Don't be deceived by the perfectly baked scones or knitted tea cosies, the Country Women's Association is a force to be reckoned with.
Since its inception in 1922, the camaraderie of women has acted as a catalyst for change and social justice in Australia and overseas.
Unwilling to wait for bureaucracy to address the issues facing country families after World War I, volunteers took it upon themselves to improve living conditions, equip families for the Depression years, build and staff healthcare facilities, help save agricultural industries and aid local war efforts.
That's a hard legacy to sum up in a book, but that's the task with which Adelaide Hills author and historian Liz Harfull has been entrusted.
"I have to say that it was probably the hardest challenge I've ever had as an author, a huge honour and a terrible responsibility," Ms Harfull says.
CWA almost didn't happen
The organisation was formed at a Bush Women's Conference during the Sydney Royal Show in April 1922, the culmination of work by several people including Florence Gordon, a Tamworth journalist hailing from the family behind the Gordon's gin distillery in England.
A driver of the conference, Florence's work on the farming newspaper The Stock and Station Journal attracted the support of politician Richard Arthur and Grace Munro, a woman from a strong NSW pastoral family in Bingara with solid connections.
While a staple in the history books now, the Country Women's Association might never have been.
A small but very determined group of women did show up and on the third day voted to establish the Country Women's Association.
It provided a rare and much-needed platform to discuss the challenges faced by country women and their families. Top of their list was transport and maternity health.
"There were very few hospitals in regional areas and no telecommunications," Ms Harfull says.
Health care a priority for country
Around 60,000 infants died in Australia during World War I, the same number of men who died fighting at the front.
In the 30 years leading up to the CWA forming, 9,000 women died in childbirth in NSW alone.
Families started to drift to the city where they believed the standards of living were higher.
"So there was a real need to address those living conditions and apply country women in their families in order to build up Australian agriculture and the ability to grow food and things like wool," Ms Harfull says.
"They decided not to wait and to do it themselves. They raised money, and they built their own little cottage hospitals, and they employed maternity nurses.
War a big task for association
If Ms Harfull could revisit any moment in the CWA's history it would be the time NSW state president Ada Beveridge delivered a speech in Sydney in 1939.
"There was a group of very influential women who were quite frustrated that the authorities had not recognised that women could help in the war effort and do it in an organised way," Ms Harfull says.
"They joined forces and held a public meeting at the Sydney Town Hall. Over 10,000 women showed up. They packed every space in the building and they spilled out into the street.
For a full year she urged women to get ready, learn first aid, organise their households and start growing more vegetables.
"I think she was a woman of great foresight. She was very interested in international affairs, she had a university degree, was very well educated, and travelled a lot," Ms Harfull says.
The CWA was soon making mass meals, uniforms and other resources.
"They were given a whole floor of the David Jones building in Sydney on which they set up training people to make camouflage nets. And people worked in there every day," Ms Harfull says.
As well as supporting those in service, many CWA members went on to serve in the Australian Women's Land Army, formed to combat rising rural labour shortages.
The first recruits trained on Ms Beveridge's property.
The CWA also established a Servicewomen's Club to house and feed hundreds of women.
"There was nowhere in Sydney for women on leave to go, there were plenty of places set up for the men, but nowhere for service women to go," Ms Harfull says
More than just scones
Producing meals and handicrafts on a grand scale equipped the CWA for what it would go on to do.
"As you follow the history throughout the decades, you can see them building this reputation and these skills," Ms Harfull says.
While many members are frustrated that scones are all people think of when they picture the CWA now, they recognise its power.
"[It's] quite extraordinary, because it's raised so much money for them, hundreds of thousands of dollars," Ms Harfull says.
"And it's also created an opportunity to engage with the public … and talk about what they do."
As well as a fundraising opportunity, the association's famous cookbooks were an essential tool for families, especially following the Depression.
In the late 1920s, Australia's wool industry was in trouble and prices collapsed.
The CWA made it their mission to save it.
"They backed a campaign to the Australian public to use more wool, basically saying, 'If we can't convince Australians to use it how are we going to convince people overseas about this amazing product?'
"And they've been doing that ever since."
The rise and temporary fall of the CWA
The CWA's membership peaked in the 1950s.
There were 30,000 members in NSW alone, including six new branches in Indigenous communities.
"They initiated branches that were designed to engage with Indigenous women and were one of the first organisations to do that," Ms Harfull says.
By the 1960s and '70s, the CWA's popularity had turned.
"For a lot of years they were in trouble, particularly … when Australian society was changing massively and the Women's Liberation Movement was causing people to re-evaluate the role of women," Ms Harfull says.
"At that point the CWA very much stood for championing traditional roles as wives and mothers running households and raising a family. And they lost a lot of members in that period."
And in 2022?
"But in recent years, people have … rediscovered them and they've wanted to reconnect with some of the traditional skills that they recognise the members of the CWA hold.
"There have actually been new branches popping up all over the place in the last 10 years or so … and there are younger members and more culturally diverse members."
Ongoing need for change
One of the biggest motivations for joining a CWA branch, Ms Harfull has found, is companionship.
"If you look at what's happening in Australian society, the number of women now living on their own, particularly from their 50s onwards, is increasing," she says.
"[The CWA] gives people purpose. They come together and have a lovely time and enjoy each other's company.
"But they are also getting things done."
A recent example has been the help offered in flood-affected areas of NSW.
"Even when their own clubrooms have been destroyed they're still making meals and getting clothing to people and doing what they can to make a difference," Ms Harfull says.
It's the very essence of what formed the CWA a century ago.
Liz Harfull's book documenting 100 years of the CWA will be released at its 100th State Conference in NSW next month.
