Home & Country (Spring 2005)

              Home and Country Spring 2005

U p North
Kay Saastad, District One Director

O n e View from Two
Irene Moir, District Two Director

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istrict One winter has been filled with Christm a s celebrations, t h e school essay p r o j e c t , donations to community events, a food safe course, knitting preemie toques, and working on a recipe book. Members that went on trips brought back pictures and information on their travels. The Grande Prairie W.I. were asked to put a display in the city Public Library depicting their 80 years as a W.I. This W.I. started the library 65 years ago. What a wonderful legacy our W.I.s are leaving in our communities. January is the start of new programs with handicrafts, educational speakers and studies, and helping with community events. It is also the time to plan spring meetings, conferences and our special event, the Provincial convention. Remember a table centre piece and period dress for the banquet as we also celebrate Alberta's 100th Birthday. Peace River constituency conference will be on April 22 at Berwyn and Grande Prairie's on the 23 at Homestead Hall, Valhalla. As these events are open to the public my wish is for all of you to have a full to overflowing venue.wi
Alice Lowis District Three Director

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adies as you all know our membership is dwindling and at our Constituency Conferences there are fewer members each year. Your Constituency Conveners work very hard to hold an interesting and educational conference. In 2004 at Yellowhead East, one of the speakers Liz Betz spoke about Memories and how unique they are to you. If you can talk, you can write. Sharon Stredwick spoke on Stress, most interesting. In Yellowhead East there are seven branches Birch Creek, Creighton, Five Point, Lavoy, Princess Anne, Vermilion, Quinte with a total membership of 58 members. In Stony Plain-Lac Ste. Anne, there are five branches, Echo Hill, Darwell, Duffield, Drayton Valley, Stony Plain with total membership of a total of 74 members. Kerri O'Shaughnessy, Riparian specialist with Cows and Fish, spoke about our water supplies and school children from Busby School sang beautifully for us. In Athabasca Landing there are 4 branches, Abee, Colchester, Wandering River and Warspite, with St. Albert resting this year. They have 58 members in total. At their conference the guest speaker was Ellen McGladdery, a retired nurse who presented a history of health from the early years to Medicare and into Healthy Living. She had a lot of brochures dealing with various aspects of health. Of course we have all the reports and discuss W.I. business. Ideas and suggestions can be brought up at these conferences. There is always coffee time and later lunch and then tea time and time for visiting before we leave for home. I hope I have created some interest in your attending the Constituency Conferences this year. The dates are printed on page 2. I know they will be interesting and remember this is your organization, so I am looking forward to seeing you. Congratulations and thank you to Drayton Valley for inviting me to attend their 50th Anniversary tea in October, 2004. Too bad the weather did not co-operate so more could attend and meet these enthusiastic members. Congratulations to Vermilion who will be celebrating 90 years, this year! "Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it."wi

T i d b i t s from District Three

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y the time you read this we are hoping this winter will be almost finished. However, if we remember what our pioneers faced and all the technology that we h a v e , we are so much better off. Alberta's 100th birthday is this year, a grand event to look forward to. Remember "Let's Celebrate Alberta" in June at the AWI Convention! District Three has had another busy year with many branches making and raffling quilts. Eight of our Branches are putting together quilts for 2006 and in some cases other Branches will raffle them. This is a wonderful project, the brain child of Blanche Cunningham, and you all responded so generously. Our

quilts will have homes all over Alberta, one in the Alberta Legislature. It appears that some Branches are on the verge of folding and that is so sad. The good news is that some ladies in the Wheatsheaf area east of Coronation have started up again, even though there are only four ladies at present. We encourage them to keep going and hope they will be able to attend some conferences this year. I understand that their main project is marking old school sites and I believe some other Branches are doing this too. Many W.I.s are caring for cemeteries and keeping up with ongoing repairs. There are grants available for such things as fencing, trees etc. so if you are one of these groups please apply for grants where you can. We know costs go up

f o r everything a n d it becomes h a r d e r to do p r o j e c t s . However, W.I. women a r e resourceful and we can overc o m e any obstacle! We have so much to look forward to in Canada, we may have our differences as the Collect says, but in everything that matters, we are one! This will be my last entry in the Home and Country and I want to thank each of you for your help and kindness to me these past three years. Your support has meant so much and I look forward to still meeting you at Conferences in the years to come.wi

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