Spring 2026

CFUW STRATFORD

March Newsletter

In this issue:

• President's Message
• International Women's Day
• March Resolutions Meeting
• February Advocacy Meeting
• Coldest Night of the Year
• Interest Groups
• Special Events
• GWI
• Contact Information

President's Message
 

This week, we may have turned the corner on what seems to be the longest, coldest, snowiest winter ever. Our International Women’s Day Breakfast is this Saturday, March 7^th, and the forecast is promising double-digits. Fingers-crossed! Ticket sales have also been promising – we are almost sold out. Thank you to all for your support. The evening event, Queens of Comedy, helps us raise more money for our Scholarship fund by splitting the room rental at the Arden Park. This year there are two fabulous female comedians, and I am looking forward to great day - inspiring in the morning, laugh out loud in the evening.

Bravo to our Advocacy Groups for their wonderful series of presentations at our February meeting. It was astonishing how much important work is being done, on such diverse and significant matters, through education and connection to the broader Stratford community. Applause to all for you for your continuing hard work, dedication, and passion to change our world for the better.

It was a perfect segue into March, which is Resolutions month for CFUW clubs. It’s an important opportunity to review the Advocacy resolutions put forward by National clubs that will eventually make it into our Policy book. This is a cornerstone of CFUW’s Advocacy work. We expect the 2026 Resolution proposals to be released this week or next, and will send a special email with details and links for you to review before our March meeting. This is an opportunity to shape important policies for the future, so let’s dig in and have fun on March 24th!

Also in March, we will be revisiting the changes proposed to the CFUW Constitution at the February meeting. We have listened to feedback, and will have revised changes in an updated Notice of Motion email.

Finally, congratulations to Kate Welsh and the CFUW Coldest Night of the Year (CNOY) team, who, as of today, have raised $6,285 on a goal $6,000! CNOY is a Canada-wide fundraising walk for community organizations, which in Stratford are the Stratford Connections Centre and Shelterlink Youth Services. This year, CFUW Stratford was #8 on the Stratford fundraising leaderboard, and Stratford was #2 in fundraising of all participating cities in Canada!

Looking forward to warmer weather and seeing you on Saturday,

Cambria Ravenhill
President 2025/26

Information about names and numbers should also be emailed to Wendy at internationalwomensday@cfuwstratford.ca
Have questions? Phone Wendy at 519-272-0011

Upcoming Meeting - National Resolutions Night!

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 7pm

Our February Advocacy Meeting 

Advocacy Chair Sue Bailey reviewed the CFUW Advocacy Framework and introduced the four groups currently active in our club. While the General Advocacy Group stands ready to assist individual advocacy presentations, our three active groups presented as follows:

Our articles have been appearing in Stratford Today to draw attention to the climate mitigation resources on our website. Helene Crabb‘s recent article on Food Waste even caught the eye of Roger’s news!

We’re currently working on our spring initiative to encourage planting Habitat Gardens, to increase insect and bird populations, and a healthy environment. We’re visiting community nurseries with a Wholesale Nursery list, prepared by Marylu Moyer and Carrie Stevens, where they can call to order native plants. Join us, ask for native plants, and plant a Habitat Garden: food, shelter (leaves, stalks and a brush pile), water, minimal lawn and NO chemicals.

Indigenous Rights Learning and Advocacy Group

Preventing Violence Against Women -
Intimate Partner Violence

Celebrating our Coldest Night of the Year! - February 28, 2026

Interest Groups

Cryptic Crosswords!

Members work on the weekly Cryptic Crossword Puzzle featured in Saturday’s Globe and Mail on their own until Tuesday, then they meet to work out the answers together.

Meetings: weekly on Tuesday morning at 10:15am over Zoom.

The Film Club

Join us at The Little Prince Cinema, 62 Wellington St., Stratford. Space is limited, so please RSVP to Leora Risin each month.

Cost: $12.00 pp to be paid at the door.

Special Events

All proceeds go to the Local! What a wonderful way to laugh with friends!

How to get tickets?

As a CFUW Stratford club member, you can e-transfer $300 to comedyinstratford@gmail.com and bring 7 of your best friends! Please send the guest list to Wendy at the same email address. Single tickets are $45 each. So yes the table is a good deal and you also save the service charges.

Or you can go to Ticketscene at https://ticketscene.ca/events/58060/

GWI

Climate Mitigation: Peatlands of the World

CFUW N.Delta/Surrey with GWScotland and GWParaguay invites us to an International Conversation on World Climate Action Day
Thursday, March 26th at 12:30-1:30 pm ET

This Conversation is intended to publicize the impending possibility of greatly increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the world’s atmosphere by a little mentioned source, the disturbance of peatlands. The resulting climate change and global warming could threaten the survival of human beings!

The Ontario part of the Canadian Peatland, the Hudson Bay and James Bay Lowlands, store an estimated 35 billion tons of carbon, and are threatened by the proposed mining of minerals in the Ring of Fire area which is being strongly promoted by the provincial government. The Ring of Fire is in the Treaty Land of 15 First Nations and is a crescent shaped mineral rich area in the James Bay Lowlands only accessible by ice roads or air. Not all of this peatland is covered by the Ramsar Convention.

Registration information will be in National CFUW and GWI Newsletters after March 11th.

For more information on the importance of peatlands https://www.ducks.ca/?s=peatland