Page 4 - BPW-UK - E-news - Edition 112 - May 2023 - Binded

A talk on BPW given to the Mothers’ Union
rd
Northern England Regional Meeting - 3 May 2023

I’d been chatting to the local leader of the Mothers’ Union in Redcar,
North Yorkshire about how I’d spent most of my life travelling around various

countries of the world due to my father’s occupation as a Construction Manag-
er but ended up in Canada for more than 30 years and that Canada is where I
joined BPW.

She was fascinated by BPW in general and asked if I’d be willing to
give a talk on how and why I joined. BPW and Mothers’ Union apparently have
some mutual goals and objectives and it turns out that they too have status
at the UN within their International section.

So, how did I come to join from Canada? Well, having emigrated in
late 1989 I was keen to learn about my new country. I heard about a busi-
ness group in Victoria and went along. However, it was more of a networking
group where emphasis was on gaining business from others – not quite what
I was looking for. One of the groups however told me that if I really wanted to
learn about what was happening in the business and professional world, I
should go along to the local BPW meeting so off I went and well, the rest is
history as they say!

I was so impressed by what BPW was all about and suddenly, I was
Secretary of the Victoria Club in January 1990. The following year I somehow
ended up being President and Regional Director for Vancouver Island, and
shortly after that I was privileged to be voted in as Vice-President for British
Columbia. I explained our BPW aims and objectives and spoke of the many
Conventions, Regional meetings and Congresses I’ve been fortunate enough
to attend.

I spoke about the 1999 Congress which was held in Vancouver – this is
where I had the privilege of working with Sylvia Perry, then International
President, on the technical side of things. Gosh, believe it or not, back then
we were still just using dial-up modems, but we somehow managed with just
one phone-line to connect half a dozen computers, setting up a ‘Cyber Café’
in the Work Fair Hall. There were around 1,000 delegates from all over the
world and I was overwhelmed at the diversity and amazing amount of busi-
ness and educational experience shared. The workshops were fantastic and
when it came to the Resolution discussions, there was so much genuine back-
ing for deserving areas, in some cases causing quite a bit of controversy, but
debate and discussions prevailed. I’d told my male colleagues that they were
either going to love or hate Vancouver for the week as there were going to be
1,000 powerful and amazing women! In fact, they all were mightily impressed
at what we achieved at that Congress. Never to be forgotten that’s for sure.
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