Celebrating 100 years of CWA NSW: Centenary seat unveiled

The centenary seat, which now sits outside the Armidale and District Historical society on Faulkner Street was unveiled Wednesday December 6, by life member Ruth Blanch and Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall.

Armidale Mayor Sam Coupland was also in attendance for the occasion.

Armidale branch president Llani Pevitt said she was proud to be a part of such a special day.

"The CWA of NSW had their centenary last year, unfortunately our bench was a bit late in arriving but this is our contribution to celebrate the 100th year.

"We are donating this seat to the Armidale council and dedicating it to all past present and future members of CWA Australia."

CWA means a lot to me personally. It's all about friendship and helping the community and importantly, having a voice for women."

There are 8000 CWA members in 369 branches scattered through NSW, the Armidale branch is one of 30 branches in the Northern Tablelands that meet annually for a state conference to discuss lobbying for change, helping local communities and creating networks of support.

Women from the country and the city in NSW and the ACT meet together to connect with others in their local area, fundraise and help set policies which are lobbied for at a state level.

"Some of the highlights for 2023 have been of course providing our famous scones and cup of tea at the Armidale show, we hold fundraising events for care assist, care flight and sleeping bags for the homeless.

"Another initiative of CWA I am very proud of I was the provision of funding for drought affected farmers and farming families experiencing hardship due to drought," said Ms Pevitt.

Ruth Blanch, who has been a CWA member for this amount years spoke to the crowd about the importance of community and how the CWA has endeavored to progress with the times.

"Continuous improvement is better than delayed action," she said quoting Mark Twain.

"Advocacy is in the forefront for CWA. Currently, an urgent request is to be presented to the government regarding repairing and making habitable government owned housing available to services providers for nurses and educators," said Ms Blanch.

After the seat was unveiled, fittingly it was inside the NOVA center for scones, tea and the cutting of the CWA cake. The honour to cut the cake was given to Ms Blanch and a surprise visitor Ross Murray, the great grandson of Grace Munro, founder and first president of the Country Women's Association.

Norther Tablelands MP Adam Marshal said the CWA centenary holds special significance for the tablelands area.

"For us as a region, I'd say there is more significance in celebrating the centenary of the CWA as our region was essentially the birthplace of CWA, Grace Munro was of course from Bingara."

"CWA has been a fundamental part of the social fabric for a century and is without doubt the most powerful political lobbying force I have ever known.

"They are highly regarded and have a huge array of incredible achievements behind them.

"For example, during the last drought CWA handed out over $16 million dollars of direct support for people in the region.

"It's amazing to think the CWA is still going strong and indeed is many aspects it is even stronger than it was 100 years ago," said Mr Marshall.