Just over a year ago CWA Nashdale was facing a shut down. With just six women holding up the club – which had been around for over 80 years – its remaining members wondered if it was time to call it quits.

Having joined only months before, current secretary Bee Smith said the few that were left decided it was too important to the small community to let it go under.

“We asked ourselves: ‘what do we do about it? And decided, let’s just revamp the branch’,” she said.

The friends then encouraged their friends to attend their small fundraisers, and a more relaxed attitude towards meetings and events encouraged the younger women to keep coming back.

At last count, its network now includes 25 professional working mothers who, in addition to providing social support to one another, support one another’s ideas for making social change by sending letters to legislators and rallying behind causes deemed important.

Nashdale in not alone in seeing a growth in CWA numbers, with the state organisation reporting a positive result in terms of overall membership count for the first time in over 10 years.

CWA Orange president Elizabeth Lynch said while their group hasn’t grown this year, the dynamic has changed to include younger, more involved members than when she first became involved with the club.

“They’re involved, they come to meetings and they take part in events,” Mrs Lynch said.

Like the Nashdale branch, Mrs Lynch said changing meeting times to outside of work hours helped to engage members who work part-time or volunteer throughout the day, while a change of direction has increased engagement.

“It’s about advocacy to improve lives, not just about fundraising,” she said.

Mrs Lynch said the Byng-Emu Club CWA group looks quite similar to the group at Nashdale in terms of demographics, with young working mums joining forces to elicit change for rural people.

These changes in attitude and policy have helped make CWA NSW the largest CWA body in Australia.