Education | Action | Advocacy |
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Women Helping Women for a Better Future |
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CFUW Ontario Council News |
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In this Issue
- Messages from the Ontario Council President & Past President
- From the AGM
- Membership Challenge winners & strategies
- Carolyn Day Award winner and honourable mentions
- Club anniversaries
- Fall Gatherings on September 10th (Perth) and 17th (Stratford)
- Climate Action Corner
- Club News & Events
If you are having problems viewing this e-mail, click on the View as a Webpage link in the top right corner.
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Messages from Ontario Council Presidents |
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Message from Sandy Thomson, President 2016-2022
When I look back on my six years as your president and the years before that on the National Board and as Regional Director of ON Huron, I are very grateful for the opportunity it has provided to serve and learn.
I am deeply fortunate to have worked with many outstanding women, both on the boards and with the OC clubs.
I wish nothing but the best for CFUW Ontario Council, CFUW National and for all the 48 clubs in our great province.
Sandra Thomson, Immediate Past President, CFUW Ontario Council
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Message from Teresa Habs, President 2022-2024
Hello to all Ontario Clubs! My first message as your newly installed CFUW OC President will be something like Ontario summers – short!
I first had the pleasure of getting to know many of you as the Editor of the former newsletter we called “Dates and Data”. Then, as Treasurer for Ontario Council, I had the opportunity to meet many more members during the times when we met for our Standing Committee Meetings in Toronto, now known as our Speakers Series.
Now, here we are looking ahead to the next biennium!
Before I get into that, I’d like to say how thankful I am for the great work done by the former OC Board and our Immediate Past President, Sandra Thomson. It’s true when it’s said that we move forward and achieve more because of the foundation created for us by those leaders who did the job before us. We build on their strengths and are motivated by their efforts.
We have come through some of the hardest times many of us have ever known, including a pandemic that changed our lives in a split second. We’ve also experienced some soul-searching as we thoroughly debated the nature of our world-wide affiliation as a federation over the past few years.
Now it is time to concentrate on the future, our strengths, and be guided by the aims and objectives of CFUW and the sisterhood we as members have created with and for each other.
I am confident the next biennium will be our springboard for this, and we have many opportunities, whether through the expansion of the E-Club or the growth and re-invigoration of our membership in the traditional club settings.
Enjoy your summer!
Teresa Habs, President, CFUW Ontario Council
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2022 Membership Challenge |
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Ideas for Recruitment and Retention
Submitted by Roline Maconachie
Thank you to all the Ontario Council clubs who took part in the Ontario Council Membership Challenge, 2022. Clubs were certainly challenged during COVID but many stepped up, got creative, worked hard, and continued to recruit and retain members. All the ideas were valuable and worthy but winners were chosen in the two categories of Recruitment and Retention and each received a $300 prize. The criteria for judging was based on following the contest directions, creativity, measurable results stated, and ease of replication by other clubs.
And the winners were ... drum roll please!
Recruitment: CFUW Peterborough - recruited new members by organizing several outdoor activities at various local venues (holiday planter workshop at a local greenhouse, meet and greet, visit to an outdoor gallery), invited guests to each, and showed them what the club is and does to gain their interest before asking them to join.
Retention: CFUW Cornwall - Regular communication and celebration and recognition of members and their stories via phone calls, social media shares and posts, newsletters and virtual activities were the keys to Cornwall’s success.
Some common strategy themes that emerged included the personal touch, communication and creativity. In the end, having enthusiasm for CFUW’s purpose, values, and goals and for “Women Helping Women for a Better Future” and then imparting those beliefs to the women we meet will help in sustaining the organization and allow us all to move forward- together.
All of the recruitment and retention strategies submitted have been posted on the OC website under Membership. Please click here to view or download.
Thanks again for all the submissions!
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The Carolyn Day Award for Environmental Action
AGM May 14, 2022
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For those of you who did not know Carolyn Day, her concern about the environment had started with water problems in Walkerton, just a few miles from her home in Southampton. That passion led her to helping us by writing multiple briefs and letters. For this we honour her work, and your work with this award for Environmental Action. Thanks to all the clubs for their enthusiasm and their work,
Teri Shaw, Chair
CFUW Ontario Council Advocacy Chair, 2020-2022
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AWARD WINNER
The 2022 Carolyn Day Award for Environmental Action goes to the little dynamic club, CFUW Cornwall and District, for their a 12-month awareness campaign that involved a different aspect of the environment every month through action, reading and learning for both club members and friends
- Through multiple emails and newsletter postings,
- through member challenges; and
- also social & community action
- through involvement with 5 different Cornwall environment events which led to newspaper articles, as well as
- club events such as a youth panel and a picnic and perennial swap
The photo shows CFUW Cornwall members Jackie and Susan at Cornwall’s “Great Big Litter CleanUp Days”.
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HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Honourable Mentions go to 5 other projects from CFUW Nepean, Kanata & Ottawa, Oakville, Orillia, Southport and Stratford - who also carried out impressive projects, bringing information and action on the climate crisis not just to their members but to the community.
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CFUW Nepean, Kanata & Ottawa
Tackling the Environment - Together We Can
3 webinars with Canadian and international speakers on
- Plastics Free July campaign,
- reforestation as a way of addressing climate change and
- how the extraordinary measures taken by governments to mobilize during wartime can be applied to the broad actions now required to counter global warming.
Thanks to their work, CFUW Ontario Council has signed on to the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign.
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CFUW Oakville
Environmental Actions Matter - an ongoing project since 2019, this year alone involved
- newsletter articles
- a film with panel discussion
- webinar with speaker
- environment based all-candidates meeting for the federal election, and
- an environment website Vocal shown that’s updated daily
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CFUW Orillia
Single Use Plastic Reduction Challenge - a 9-month challenge with different ones chosen each month by the Advocacy Committee, and members reporting via a polling question, including a prize from local business to those involved the most. This led to a local newspaper article.
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Ruth Watt speaking during a recent Zoom call discussing alternatives to single use plastics in Orillia Matters
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CFUW Southport
Climate Change - Actions that Impact - two projects:
- seeing a need - lack of connection between environment groups, created a community group, the Saugeen Shores Environmental Alliance (SEA), and Facebook page to share information with members and community;
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Climate change awareness with
- a presentation, speaker and discussion on climate change where members did individual carbon calculator assessments, as well as
- environment articles throughout the year in the newsletter,
- a project on single use plastic bags, and
- club support to members involved with the Environmental Stewardship Ad-Hoc Advisory Committee (ESAC) for the town of Saugeen Shores.
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Food Waste Reduction Campaign -
a 10-week social media campaign with “Use It All Up” as tagline using the 10 letters leading to 10 concepts explained in 3 postings per week: concept, challenges, practical applications. The 30 postings, that the local Rotary has asked to republish, were shared on a webpage.
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You can learn more about all of the environmental action projects submitted by clicking here.
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Please join us in celebrating the following milestone anniversaries!
CFUW Kitchener – Waterloo 100 Years!
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CFUW Peterborough 85 Years
CFUW Etobicoke 70 Years
CFUW Aurora/Newmarket 65 Years
CFUW Burlington 65 Years
CFUW Renfrew 65 Years
CFUW Milton 60 Years
CFUW North Toronto 45 Years
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CFUW Ontario East Fall Gathering - Saturday September 10 |
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CFUW Southwest Ontario Regional Gathering Conference Saturday September 17 |
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Speakers:
- Anita Gaffney, CEO Stratford Festival
- Marva Wisdom, Community Leadership
- Deanna Horton, Global Affairs
For more info please contact CFUW Stratford members Hélène or Ruth. |
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The challenge of climate change can only be met if individuals, civic organizations, grassroots movements, industry, education, religious organizations and all levels of government are working together. CFUW recognizes its role in climate advocacy at various levels, from local actions to national and provincial events. As part of that, CFUW Ontario Council and CFUW National are signatories of Ontario's Climate Pledge. The statements in this pledge are an excellent roadmap for the climate leadership that all Canadians deserve.
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CFUW Aurora/Newmarket Home & Garden 2022 Tour
Sat June 18, 10am - 4pm
We invite you to attend our Home & Garden Tour on June 18, 2022. The event is our premier fundraising initiative in support of scholarships for deserving young women in the local community.
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This event will feature self-guided tours of selected homes and gardens in Aurora, Newmarket, and Stouffville. We have 9 stops on the tour, from a century home to a mid-century bungalow. And glorious gardens and outdoor living spaces that will inspire our guests.
To find out more about the tour visit our website .
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CFUW Kitchener-Waterloo - Winners of the 2022 KW Oktoberfest Rogers Women of the Year Group Achievement Award |
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From Kris Bailey, President CFUW K-W
It is with pride and honour that I share with the Canadian Federation of University Women Kitchener-Waterloo (CFUW K-W) membership that we are the winners of the KW Oktoberfest Rogers Women of the Year Group Achievement Award.
The KW Oktoberfest Rogers Women of the Year recognizes and pays tribute to outstanding women in our community in areas of Arts & Culture, Community Service, Entrepreneur, Health & Wellness, Group Achievement, Lifetime Achievement, Professional and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) and Young Adult.
We were proudly represented at the award ceremony by Clarice Ward. Clarice’s acceptance of the award focused on this being our milestone year and was dedicated to the women of this club over the past 100 years. Knowing that recognizing the legacy of the club has profound meaning, Clarice pointed out that it was the insight of our great-grandmothers generation that initiated this club and all the women since doing great work that take credit for this achievement.
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CFUW Southport - Grandma Asked Me To Just Vote
On May 28th, 5 members of CFUW Southport dressed like suffragettes and handed out cards in Southampton, encouraging people to vote in the provincial election held on June 2nd. As a non-partisan group, the women were not endorsing any one candidate or political party, but were promoting the Club's "Grandma Asked Me To Just Vote" campaign. The suffragettes plan to campaign again in the fall for the municipal election in October. For the full media release, please click here.
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CFUW Welland & District - Earth Day Challenge
This Earth Day the CFUW Welland and District’s Advocacy Group invited their Members to participate in an Earth Day Challenge: Can you eliminate single use plastics from your day to day routine from Earth Day until the end of April? To support their initiative they have been posting daily suggestions here on their CFUW Welland Facebook Page. Carol from CFUW Welland also submitted an article to My Welland about an Earth Day display at the Welland Farmers' Market. Read the article here!
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Women Helping Women
Our vision for Ontario Council can be summed up in the following key words:
Education. Action. Advocacy.
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Ontario Council News is a newsletter for and about our Ontario Clubs.
- Because Ontario Council includes close to 50 clubs, we are not able to publish club meetings, AGMs, scholarship winners and other charitable giving.
- Club newsletters are published on the OC website under Club Actions & Events
- To help you help us, click the link below for all the information you need about our publication schedule, submission deadlines, and preferred format.
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