CWA calls for volunteers from across the region for the Royal Easter Show

The Country Women’s Association is the largest women’s organisation in Australia and the very heart of most small towns and villages, lobbying for country people, helping out in emergencies and speaking up for those in need.

This year the CWA is celebrating its centenary and this time, it needs some help, says Uranquinty CWA member Mardi Walker.

With the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW celebrating its bicentenary in 2022, the CWA’s famous “Tea Room” is sure to be a hit at the Sydney Royal Easter Show – but volunteers are essential.

The Tea Room is one of the CWA’s biggest fundraising opportunities each year and they’re looking to the regions to find volunteers who can help.

“Every year, we look for volunteers to come and work at the CWA tea room. They only have to do four hours and they get a free ticket into the show,” organising committee member Mardi Walker said.

“It is one of the biggest fundraisers for NSW CWA and it’s called the Tea Room but it’s essentially a restaurant. They get seating, they can get a full meal or tea and coffee, there’s really nothing they can’t get.

“Volunteers take a morning or an afternoon shift and the rest of the day they can do whatever they want.”

Ms Walker, who runs a large farm between Wagga Wagga and Albury, said the show wouldn’t go ahead without regional people and argued that it provided a vital bridge between city people and rural life.

“All of the show societies are from regional areas and that is what makes up the Royal Easter Show,” Ms Walker said.

“What we do is not part of their world, so their understanding of it is very, very limited.

“When my cousins come down from Sydney, their understanding of what we do and how things actually work and what it takes – they have no idea.

“It opens up a whole new world for them and their kids, and some city kids today don’t even know that a chicken lays eggs.”

Ms Walker said first-time volunteers from the regions often return to help the CWA’s Tea Room in following years.

“They make a trip of it and come to Sydney and do a few different things while they’re here,” she said.

“We have plenty of people from Sydney come as well, but it’s a lot of the branches across regional NSW.”

Ms Walker said she had personally always enjoyed the show when taking her kids but didn’t realise just how special of an event it was until she got involved with volunteering.

“When I first joined the CWA, I’d go and volunteer and work at the show and I just looked at it and thought that it’s such an amazing thing to witness. It’s run like a well-oiled machine and it’s all voluntary,” she said.

To register interest in volunteering at the CWA Tea Room, contact Donna Robertson at [email protected].

The 2022 Sydney Royal Easter Show will run from Friday, 8 April to Tuesday, 19 April.