After a day-long workshop, the women at a rural women’s conference were standing on their chairs doing war whoops that wouldn’t be out of place at a hockey arena.
The more than 100 women had been broken into four teams and were cheering on their teammates who were using a child’s golf club as they tried to shoot a plastic ball through an obstacle course to a plastic flowerpot at the end of the room.
Even with the cheering from their teammates and encouragement from the team mascots, the women who started out at the tenth, and farthest bowling pin, couldn’t hit their target.
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The game was about setting realistic, attainable goals, said one team captain, Tina Myles of Camrose, Alta.
“The people trying to start at 10 were disappointed every time,” said Myles. Earlier in the day, Saskatchewan rural development guru Monica Coneys told the women to take the 10-step approach to success. If a farm woman wants to start a new business or career, it will likely take 10 steps over two years. It can’t be accomplished in one shot.
“To me it was also about celebrating victory and the little milestones,” said Myles.
As part of a study on rural women’s needs, the Camrose Consulting Group hired Coneys to talk to the central Alberta farm women about how to change their lives or set up their own businesses.
Coneys’ energy had been key to transforming the town of Gravelbourg in southern Saskatchewan to a vibrant tourist community.
The enthusiastic South African now travels the Prairies teaching others to recognize the gems they have on the farm or in their community and how to make them shine.
During one exercise Coneys divided the women into small groups and had them draw a daisy-like flower on a piece of paper. The centre of the daisy would be what Coneys called the “winning racehorse.”
In Gravelbourg, Coneys’ winning racehorse was a local theatre. After it was restored several other businesses sprung up around it.
For some of the women that winning horse was the farm; for others it was their own local theatre.
Out of the centre the women attached petals, or ideas, that could spring from the winning horse.
“You’ll be blown away with the ideas that are right under our noses and don’t cost a fortune,” said Coneys.
The petals around the theatre included ideas like music festivals, dance classes, kitchen rentals, teen raves or a costume shop.
The petals around the farm included ideas like bird watching, community garden, petting zoo, bed and breakfast, motocross bike course, corn maze or tea house.
Even though the grain elevators have been torn down in many communities and the town isn’t as vibrant as it once was, there are plenty of gems still on the Prairies.
The search for such gems brought Vicki Argula of Wetaskiwin, Alta., to the conference. Argula runs a riding arena in the nearby community. While her riding arena is a success, she felt she was missing out on more things she could do with her place.
Liz Rolf was also trying to tap into the energy and enthusiasm.
“I feel like I’m stuck in this box,” said Rolf, a nurse with five kids and 300 cows back on the farm.
“I want more out of life and I don’t know what I want and I don’t know how to get it and it’s frustrating,” said Rolf.
“I know I want something more.”
Her dream is to take young kids around the world. Recently she took her daughters to Turkey to show them there was life beyond rural Alberta.
Marian Williams with Alberta Agriculture’s ag-entrepreneurship division said she could feel the optimism growing in the room all day.
“I’m hoping the women take some optimism and energy away from today.”
If rural communities are going to be transformed, it will be from within, not because there is a government grant or loan, Coneys told the group.
“Imagine the energy in this room to say the cavalry is not coming,” she said.
Coneys also used the African term shusholoze, or move on, throughout the presentation that she danced through.
Most women know the grain elevators are not going to be rebuilt and life isn’t going to be like it once was, but the families owe it to the young people to look to the future and not dwell on the past.
“We have dreams and ideas and energy and talent and room,” said Coneys.
