tremendous amount of work upon the various groups and I personally feel that they have rendered very fine service to the Association in bringing the competition through so successfully.

We have had quite a lot of sickness in the house. Matron has been kept busy with attendance upon 'flu patients. There has been a very serious epidemic of influenza during the past tow months.  Some of the hospitals have had wards filled with nurses who were unable to continue their work because of the 'flu. Miss Bourchier was also away and so was Wally Muston. Muriel Ratcliffe is also down the 'flu just now.

In view of the legislation resulting in a reduction in mortgage interest, we are appealing to our debenture holders to accept a 1 1/2% reduction so that in future the rate of interest payable will be 5 1/2% We are hoping that they will agree to this arrangement. Of course, if any of them object to it we must keep our contract with them and pay 7%.

With all the interest centred in the Queen Carnival, we had a pretty lean month in finances in September, consequently we went back about £350. Our deficit to the end of September is £2419. This is a very serious position to be in, and we are having special meetings of the Finance Committee to see whether we can effect still further economies. This business is getting on our nerves a bit, and we are all feeling a bit frayed by the continual worry over finances. Despite all that we have done to promote additional business, we have had very little result from the extra promotion.

I have had several letters from America during the last few days, and also from England. In a letter I received from John Pontius, he spoke of meeting you at Cleveland. I am quoting from his letter -- "It is my sincere hope that we may be afforded the pleasure of having him at our home at intervals while he is in America. I extended an invitation to him to consider our home his American home during  his sojourn here; and I sincerely hope he will accept that at its face value. When he wants to get away from student environment into real home atmosphere, Mrs. Pontius and I shall be very glad indeed to have him feel free to visit us. I say that we told him this. Lest he be hesitant about accepting it I wish that you would write him and confirm the literal intent as well as the spirit of our invitation." Pontius also said that they had a visit from Alec. Moodie.

Fred. J. Smith of Toronto wrote -- " It was certainly great to meet your fine son during the Toronto Convention. I went out of town during the latter days of the Conference, and when I returned Noel had gone, and I have not been in touch with him since, but hope I will have the opportunity of meeting him again soon.

Ralph Cole has written me a second letter in which he referred to the pleasure it gave him to have you in their party en route to the conference.

F.J. Chamberlain, National Secretary of Great Britain, also referred to his meeting with you and so did David Gunn, the General Secretary of the Y.M.C.A. at Doncaster, England.

The National Convention is booked for November 21 to 23 at Melbourne. We are expecting reasonably good delegation from the other Associations, especially from the Victorian centres. I must confess I wonder just what we are going to do in the way of legislation at this convention, although in some senses it is necessary that we should meet to discuss future policy, especially in relation to national work. Mr. Trainor who was to have finished up with the National Committee on the 30th September, is continuing until after the Convention. Mr. Woodcraft is still in New Zealand, but I do not think he is having much success in his financial solicitation.

Messrs. Crosby, Jenner, Hooke, McKean, Nichol, Forster, etc. are all keeping well.

Ivor Burge is to be married on the 7th November, to Miss Eileen Laurie. Messrs. Jutsum, Gollan, Gray, Way, Hines and other others on the staff are all keeping well. We have to answer a large number of enquiries from the members, residents, etc. as to how you are getting along.

The kiddies at home are well. Both of them are greatly excited over the Guild Display which is to be held on October 29th, and next Friday the competition for medals will be held. Both of them are hoping to be successful, although I do not think that Joy can expect to win the medal this year, as it was her first year in the senior section.

Rex. has been away for over a week installing talkie apparatus in one of the country towns. Keith is still without a job, although he expects to be with the Texaco Company for 10 days or a fortnight commencing on Monday next.

Mother is keeping well and is, of course, concerned as to how you are getting along. You must give her some particulars regarding how you are faring so as to assuage her concern.

All our attempts to dispose of the Amplifier have so far met with no success. There has been such a tremendous drop in values, that I do not think that we are likely to get anything like £40 for the job or even half of it.

Ruth has practically finished her probation and we expect she will be taking up full responsibilities as a nursing trainee. She seems to be very much in love with her job.

I must finish now. I know you will do your best to give us full news concerning your new work. I sincerely hope you are finding everything  to your satisfaction. I should like to know just what attitude has been taken by the College authorities in relation to your entrance exam.

Be good enough to get Mr. Haughton to send me several copies of the catalogue with the small pamphlets giving other particulars.

With warm love from us all,
Yours affectionately,
Dad.