Women's Group to be 'Revitalized'

Source: AWI Collection

Transcript: Worn
To Be ' Revitalized
The Alberta Women's In­stitute
is taking a frank look
at the effectiveness of its or­ganization.
Mrs. Joseph ( Martha) Biel-ish,
of Warspite, provincial
president in her third term
of office, told District 2 Con­ference
in the Corona Hotel
Tuesday that " sacred cows"
would have to go if the organ­ization
was going to continue
to be a vital force in the life
of Canadian women.
She told the more than 120
women delegates from the 63
Northern Alberta branches
that the Women's Institute
would lose its privileges if it
only wanted to be entertained.
MAKE CHANGES
In a conference theme of
Assessment and Challenge,
Mrs. Bielish said the AWI
would be making changes to
streamline its organization to
simplify leadership and avoid
a duplication of services.
She said individual groups
must find out what the inter­ests
of the women in their
communities are and find
ways to meet them.
" You start by giving a new
member confidence by accept­ing
her as a person at the
first meeting — she should
go home feeling she enjoyed
the meeting and that she
learned something," Mrs. Biel­ish
said.
Bones were rattled earlier
in the afternoon session of the
two- day conference when Miss
Patricia Mascaluk, home man­agement
specialist with the
provincial department of ag­riculture,
spoke on the prob­lems
women's organizations
are facing today.
" Three kinds of bones cause
a lot of trouble: wishbones,
jawbones and knucklebones —
the wishers, the talkers and
the knockers.
" Then the backbones get
under the load and do all the
work," Miss Mascaluk said.
She said most women would
do better to be an active work­er
in one organization than a
passive member of six.
Organizations should clear­ly
define their goals for a
year, evaluate them in accord
with the needs of the com­munity,
make decisions ef­fectively
and quickly and take
action on decisions.
" Declining memberships in
women's organizations are
caused by over- organization,
lack of leadership, failure to
solve problems and involve
members in interesting pro­grams
to meet needs of the
group and the community,"
Miss Mascaluk said. MR