AFTER 120,000 kilometres of travel, Country Women’s Association of NSW president Tanya Cameron is saying farewell to her beloved position.
After three years in the ‘hot seat’, Mrs Cameron said a very tearful farewell in front of more than 500 CWA members at the state Annual General Meeting after fulfilling her maximum term.
Mrs Cameron thanked the members and her husband Jeff and their three adult children Emma, Joshua and Mark for their support in her final report to the conference.
Mrs Cameron’s dedication to the job has taken her constantly away from the family’s 3200-hectare “Mayleigh” property, Rowena, near Collarenebri, where they run Herefords and dryland cropping, but she says it has been an interesting and challenging job.
Looking back at three busy years, Mrs Cameron said she was most proud of what the members had achieved.
“I came in at a time when we were in the process of selling our Potts Point site and I am most proud of the the members, their willingness to look at a huge change for the organisation, to weigh up the pros and cons and to make a decision that set up the organisation for a more viable future,” she said.
She was also thrilled that the CWA was becoming more attractive to younger women, and that despite changing the way the organisation does things, the core values had remained.
“Someone said to me the other day the CWA is trendy,” she said. “It is so nice to see our younger members knitting and crocheting. These are skills that are missing a generation.”
“We’ve kept our value system and not allowed ourselves to be hijacked, not allowed our rational or reasonable approach to be altered or changed.”
There are still some things that haven’t quite come to fruition, but Mrs Cameron is hopeful.
“I really wanted to see how we could have an online membership. At the moment women have to be attached to a branch, and that’s fine as long as there’s not that expectation that they have to come to a meeting because a lot of people can’t,” she said.
“We are trying to encourage existing branches to either have meetings at different times or at least alternating meetings so they accommodate working women.
“I think we need to start thinking a little laterally and start looking outside the square.
“I think there is a renewed interest in the organisation and what it stands for. It is not just for retired women.
“We don’t just knit and make scones.”
