RUSSELL, Man. – At the front of the room, 42 official Manitoba Women’s Institute delegates sit at tables and use blue voting cards.
At the back, sitting on chairs and balancing papers on their laps, sit an equal number of women – listening, questioning, but not able to vote.
It’s a division that won’t be repeated at future Manitoba Women’s Institute meetings.
Last week the delegates voted 32 to 10 to make a constitutional change so that individuals can join the women’s institute. Previously, the women’s institute was structured as a federation of locals and women would join a branch. That meant only the local’s official delegates could vote at the provincial level.
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“We feel that we’ve been freed up,” said Manitoba Women’s Institute president Audrey Grier.
The membership change “gives us an outreach to the busy and professional women who are in rural areas – but also the city. They’ve tumbled to us.”
Grier said the day after the delegates approved the individual membership the Manitoba Women’s Institute gained four new members who were at the meeting as spectators. The membership entering the convention was 932, a third of them farm women.
Grier said she came to the president’s role in 1994 with this change as her mandate. “My feeling was that everyone should be able to vote and debate. … We still have a structure but it’s looser.”
Grier said young women didn’t like the rigid rules that have been part of the institute. This freer association for women who can’t make meetings because of on- and off-farm work will still allow them input and visibility in the organization.
Issues explained
The vote narrowly got the necessary two-thirds approval. Grier credited the work of the restructuring committee which held meetings in late winter across the province explaining the issue and getting comments.
During the debate Dorothy Mirish summed up the attitude of many fellow delegates.
“I believe the WI starts with the locals,” Mirish said. “But I also believe when 21 locals are lost in three years, this organization will die. I am opposed to the idea of this dual structure but it’s the only way we can possibly survive.”
From the back of the room, Marion McNab came to the microphone to say: “It bothers me that the women in locals feel threatened … it’s like what my doctor said when I was complaining about growing old, ‘it’s better than the alternative.’ “
Following acceptance of the individual membership concept, the rest of the constitutional changes were passed by the delegates with larger majorities. The constitutional changes must go before the provincial legislature to get the formal change.
While individual members of Manitoba Women’s Institute will get a vote at the next convention, they won’t be able to send proxies until the 1997 meeting. The bylaw to allow written proxies was amended to read that the procedure would be determined at a prior annual meeting. The process of how to use proxies will be worked out in meetings with members this year, said restructuring committee member Dawn Harris.
While members approved setting up a “Forever Fund” to allow the institute to accept tax-exempt donations, a proposed amendment failed that would direct the money to the Canadian or international women’s institute level if the Manitoba institute dissolves. Restructuring committee member Lois Neabel said: “I guess we assumed MWI would never end.”
She suggested and delegates agreed, to defeat the amendment and leave the fund’s fate to procedures, not put it in the constitution.
To improve communication between members and the provincial board, each region will appoint a representative to come to the board meetings.
Membership fees will be $30 per individual, with $5 going back to the region as an incentive for them to get more members.
