40 years of good advice

Foundation member Betty Fisher (left) and Helen Bourne cut the cake to celebrate 40 years of CAB. PICTURE: PAUL BROOKS

Citizens' Advice Bureau Whanganui celebrated 40 years since its foundation on Saturday with a lunch, speeches and cake cutting at Kingsgate Hotel.

Chairman Helen Bourne praised the volunteers who make the organisation relevant.

"It's not for the faint-hearted," she says of volunteering. "When you pick up the phone or someone walks in the door, you don't know what people are going to say. We are there for anything and everything so you have no idea what that person wants. It's completely unpredictable. Our volunteers are really special."

There are 29 volunteers and all positions are voluntary.

The Wanganui bureau was opened on June 4, 1974 at 120 Guyton St. It is still there, although the original building was moved to Masterton in 2006. Their purpose-built offices, owned by St Paul's Presbyterian Church, are the envy of bureaux around the country.

In 1974 there were 1200 enquiries from the public. Last year there were 2400. Enquiries peaked at between 4000 and 5000 in the late 1980s.

Foundation member Betty Fisher helped Helen with the cake cutting.

Betty joined the bureau after hearing an ad on the radio. "I heard they were setting up a Citizens' Advice Bureau and that they were looking for volunteers," she says. "I finished in 1996 when computers came in."