The NSW CWA held a Drought Forum in Broken Hill on June 13, at which the government’s decision to provide comprehensive weather radar coverage for Western NSW (a motion put forward at this year’s CWA State Conference) was announced.
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The event generated plenty of media interest, and was when we first received information regarding Dick Smith’s $1 million donation to CWA of Australia, for drought relief.
While waiting for these funds to be made available, NSW CWA released $100,000 from its own Disaster Relief Fund, to provide assistance. Head Office has received donations to its disaster relief fund from many generous branches, groups and individuals, including a recent contribution from the National Australia Bank for $50,000.
Bellingen Branch has also been raising funds for drought relief, especially for our twin branch, Gunnedah, which has been one of the worst affected. (They recently received a sprinkle of rain as well as a convoy of hay from Western Australia, but will need help for quite a while yet).
Our Awareness Day was held in conjunction with the Spring Plant Fair, and was well attended despite numbers being down on last year. With money raised there plus generous private donations, our drought relief was sent to State Office and extra gift vouchers were sent to Gunnedah branch.
The theme of this year’s Awareness Day was:
‘Affordability of, and access to, quality health care in rural and regional areas, particularly mental health services in this time of considerable stress and hardship’.
Members are reminded that our annual AGM is on Monday, October 8 at 10am. This will be followed by our usual monthly meeting.