The 38th Annual Barrhead Women’s Conference was held Saturday, March 16 at the Barrhead Senior’s Drop-In Centre. This year’s Women’s Conference was another successful event with about 85 people present.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Women Nurturing Communities”, and honoured women around the world and the impact women have on their communities and their countries, said conference committee chair Faye Branden.
“As the United Nations has declared 2024 as the International Year of the Camelids, the day also focused on the importance that camels, alpacas, etc have had on the livelihoods of millions of households with their contribution of their fibre, their meat, their transportation, to name but a few," Branden said.
Edie Zdrodowski spoke in the morning of her family’s learning experiences when they started raising Alpacas in 1998, and shared slide photos of how some of that went. The final speaker of the day, Barb Strand spoke on Camelids from India, Morocco and South America.
Elaine Breadon-Peiche, initiated the annual conference as Farm Women’s Day in 1984 when she was District Home Economist for Barrhead at the time. She rarely misses returning for the event, and was the first speaker of the day, speaking in part of the Historic Victoria District, a National Historic Site of Canada along the North Saskatchewan River south of Waskatenau, Warspite and Smoky Lake. She farms today with her husband north of Waskatenau.
With the exception of two years missed during COVID, the Barrhead Women’s Conference has been an ongoing annual event.
Jamie Kalmbach, a young 4-H member, spoke of the role women are playing in agriculture today. Following lunch, 4-H speakers took the stage and showed their speech-making skills. Later in the afternoon, Linda Vaudan, Chair Yoga, spoke on her passion for yoga and fitness and the role they play in the benefits for body and mind.
Marilyn Flock, a member of the committee, grew up on a farm near Hanna, in southern Alberta. She came to Barrhead in 1977 as the Agriculture Fieldman Assistant and, 11 years later, following the retirement of the late Roy Steinbring, became Agriculture Fieldman, retiring herself in 2016. She continues to be involved in the community and spoke on the Barrhead Community Garden, one of her passions.
“One of the table participants, the Spinners and Weavers, provided a demonstration during the lunch hour that provided a view of how weaving and spinning is performed using the fibres from the camelids," said Faye Branden.
“Guests at the conference were provided with a number of draws that were donated by many businesses from our community. Thank you for their support, and the committee thanks all those who attended.”
Committee member Maureen Greig, who has been on the organizing committee for the Barrhead Women’s Conference noted it was originally called the Barrhead Farm Women’s Conference, but the name was changed several years ago where both rural and urban women are welcome to attend.
“This conference is organized jointly by the County of Barrhead Agriculture Service Board and the Women’s Day Committee,” she said in an article written prior to the 2018 annual Barrhead Women’s Conference.
