BIRSAY, Sask. – Members of Saskatchewan Women’s Institutes were cheering at their annual meeting
June 3.
They had more money and more members than the previous year.
There are now 96 members, an increase of six in the past year. A third of the total membership was at their provincial annual meeting and a dozen SWI members will be attending the national organization’s convention in Red Deer later this month.
The books also showed SWI had $13,045 in the bank as of May 31, 2006, up $3,000 from the year before. Besides membership fees, the largest income sources were $2,570 in royalties from a special reprint of the SWI 1955 cookbook and $3,500 in the administration fund, helped by donations from the 10 regional branches. The provincial government does not give any money to the SWI.
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Former SWI president Doreen Holden of Fertile, Sask., said of the group, “we’re small, we’re broke, but we support the national organization.”
A fundraiser this year to send money to the national and international WI groups required each member to measure her waist and donate the result at 10 cents per inch.
Holden said Saskatchewan may be small in numbers but it is “big in waistline.” Many members just tossed in $5 rather than resort to a more accurate but smaller measurement.
SWI has also stepped up to organize a three day area conference this October of the Associated Country Women of the World. New Brunswick’s WI was to have hosted it and backed out. Ontario, with its thousands of WI members did not offer to organize the event, said Holden, who noted the Manitoba WI said it would assist SWI. Ursula Goh, the world president, will attend the Regina meeting, as will Canadian WI members, the American WI region president and members of the National Farmers Union women’s committee.
A discussion about fundraising by the branches revealed that one has a raffle at each monthly meeting of a small item. Another has a sunshine fund with donations based on the number of sunny winter days. Others recalled having a “grumpy goose” bag into which a quarter was tossed each time a member made a negative remark.
Holden told the group that “it’s amazing how members will spend $1, $2 or $5 on a little item but talk about raising the membership fee $10 and we get a lot of flak.”
