Cow Belles

COW has been giving a voice to older women in Glebe for a few years now. The dynamics of the group have changed with the passing of time ... some of the original members have died; others have moved out of the area and a few have simply become too ill or incapacitated to attend.
COW is open to any older woman living in the Glebe area and as a group has always been aware of our sisters who are housebound through age and/or disability and the loneliness that situation can bring.
Irene Charnas has always been what i like to term a 'crafty' person!! Multi-talented in the areas of ceramics, painting, photography and beading she came up with an idea that was stunning in its simplicity. Collect the disabled and frail older women and bring them to a venue for a fortnightly activity-based morning tea. 
Throughout the ages women have gathered with sewing and knitting, put on the jug and quietly gone about solving the problems in their little corner of the globe. The idea was enthusiastically received by the COW group and it was quickly decided that beading was the way to go and we would pick the women up in a small community bus. Whilst I loved the concept I find beading as interesting as watching paint dry so it was deemed that I would be allowed to lurk in the background and generally help and encourage!
And so to the boring bits! Where would we get the money and the bus; what would we name the project and, more importantly, where would we find a driver?
Irene generously offered to write the grant to the Council (a mind-boggling and tedious chore) and the GCDP agreed to be the auspice. 
Council loved the idea; the bus was relatively easy to organise and a lot cheaper than we had hoped and the project name sort of fell into our laps ... but we still needed a driver with the time, inclination and necessary licence.
We were pondering this at a COW meeting when a quiet male voice said: "I have the licence and am willing to drive the bus". We all turned to smile at a wonderful man named Jeff who volunteers at the HaveAChat Coffee Shop on Fridays ... and Cow Belles was well on its way.
Flyers were printed and hand delivered and stuck in shop windows and a gratifying number of women turned up for the introductory session.
I was running a few minutes late for the first gathering of Cow Belles and as I raced in the door I was hit with a hum of activity. Four tables had been assembled with plastic containers of differently shaped and coloured beads and 14 women were busily engaged in beading and talking to each other.
There's a current saying ... "If we build it, they will come". Well COW built it and the women of Glebe responded.
It's early days yet ... we're only a couple of meetings in ... but the enthusiasm hasn't dwindled. I'm still determined to resist beading but after last week when Cathy made me some glorious earrings in an amazingly short space of time i found myself beginning to weaken ... and that could be another story!
More power to the COW group and Cow Belles. Long may they reign!

Marla Priest