I was serving a customer at the shop last week when she handed me a gift certificate with my own handwriting on it. “Did I sell this to you?” I asked conversationally. “No, actually I won it in a competition…” Oh cool! The Hornsby Country Women’s Association called me up months and months ago with a request to sponsor their inaugural “Australiana Beanie Competition” and I managed to talk Albie into ponying up for two prizes. This lady, Geraldine, had won in the “Landscape” category. We chatted for a bit and I said I was sorry that I hadn’t seen any of the winning entries. (We just gave them the prize; we didn’t get to judge it.) So she was kind enough to send me some pictures of her prize-winning beanies along with a lovely long letter about her knitting experience. Today I posted it at the site. Some days the nice customers just manage to outweigh the crappy ones, you know? And that makes it all worthwhile.
2 responses
Hornsby is not country!
Did you know that the CWA is often called the Country Whingers Association?
Web-Goddess,
I was just searching the web for anyone who had written anything up about my Beanie Competition.
Thank you so much for mentioning it here, and for having put the hard word on your boss for some prizes. Our sponsors were very generous last year, and we will be trying to find more generous souls this year to supply more prizes as the popularity of this competition grows.
I have only just started up a weblog of my own, so I might even post some more photos of other entries too. But with 700 entries, it’s hard to pick just which ones to share…
Miss Helen,
Yes, Hornsby is not country. Good to see you know your geography…
But this competition was a show of support from members of the CWA within the city for our sisters in rural communities. We often run community events which provide support for and awareness of the hardships suffered by some people directly affected by the droughts and, more recently, the Cyclone in Queensland.
The CWA does alot, for alot of people, so I think that the “Country Whingers Association” label is a bit rough…
Anyway, once again, web-goddess, thanks for trying to raise the awareness here. I hope to be in touch sometime soon in the preparations for what will probably be another record-breaking event this year.