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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-11-17 Daily Xml
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Embroiderers' Guild of South Australia

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:39): I had the honour recently of representing Mrs Hieu Van Le, patron of the Embroiderers' Guild of South Australia Inc. at the 50th year anniversary and the launch of two guild exhibitions. I, like you, Deputy Speaker, am a proud member of the Embroiderers' Guild. In addition, I am also a guild trustee.

Although the guild is in the electorate these days of West Torrens, it is one of the wonderful organisations like the Handspinners and Weavers Guild and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of South Australia that were in the electorates of Hanson and Adelaide and then Ashford, but, sadly, now are not in Ashford. The Embroiderers' Guild continues to impress me with its work, classes, projects and networking with more than 500 members and 12 country branches. This is a wonderful, progressive organisation.

The country branches are located in the Barossa Valley, Bordertown, the Copper Triangle, Eyre Peninsula, Flinders, Gawler, Mount Gambier, Naracoorte, Port Pirie, the Riverland, the South Coast and Yorke Peninsula. I was pleased to see that many of the country members had made their way to the celebration. Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to work particularly with the immediate past president of the Embroiderers' Guild, Arrienne Wynen, as well as its secretary, Gwen Deare, and the team on a number of areas. I should emphasise that they have done all the work but, hopefully, I have been helpful to them.

The 50th celebration included a presentation of a 50-year badge to a founding member, Anne Elston, from Eyre Peninsula; and I was very pleased to discuss this award with the member for Flinders because Anne has had such a fabulous contribution to the Embroiderers' Guild. Internationally-renowned ceramicist Stephen Bowers again wowed the crowd with the 'golden hand', and I was very pleased to see that it was a left hand at that—being left handed and left minded—which I had commissioned for the 50-year anniversary.

I understand that this ceramic art piece will be displayed alongside the 40th anniversary gift (again crafted by Stephen Bowers), which is of a willow pattern, although it does have a beautiful blue and white portrait of the Embroiderers' Guild house on the front of it, which is a large cup and saucer. I also understand that his Excellency the Governor, the Hon. Hieu Van Le AO, and Mrs Lan Le, the guild patron, have invited a number of the guild members to Government House for a morning tea in recognition of the 50th celebration. Unfortunately, as I said, Mrs Le was not able to come to the celebration at the Mile End premises but she was happy for me to represent her at that particular stage.

There has also been an informal visit to the guild arranged for Mrs Le to view the two wonderful exhibitions. I do recommend that members visit the 50th Gold Challenge exhibition, where basically members were given a piece of gold material and asked to make something in readiness for the exhibition. The variety of work and also the standard of work has been fantastic. I also recommend the Golden Threads Museum Exhibition.

If members do get the opportunity to go to the Embroiderers' Guild they will notice that there is a fantastic display of multicultural embroidery from all over the world, and I am pleased to say that the Embroiderers' Guild actually celebrates the different contributions from different cultures in this area. The new president, Vivienne Pring, has indicated that, in addition to myriad classes and meetings planned until the end of the year at the Mile End centre, there are a number of country visits planned to the South-East hosted by the Bordertown group and to the Flinders branch, and this is all happening during November.

What an amazing voluntary organisation; which has a very high standard in the art world and in the embroidery world. Congratulations.

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