1939 - Convention Report

              40 A L B E R T A WOMEN'S INSTITUTES
Then, of course, there was the annual Convention at Olds, for which I
planned the program, and which I attended in the capacity of Supervisor and
friend. But there will be more about this, later.
On the Friday before Convention, I went to Jasper, at the invitation of
the three Clubs there, to give demonstrations and inform these Clubs of the
work being done by other Clubs throughout the Province, I found the Clubs
there very active, with splendid Supervisors; I was delighted with my visit
there, and greatly encouraged. This is the only town boasting three Clubs: a
Junior, an Intermediate and a Senior; all very active and happily working
along the lines of our A. W. I. G. C. program. I wish to take this occasion to
thank the Supervisors and the W. I. Constituency Supervsior, for their kind
hospitality, and the grand work they are doing.
I want to give a bit more attention to Jane's report; she says:
" Our membership is changing, we grow up, you know. Wouldn't it be
fun to find out just how many of these members are now W. I. members?"
The largest number of Clubs are in District No. 4. I asked Jane what
she felt was the culmination and object of the Girl's Clubs' work. Her reply
is: " Primarily our objective is always the same, to make better women, better
homemakers, to live at peace and companionably, and to build our characters;
to follow our mothers and our Institute mothers. A grand motto for us, I
think, is, " Yet all experience is an arc wherethrough gleams that untravelled
world, whose margin fades, forever and forever as I move," from Ulysses, my
favorite poem."
So wrote Jane, and much in the same line is the message which Her E x ­cellency,
the Lady Tweedsmuir, was so kind to send the girls on the occasion
of their twenty- first birthday.
T H E C I T A D EL
QUEBEC
24th June, 1939.
" I am sending you a message to say that I hope your work will progress
well, and that you will always keep in front of you the necessity of doing
really first- rate work. Women's Institute work should always be done with
serious care, and every detail of it faithfully pei- formed, for we want it to
bear the hall mark of the very best that is produced. The Junior as Well as
the Senior Women's Institute members should always remember that we are
one of the greatest educational movements in the world. The Junior Clubs
have a great chance of learning many things of the Women's Institutes, and
I send them all my best wishes on their twenty- first birthday." This message
was deeply appreciated by our girls.
And as to the work the Clubs are doing, I find that many have contributed
to the radium fund, a movement that they adopted from the W. I.; several
make annual donations, even to the proceeds of an evening's entertainment
to the Red Cross and the Woods' Christian Home; and nearly every Club
does sunshine work in its own way in its own community. They voted to
continue giving the scholarship of $ 25.00 a year.
And now this splendid organization plans to study First Aid and Home
Nursing, wherever possible, and to contact the Canadian Red Cross Asso­ciation
for material and help as far as they can; very worthy aims, it
seems to me. Many of the girls in past years, have gone as a Club to the
annual Convention at Olds, or to some camping ground where they might enjoy
a summer holiday together.