Country Women’s Association groups from around Australia journeyed to Cowra Showground Pavilion last week for their annual State Conference. Over 600 ladies attended the conference, with more than 30 groups representing various branches of the CWA including the Nepean Group from Parramatta, the Canberra Branch, Hunter River, Ballina and the Gwydir Group who were based half an hour from Queensland.
One topic up for discussion included a medical research project for 2017 on Lyme disease, which the CWA has already collectively donated $35,000 towards. There were also two guest speakers, one of which was Jessica Jones who was described as being ‘particularly good’. Jennifer spoke of CWA branches that were opened to encourage Aboriginal women to participate, improve their living conditions and give them confidence.
After the conference a mixed group of members travelled to Canowindra to enjoy an afternoon high tea complete with dainty cakes at Montrose House hosted by the Canowindra CWA before exploring the Age of Fishes Museum. When asked what they enjoyed about the day a lady from the Nepean branch said; “I thought it was a really good conference. We got through some important issues and no blood was spilt! I learnt about B12 and how it can help improve symptoms of dementia, I work with people with Alzheimer’s so that was particularly interesting to me.” Another lady sensibly remarked, “the venue was great, the toilets were clean, these are all important things!”
President of the Canowindra CWA, Bev Taylor, was pleased with how the day went, “it’s been lovely and we’d like to thank Tommy for kindly letting us have tea at Montrose House.” The overall consensus from the day was of how articulate CWA ladies are to discuss subjects with such vigour and how proud each of them are to be a CWA member.