Without the dedicated and enthusiastic volunteer efforts of our hearty band of women, none of this would be possible. Through sleet and snow we make it to meetings. We wade through reams and reams of government documents and statistics to prepare briefs. We learn public speaking through presentations to the endless royal commissions, task forces and other government studies that seem to go nowhere. We wear our suits and bring our briefcases to meet with cabinet ministers. We walk the picket line with the striking women bank workers. We go to meetings, we organize, we laugh, we develop friendships, and we hang in there through the very slow process of change... all on our own time and with our own resources.

by Shauna Butterwick

Looking back over the last ten years at the variety of activities and concerns of the B.C. CCLOW network I am struck by the hours, days, weeks, and years of work that so many women have contributed to this organization. What often goes unacknowledged is the not-so-obvious work of organizing meetings, setting agendas, recording minutes, writing letters, making phone calls, and developing briefs and proposals. This work represents the "Best of B.C." because it threads all the more noticeable and more memorable moments together.

Throughout the last ten years B.C. CCLOW has taken on many projects and issues but rarely have we done it alone. During the late 1970s we lobbied with other women's groups to establish government funding for Women's Access Centres at many post-secondary educational institutions in B.C. In 1986, B.C.-CCLOW was again involved in a successful lobby through the Women's Education and Training Coalition (WETC). This group was established to present a report and discuss issues relating to women's education and training in B.C. with Flora MacDonald, then federal Minister of Employment and Immigration. The coalition continues to meet and recently succeeded in developing an ongoing link between the provincial government and women's organizations regarding women's education and training needs.

Other activities have included several provincial conferences and workshops. Since 1987 we have had annual provincial retreats where members come together to celebrate, refuel, reconnect and re-create our vision and strategies for the future. This year we have organized a variety of activities to celebrate CCLOW's 10th Anniversary and our future, including a reading and discussion by Daphne Marlatt (feminist poet and writer), a workshop with Heather Menzies, another annual retreat, and a provincial workshop in the fall.

It has been a challenge to describe "The Best of BC-CCLOW" in so few words, but it has reinforced for me the importance of maintaining a sense of our history so that we are no longer confined to cycles of lost and found.

by Reta Chahal

CCLOW-Manitoba's greatest accomplishment occurred only recently, and it happened to be our 10th anniversary celebration. At the Charterhouse Hotel in Winnipeg, the same place the women's committee of CAAE (later to become CCLOW) met twelve years ago, we co-sponsored with the Manitoba Association of Continuing Education a workshop on current issues for women's training and education in Canada. Susan Wismer, who prepared CCLOW's 1988 study, Women's Education and Training in Canada, facilitated the workshop. Over 20 participants from the private and public sectors actively participated.

Susan presented the some of the results of her study as initiation for discussion. Issues that emerged included the necessity of recognizing women's skills, knowledge and ways of learning, of providing support systems and of placing women in decision-making positions. We then divided into small groups and were invited to express our ideal world, either in words or images.