IT has been an institution for many country and regional-based women for almost a century.
And since the first branch of the Country Women’s Association of WA was formed on July 7, 1924 in the Wheatbelt town of Nungarin, the organisation has grown to currently sit at around 135 branches and more than 2000 members.
Overseeing these branches, which are continuing to increase in number, is CWA WA State president Heather Allen, for whom the association has been a part of her life for more than 40 years.
Despite the past year being extremely “full-on” since being voted president at the 2016 State conference, Heather has relished the role which she never would have dreamed of reaching all those years back when attending her very first branch meeting.
Although, she admits with a laugh, she has much broader shoulders now than she did at the same time last year.
“It has been a lot of fun, but also people can criticise you as well, and you just have to accept that,” she said.
Fittingly, Heather is a country WA woman through and through, having been born in Kalgoorlie and living in the regions for almost her entire life.
Her father was in mining, and around the age of five her family moved from Kalgoorlie to Bullfinch, being part of the gold mining industry.
Following three years at boarding school in Perth and a year at business college, when she lived with her grandmother, Heather returned to Bullfinch where she worked in the office at the mine.
She moved with her parents to Morawa in 1964, which was her first experience in a community with both farming and mining industries.
In 1967 the travel bug soon took hold and over the next six years she spent time travelling to many parts of the world, taking on a wide variety of work.
It was her involvement in another association, the youth program Rotaract, which led to her meeting husband Peter initially in Perth, and then again in Geraldton.
Meeting and then marrying Peter was when Heather began, what she refers to, as her farming life, moving to his property at East Ogilvie, in the Northampton Shire.
“It was a big learning curve – just so totally different,” she said.
“It was so isolated, with not much in the way of phones or roads, which was totally different to living in mining communities which were very well set-up.”
She recalls a dear lady, the late Elsie Wilton, inviting her to go along to a meeting of the local CWA branch at Yuna in 1975, which was her first involvement with the association.
“I didn’t play a lot of sport, and it was one way of meeting people, particularly being new to the area,” she said.
Little did she know that although she continued attending the meetings, she wouldn’t be regarded as an official member until her membership fee was paid, yet no-one ever asked her for that payment – not until 1977 – two years after first going to a meeting.
So the records state that it was in fact in 1977 that she became an official member of the association – 40 years ago – for which she recently received a loyalty badge.
“These days I’m sure to tell people to follow up with members if they haven’t renewed their membership, just in case they may have missed that particular meeting, because if they do miss a year it could mean an interruption of their continuous service,” she said.
Heather enjoyed many fun-filled times with around 20 other members of the Yuna branch over the years as her family grew to include three children, such as holding fetes, bistros, cabarets, and even gardening competitions.
Around 2008-09 they even produced a calendar with a difference which included members and the bush flowers of the district around the Yuna area.
This was a fundraising activity for CWA of WA and Breast Cancer.
But about four years ago Heather and the other “older” members decided to break away and form the Geraldton-based branch Champion Bay, leaving Yuna for the younger local women to take over.
And they’ve certainly done that – Heather said the branch was still going strongly with about 25 members from the surrounding farming area.
While times, and farming for that matter, have changed, Heather said the main CWA of WA principles had remained the same.
She has seen a trend towards night groups, which has been a great way for working women to still be involved with a branch.
When she first joined the Yuna branch, they would meet one afternoon a month from about 1.30-4.30pm and work towards a fete, bistro or other upcoming activity while sharing afternoon tea.
Those meetings later moved to mornings, which is when the more recently formed Champion Bay branch also meets.
But Heather said there was a lot of demand from women who worked driving night-meeting branches, including Greenbushes, Baldivis Belles and Safety Bay Belles.
While Geraldton is now home to two CWA branches, Heather believes there would be enough demand to justify setting up a third one to cater for the local working women with these meetings being held in the evenings.
“We have to accept the new ideas of the younger generation coming through, while staying within the constitution of the association,” she said.
“These women like the values of the CWA and what we are working for, and holding meetings at night means they can still work and be a member.”
Another exciting trend was the number of branches that were restarting or joining forces, such as Kalgoorlie, Cunderdin, Dalwallinu and Districts and Burekup, and the potential for new branches in towns including Exmouth and Meekatharra.
The main aim of CWA is to improve the well-being of all people, especially those in country areas by promoting courtesy, co-operation, community, effort, ethical standards and the wise use of resources.
While at the helm for the past 12 months, and also in previous years in the role of State treasurer, Heather has been thrilled to be closely involved in giving back to the community.
For example, the CWA has the Sir James Mitchell education fund, where money is raised by members and then given to families in need; and also the Rural Medical Scholarship, which provides one medical student studying at The University of WA with $10,000 per year for the term of their full-time medical degree.
