Last year a dinner was held for 100 people, but this year’s high tea on March 8 is hoped to double last year’s attendance numbers.

The event has received a $3500 celebration grant, targeted at events around the state promoting social cohesion and bringing culturally diverse communities together.

Motivational speaker Julie Cross will return for a second year.

“I grew up in regional Queensland, and having visited so many regional areas I’ve found some of the issues faced by women are the same in the city as in the country, but country women underestimate how amazing they are and my job is to remind them of that,” she said.

“They think because they’re isolated they’re not as good or not as savvy or not as educated as women in the city, and that’s definitely not the case.”

After a bikini shot of her post-baby body on Facebook garnered 120,000 likes in a day late last year, Mr Cross said her message to women this year was to embrace themselves as they are.

“I’ll be reminding women to own their physical space and their emotional space - we’ve got enough with how we showed up and we need to stop buying into comparisons,” she said.

“Then we’ll move through the world much more empowered.”

Orange City Council services policy committee chair Ron Gander welcomed the grant.

“With this support from the state government we can stage a free event that will be more affordable and accessible to a broader range of women,” he said.

“Like any other regional city, women of Orange benefit from getting together and sharing common challenges.”

danielle.cetinski@fairfaxmedia.com.au