Looking Ahead, and Back
This month, April 2019, the Associated Country Women of theWorld will meet in Melbourne, Australia and a number of changes will occur. Atthe end of the Conference, we will have a new World President, and a new AreaPresident for Canada.
But while these changes are coming, many things will remainthe same: the dedication to helping women in the under developed countriesaround the globe, the friendships that have been forged between women of manydifferent nations, and the respect for those members and the countries theycall home for the projects they have undertaken to help forge a better world.
So this column will examine one point on which we all agree,yet have a slightly different approach.
Over the past number of years, I have examined a great manypapers linked to the history of the British Columbia Women's Institute. Themost recent boxes I have worked with were donated by Sharon Hatten, from hermother, Helene Hatten's collection of memorabilia over her many years ofmembership and travels around the world to ACWW conferences.
Here in British Columbia, members open their meetings withthe Mary Stewart Collect, as written in 1904 by Mary Stewart, an Americanschool teacher. In Helene's collection of papers, I found the following, printedon a card approximately the size of a recipe card:
The Country Women's Association of Tasmania Collect
Let us, O Lord, achieve the nobler purpose
For which we live – that others may be blest,
Save us from pettiness and all self-seeking:
Teach us to seek, to find, to give the best,
Let us be genuine with one another,
And see in each the best that we can find,
So many lives depend on ours for brightness
Lord, keep us brave, and help us to be kind.
To me, this is an echo of the Mary Stewart Collect, but givena touch that sets it a little apart. Sowe are the same, yet we are different, but being so, we can still work togetherto help our less fortunate sisters. Some change is needed at times, but withinthe Associated Country Women of the World, as long as we are on the same page,why fix what is working?
In this month of April, as decisions are being made half a world away, and as we mark Women Walk the World events, let's also celebrate our similarities and our differences, and continue to meet the challenges involved in helping one another to change those things that need to be changed.
Yours For Home and Country, Ruth Fenner, BCWI Historian
