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Tuesday, June 21, 1994 WI reaches out to city By JOHN M. MUGGERIDGE lgin county's Hilde Morden stands in a quilt-festooned room full of elderly ladies sipping tea and says the Women's Institute has to "get away from the im- age of tea-drinking grannies who quilt." E The Women's Institute (WI), which turns 100 in 1997, has suffered from attrition over the past few years. Current member, ship across the 900 branches of the Federated Women's Insti.. tutes of Ontario is 16,000. Cana- dian WI membership is 50,000, including the Women of Unifarm in Alberta, the Women of the National Farmers Union, and the Cercles de Fermieres of Quebec. Annual fee is $20, with project money coming from Queen's Park - $40,000 last year In con- trast to its earlier close ties with the agriculture ministry, today WI operates at arm's length. This spring, it moved out of the min- istry's Guelph office. Attracting new members won't be easy, but the energetic Morden is up to the challenge. "WI hasn't spent a lot of time on public relations," says Morden. "We're not skilled in marketing our organization ”in”. --'- F grams, and lines on roads] WI also got Ottawa to exempt mu- sir: lessons From the CST ' Since it began in 1897, WI has sprung up wherever the need arose. Then it was educating farm women about pasteurizing milk. Later it was stop signs on school buses, Blue Box pro- TBr __ All, in" "We still have 16,000 members in Ontario. Where are the new women whose needs we are not filling?" ' Morden, who headed up a task force on WI, says WI has to adapt. Busy farm women with off-farm careers require flexible meeting times. "We don't have to meet on the third Tuesday of every month," says Ontario president Marg Harris, during a visit to the Erland Lee home in Stoney Creek, Ont., the birth- place of WI. T T rm - V - - Nor does WI have to be strictly rural. A branch recently opened in Toronto to get more smoke alarms into houses, after several basement fires. Former Ontario WI president Peggy Knapp says the goals of WI haven't changed since the historic meeting in February, 1897, when Stoney Creek farm.. ers Erland and Janet Lee made the rounds by cutter sleigh to bring 101 women together to hear the legendary Adelaide Fisher, at historic table where first WI charter was signed me never use the word 'femi- mst. We are interested III fami- lies." President Harris says one branch passed a resolution say- ing that '"the white male is be-. ing discriminated against.' Peo- ple have young sons wanting to be in the police force and they were told not even to bother ap- plying. A How does that go over in church basements? Morden says guest speakers from the Univer- sity of Western Ontario nursing school are invited to talk about AIDS in the community. "What are we going to do when a per- son with AIDS comes into our community, and how are we go- ing to help their families?" asks Morden. _ Issues affecting farm women over the years have become a lot more complex. WI through its umbrella Associated Country Women of the World has "con- sultative status" at the United Nations, and deals with issues such as AIDS, Planned Parent- hood and living wills. "We're one of the best-kept secrets," she says. "We haven't protested Pf picketed." Hunter Hoodless speak of the need to educate rural women. "Rural women need a place where they can learn together and have access to up-to-the-minute education. One hundred years later, we're still talking about it." FARM & COUNTRY