Student Profile: Christina Godfrey, Womens Group, Cloonfad, Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo.

Cake icing, cooking, painting, furniture restoration…it's like a whole lot of night courses rolled into one class, in one venue.

Christina Godfrey is a member of Cloonfad Women's Group, a young community organisation based in a small town on the Mayo / Roscommon border. The Group meets every Wednesday night in Cloonfad Community Centre. There, they follow courses in various skills during the year.

"We started this session in October last and its been going really good. We started off with painting and tweed-canvassing classes, where we worked on canvases to produce colourful pictures" says Christina, who has since hung two pieces of her work in her home.

"There's a regular group of about twenty two or twenty five women coming along every week. The crowd always comes out very well, and people are eager about it", says mother of four Christina. Difficulties with materials and initially-new skills posed problems for some people, says Christina, but they soon perked up and "some people really came up trumps, surprising people with what they could do."

In December, the focus of Cloonfad Women's Group has been on Christmas, of course. "We've learned how to do candle, wreath and flower arrangements, we've learned how to ice cakes, cook different things and we've also picked up a few things about different table drinks", says the 49 years old Mayo woman.

As well as the catering side of their work, the Cloonfad Womens' Group have some very important classes in Reflexology. The trainer comes from nearby Castlerea and works with the group periodically from October to April.

Classes at the Women's Group run for up to two and a half hours and a membership charge cost is set down at the start of each term. Each term costs the participants an average of sixty pounds. Teachers at the Cloonfad Women's Group come from the local community. A local florist, for instance, comes in to demonstrate to the ladies how they can put nifty floral arrangements and Christmas bouquets together.

Women groups have become very popular meeting and learning points right around the country in recent years. Funded by the Vocational Education Committees of each county, most participants, like Christina pay a membership fee to their specific club.

"There's so much happening now for women, and we get so much supplied", said Christina who will work on with Cloonfad Women's Group until April. It'll be her fifth year with the group and she's enthusiastic about many more.

Cloonfad Womens Group meet every Wednesday night at the Community Centre, Cloonfad, Ballyhaunis, Co Roscommon.

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