Circle Of Friends: Pamper Me. Posted 26th June 2008

Greetings from Circle Of Friends,

There was a time when I would agonise over whether or not I was offending someone by telling them something they already know. Or were expected to know.

My whole perspective changed in a nanosecond when I was driving on a very dark country road on a moonless night, on my way back from a weekend away. My neighbour, Dorca, and her 4 year old daughter, Sonia, were my travelling companions.

Without any warning, Dorca screamed out STOP!!!!

Without a second’s hesitation, I slammed on the brakes.

And saved our lives.

Just as Dorca saved mine and her daughter, Sonia’s, by shouting STOP!!!! with an unmistakable edge of terror and pure panic in her voice.

Straddled across the road in front of us, just metres away, was a truck with no lights on, having just minutes before broken down as the driver was pulling out of his property. His electrical system simply went kaput.

Dorca assumed I had seen the truck and panicked when she noticed I wasn’t slowing down. I didn’t see the truck because the headlights of an oncoming car, which were still on bright mode, momentarily blinded me.

To this day, I’m eternally grateful to Dorca for shoving aside her assumptions and shouting at me.

From that moment on, I’ve never worried for a second about telling someone something they might already know about.

If they know, they know. If they don’t know, they might be grateful for what I’ve told them. In either case, I consider it to be a win win situation.

Which is why I had no hesitation in forwarding an email to Jenny Nott, the Secretary for the Ilford/Running Stream Branch of the CWA, about an opportunity for her CWA members, that she might already know about.

But what if she doesn’t and misses out on something really, really special?

Jenny is a near neighbour. She lives a few kilometres away, but by rural standards, is close by. Only about four farms stand between us.

The Ilford/Running Stream CWA Branch is close to my heart because they were the first CWA branch to join Circle Of Friends.

And they, in turn, took me by the hand to a CWA regional meeting in Cassilis and opened the door to many more introductions.

And so a Circle Of Friends is formed.

Remember me saying Circle Of Friends is also about forging strong friendships and doing things for each other? Because that’s what friends do?

The email I forwarded to Jenny was from the Rural Women’s Network.

It was an invitation to apply for a grant from the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, in cooperation with the CWA of NSW, to set up a Pampering Day for rural women in your locality.

Being a CWA branch, I did think that perhaps Jenny would already know about this.

But my experience with Dorca and the truck has never left me and always tells me it doesn’t matter.

And Jenny didn’t know.

She immediately applied for the grant, because the application close off day was in 24 hours.

To her delight, she received notification her branch was successful and now has $500 to set up a Pampering Day. The only constraint being that the money has to be spent before the end of July and a paper written about the day and submitted back to Rural and Regional Renewal. All easy terms to live with.

So what’s the Ilford/Running Stream Pampering Day on July 24th going to be like?

Rural women are under stress. As are their husbands.

I escaped the bright lights of Sydney for the rural bliss of Ilford in 1992. And have languished between moderate drought and severe drought for 13 of these 16 years.

I’ve seen dead stock in paddocks. I’ve seen totally bare paddocks. I’ve had neighbours with no grass or water to sustain stock. I’ve driven through flocks of sheep and small herds of cows that escaped onto the road, looking for sustenance.

But I’ve not lived it minute by minute like a farmer and his wife does. My livelihood doesn’t depend on the weather. To me, observing it is stressful enough.

A Pampering Day gives rural women a chance to de-stress. If only for a few hours. To take their mind off the bank manager, the hungry livestock and those clouds above that seem to dry up as soon as they hover over Ilford.

Mt Vincent, rising high above the other side of the Castlereagh Highway from Ilford, is a lovely rural setting for a Pampering Day, especially when the location is the Mungarry Camp Centre.

And the CWA is sparing nothing. $500 goes a long way and they're making sure there's not a penny left over.

Plenty of homemade delicacies will abound with morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. This is the CWA, after all.

And there will be trained masseurs from the surrounding areas of Kandos and Rylstone to give much needed and appreciated massages for every part of your body. Shoulder, neck, arms, hands. And who can pass up the opportunity to have a sooo relaxing facial?

Beauty advice will be on hand too. Something many rural women deny themselves. Free advice about your hair and your make-up from the beauty experts in both Rylstone and Kandos. And the locality is fortunate to have a few experts to call on.

And to make sure the message of how to de-stress away from Mungarry Camp is driven home, there will be a guest speaker discussing how to recognise the signs of stress, how stress affects you and how to cope with it.

To make sure nothing spoils this Pampering Day, each guest will take home a surprise bag of goodies from local businesses.

And this part is amazing. To cap off their day and make it completely perfect, they take home dinner.

These compassionate women of the Ilford/Running Stream CWA, who ooze empathy, will also provide a take home doggie bag containing a scrumptious meal not only for their guests, but with adequate servings for each guests’ entire family.

This is an absolute winner and will be the icing on the cake of what is a truly flawless Pampering Day.

Circle Of Friends is about helping each other. Some of it is about raising money. Some of it is also about forging strong friendships and doing things for each other because that’s what friends do.

Subscribing to alerts from Sonia Muir’s Rural Women’s Network is as easy as visiting their website by clicking on this link Rural Women's Network. While there, click on the link to receive the Country Web Newsletter and their monthly email update.

An alert came through this morning for a new Self Esteem Through Style seminar. I noticed one of the workshops will be in Walgett in early July. What did I do? Jill Granger, of Walgett Police Command, who is an avid member of Circle of Friends, received the email from me this morning.

And so the Circle Of Friends network expands.

If you're already a member of the Ilford/Running Stream Branch of the CWA, you can now order online. Just enter the code Ilford/Running Stream into the Customer Comments section of the online order form for the Shopping Cart. Your donation will find its way to the keepers of the money at the branch.

You can order at any time that’s convenient for you. There’s no time limit.

If your group isn't already a member, I’d really love to welcome you into the Circle so you can experience the joy of what goes around comes around for yourself.

All the details about Circle Of Friends are contained in my original post What Goes Around Comes Around. It's at the beginning of my posts.

Take care,

CAROL

Carol Jones
Director

This is where we live and work.
Interface Pty Ltd
6026 Sofala Road Ilford NSW 2850
PO Box 139 Kandos NSW 2848
Tel: 02 63 58 85 11 Fax: 02 63 58 85 10

To view my complete product range, visit my website: www.interfaceaustralia.com
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