Home & Country (Summer 2005)

              Home & Country
Alberta Women's Institutes S u m m e r 2005 Mission Statement Women of all ages who achieve change through personal growth, communication and education.

From Phyllis' Desk
Phyllis Kosik, President

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In this issue: Dates and Deadlines ............. 2 Dear Editor .......................... 2 President Elect ...................... 3 FWIC Report ....................... 3 Creative Writing Awards ....... 4 District Reports ............. 4 & 5 Convention Reports ............. 6 ACWW Report .................... 7 Erland Lee Award ................. 7 AWI Quilt ............................ 8 Girls Club News .................. 9 Branch News........ 10,11,12 In Memoriam .................... 11 Quilt Raffle ........................ 12

e had a great convention! If you missed it, read the past council's articles to get the highlights. We were very fortunate to have Margaret Yetman, the FWIC President here for the convention. Margaret was delighted to give the Erland Lee award to Grant Bird. Neither he nor his wife knew about it. He had been told that his wife was getting an award and they wanted him there. It was a delightful surprise for both of them. Grant has been a boon to the Women's Institute for years and his name was brought up to the council in January to be considered for the Award. We have decided to follow the lead of FWIC and " Adopt A Village" in the northern part of Alberta. We haven't been assigned a specific village as yet but we are working through the MLA for one of the constituencies and the "On Eagles' Wings" organization. So if you would like to start knitting or crocheting afghans or making quilts, or gathering baby things, books etc., we will let you know in the next mail out where to send them. As many of you stated in your reports and in your Convention evaluations, we should be more concerned with the needs of Albertans. We have been trying for months to get a response from the MLA's in the north but we did not hear from them. I remembered that the "On Eagles Wings" organization does a lot for the isolated northern communities of Saskatchewan and Alberta. I contacted them and got a response right away. They will be informing me shortly which villages need what but the woman I spoke to mentioned the things I just did. After talking to them I have finally received a response from one MLA and so we will be working with both for this project. As this is an extensive project, I think that we may extend this project for longer than just one year. Look for more on this in my newsletter! The assembly at the convention this year, voted to have a one-half day Convention in 2006 on the day that the FWIC Convention starts. They also want to have the craft competition. So ladies get busy on your best craft. We want to have a great display over the FWIC Convention. I want to thank each CC and DD who stayed to help us clean up the meeting room after this year's convention. We appreciate it very much. It didn't take very long either. Thanks again!wi