Mairi and Joan
Mairi and Joan

As Nova Scotia representative she went to the congress in Banff in 1979 and, just before she left, telephoned to ask Joan Brown Hicks to accompany her as another Nova Scotia delegate. "It was very last minute that I actually went to Banff," recalls Joan. What with arranging child care and getting organized, I didn't arrive until the meetings had already started. I remember walking into a room where Marsha Trew, from Vancouver, was describing some possible organizational structures. I was completely in awe of these women from all over Canada attempting to work out the structures of a national organization. Especially coming from Nova Scotia, a province with a history of two or three hundred years, it was exciting to witness the birth of an organization."

"Coming from Nova Scotia, a province with a history of two or three hundred years, it was exciting to witness the birth of an organization."

Joan became the Nova Scotia director and Mairi was elected as CCLOW's first national president. Both remember the care that was taken in those first meetings around how the organization was formed. "We tried hard to avoid a parliamentary type of procedure and we really wanted to work by consensus," says Mairi. "The organization wasn't very sophisticated in those early years. We were digging the holes and building the foundations for what was to come after."

" And we need to recognize our debt to those people at the beginning who were able to lay those foundations," continues Joan. "I learned a lot from Greta Nemiroff. She played an important role in raising our consciousness. There were also Lisa Avedon, Diana Ironside, Bette Pié and many others who gave leadership. It's important to recognize these people as role models and to continue to have role models in the process of learning and development."

Networking, learning from other women the way she did when she sat with others around a kitchen table and listened, has been an important element for Mairi Macdonald. "I've belonged to several organizations over the course of my professional life and there's something about CCLOW that's quite unique. People along the way have stayed focused on our purpose and not got been drawn into other things, which often happens. As long as you stay focused and know that you're working with a number of kindred spirits who believe in the same things, it's possible to get things done. I think CCLOW is unique in that way; there is a kind of friendship, or fellowship, if you will, that has persisted over the years and has made it a successful organization."



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