Governor of NSW General David Hurley challenged CWA delegates from throughout NSW to be "agents for change" opening the group's State Conference in Cowra yesterday.
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"You are agents for change," General Hurley told more than 600 delegates at the Cowra Showground Pavilion on Monday morning.
"You have been central to some of the most significant change in rural NSW and Australia throughout our history," he said.
"Be the rock that rural women need.
"The CWA is both the flour in the damper and the fire in the rural belly, that's what people think of you and that is what people expect of you," General Hurley said.
"You can't survive and be important to the community without change.
"Grasp it, welcome it, its a different world out there, you know that as well as I do.
"People have different needs, they have different times frames, it's a 24/7 world, you know the pressures out in regional and rural areas.
"You know what's happening in work places, you know what's happening in communities.
"You need to think through that now and ask what are the core strengths of our organisation.
"You need to ask what's driven us, over the last 94 years, what do we hold onto and how do we change?
"I look at your program rural crime, climate change, women's health, coal seam gas, teacher profesional development, which of those are not significant in the community that you will grapple with and that you will lead with.
"Grasp it, run with it and at the end of this process be an even more powerful organisation that the rural women of our state need.
"That's the task you have."
On a lighter note General Hurley told delegates they needed to put their conference program alongside the number of scones they sold at the Royal Easter Show each year.
"An electronic banner going past there, you'd sell 100,000 scones," he said.
In conclusion he told the delegates to continue to be a voice for rural women and the rural community.
Delagtes will continue to meet with business sessions planned until Thursday morning this week.
The CWA will use the meeting to formulate policy positions on a range of issues significant to regional communities.
Some of the motions to be voted on include campaigning for funding for early childhood learning centres, that desecration or abuse of the Australian flag be made a criminal offence, the removal of te GST from feminine hygiene products, and the removal of all advertisements for fast cash loans.
Andrew Fisher
