PH25594 - Local Ladies Attend WI Conference

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Community : Bradford West Gwillimbury
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Description : Local Ladies Attend WI Conference
By Mrs. Harold Watson

WATERLOO - The 34th annual officers conference Women's Institute of Ontario (WI) was held May 4 to 6 at the University of Waterloo. The theme of the conference was: to accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but believe.

The 1982 conference year was public relations officers at branch districts, area levels and branch members at large. Mrs. Keith Hiepleh of FWIO chairman, chaired the meeting. Mrs. Hiepleh introduced Mr. R. McNeil, minister of agriculture who urged all to help support agriculture, to believe in Ontario for it is a great province to live in. We must dream, but also act in the future, self sufficiency, produce our own food. Buy Ontario foods, keep our money in our province, we are helping our economy. This is good PR.

SPEAKER

Guest speaker, Walter Borosa, chief of protocol, government of Ontario, was born in Yugoslavia. Protocol is the rule book that they must follow to gain respect of one another. He has conducted 17 royal visits to Canada, we well as many friends from other countries. This mean good public relations.

Mrs. Hiepleh, in her address, said we, as chosen delegates from 14 subdivisions, had been given a golden opportunity to promote PRO with each other. The WI is celebrating its 85th anniversary. In honor of the founding of the first WI, near Stoney Creek. Mrs. Westerbring-Muller, president to ACCW will be the guest speaker. The topic will be a flicker to a flame. Over 1,000 women are expected to attend.

4-H

Miss Molly McGee, director of home economics branch, Ontario ministry of agriculture and foods brought greetings. Miss McGee reported 4-H groups are the only groups in Ontario who have maintained the highest membership in 1982 with 5,000 leaders and 2,020 WI assistants. These are enthusiastic young women working for our country and WI.

Mrs. Verna Mulloski gave the Erland Lee presentations. This is the 10th anniversary of our purchasing of the Erland Lee home, near Stoney Creek by WI. The committee worked very hard to maintain this home to the original state. The home was built in 1864. The first year, 6,000 visited the home. Mr. Lee organized the teaching of domestic science in the schools in approximately 1885.

DIED?

Bruce Johnston of CKCO TV in Kitchener, was asked to speak to WI. Mr. Johnston said he knew nothing of WI, he thought it had died and gone to heaven. Looking into WI activities and history, he found they were a very large group of dedicated women of the world and deserved a great deal of credit.

A musical, Gilbert and Sullivan's Princess Ida, by students from Waterloo's Oxford Secondary School presented the play Wednesday evening. This was enjoyed by all.

Thursday morning, plenary session conducted by Mrs. J. Born, PROFWIO. Through the untiring effort of Mrs. Adelaide Hoodless, and Mr. Erland Lee cofounders of WI, there are 1,207 branches in Ontario with 27,490 members, 113 districts in Ontario associated country women of the world, nine million members with 30,000 across Ontario.

These people made it possible for over 560 PRO officers of the FWIO to attend the officers conference. These are most important.

Who am I? I am a member of the Women's Institute. Those attending from the Bradford area were: Mrs. Harold Watson, district 14 PRO Simcoe South; Mrs. O Hughes, Mrs D. Jebb, Mrs. A. Haines, Mrs. A. Orr and Mrs. H. Campbell, Shanty Bay musical directors.