The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

The Director Writes . . . It i/lll'fl'lS have came across my rim-k “king f,”. a mm. “I my i, it'll given [H Area Cmivcmimii. "gunk". Tl. Home Economics Branch has had an extremely busy. pi iluctive year. We are delighted that our 47H Homemak- ip Club enrolment has remained high. despite a declining b, :i-rate. ln l980-8] almost 26.000 cnroled in the pro. it .. The two basic projects Which Came First. the Chick- 'L._. .r the Egg? and Ready. Get Set. Sew. have been p ilar. In January. we will offer another two new projects: :t c Outdoor Living. and Bread Winners. We are or ident they too will prove worthwhile and popular. e have revised the 4-H Facts and drawn up a fact sheet y. lg guidelines for 4-H leaders. Reports coming in indi- c. that they are most useful to those involved, July. a successful provincial 4-H Members‘ Confer- u- was held at the University of Guelph. We look forward it II’ third Leaders' Conference. to be held in Toronto. L|i g the Royal Winter Fair. November 18-20. Again. the U nittee has planned a most interesting program. with d mic speakers, who will discuss adolescent stress. fam- il lie and leadership. with time being allowed for group d issions. . behalf of the Ministry. 1 would like to thank you for Ii g or sponsoring 3.06l 4-H volunteer leaders out of a ll 5.234. We are grateful to you for the help you so \\ neg gave us. -e to staff changes, maternity leave and inclement \ .er. the numbers attending our adult courses declined st ly. However. participants who did attend. received ll favorably judging from their evaluations. Specialists in i a lot oftime and effort. attempting to prepare courses tl meet your needs and provide meaningful learning cit- p wees. During the past year. we have received several n sts from other provinces and from abroad to replicate \« of our courses. which we find very complimentary to lll ranch. At this time i would make my annual appeal for st in of our courses. The staff and I would be delighted if \\ ruld realize a bumper enrolment this fiscal year. Again. I Jld like to thank you for providing 1.407 out of a total iii l68 volunteer leaders for the workshops. tiong some of the new courses we are offering include; 5: le Home Repairs. Microwave Cooking. Food For All Si tins. Quilting and Fund Raising. e have had a 39% increase in requests made by con- si. :rs during the past year; over 64.000 compared with 4" lo the previous year. addition, we have prepared a record number of news h '568. radio tapes and magazine and newspaper features. an ell as some TV. presentations. No years ago our adult course. Spotlight on Bread. was 9‘“ 3mirly popular. Because of many requests for copies of lh manual. we decided to make parts of it into a numbered W i Iit'ation. We hope it will be available for general dis» W'ution soon. Our foods and nutrition section has also c‘ 'Pleled a new cookbook. Anyone Can Cook. which will rk'i-laice Let's Cook It Right and Your Money‘s Worth In Fir-id. This new booklet should appear in the spring. E{Ural Ontario certainly has faced a time of crisis this l'mr. along with the rest of the country. Conditions have bmll eslitecially tough for farm people. and probably more 50 for beginning farmers. as they have faced l2-13% infla- tion. 22-25% interest rates. lower prices for hogs and steers fwd Poor weather. Our decentralized Ministry staff. work- ing in 54 field offices across the province. has been very aware of the plight of the individual farmer and all have worked hard. in these very difficult times. to give as much help as poSsible to those facing crisis Do you know that in Chinese. the character used for crisis means both danger and opportunity? This brings me lo a big question: What dangers and opportunities face FWlO now and in the future? The new energy agreement signed be» tween Alberta and the Federal Government indicates that gasoline will be at least $4 per gallon by 1986. The greatly increased price of gas. will in turn. cause food. clothing and shelter as weil as transportation costs to increase significantly. This may create a dangerous situation for everyone. High energy costs will cause many organizations to look for new ways to cope. As the cast of moving people from place to place increases. as the cost of paper. postage. meals and hotel rooms increase. will you be able to retain your present structure? Will you be able to carry on as you have for so many years? Another problem I feel you must tackle before long is that of meeting the needs of younger women. Several new women's organizations. both rural and urban have sprung up recently. I keep hearing that the older. established women's organizations. including your own. are not meet- ing the needs of younger women. This may be a danger sign. A third danger is the fact that the quality of family life is declining. This summer 1 attended a three week Executive Program at Queen's University. where the quality of life. now and in the future. was discussed at great length. It was surprising to discover that the traditional North American family of two parents with two or more Children is on the way to extinction. In the U.S. 40¢? of all marriages end in divorce and l C’r ofall children live in single-parent homes. Another 10% are step-children in aggregate families. When the recent census statistics are released. I am fairly confident that trends similar to those in US. will be re- vealed. Today. little time is devoted to child rearing. Fifty per- cent of women with school age children work from neces- sity. outside the home and so do 33% of women with children under six years. Daycare. which is often of an irregular quality. is replacing the parental role in many families. The single-parent mother has the toughest role. as she tries to cope with ajob. housework and a low income. A typical Canadian single parent is a woman in her 40‘s with teenagers. a woman who forms the greatest percentage of Canada‘s poor. Ten percent of teenagers between 15-l9 years are parents themselves. Illegitimate births continue at a high rate. I I A A warning comes from the Soctal Planning Councrl of Metro Toronto whose recent report shows that teenagers. of whom there are over three million in Canada. grow up more quickly and are decidedly tougher than their predecessors. They are a lonely generation. many of whom before they‘ve turned 13 years. have experienced drugs. alcohol. sex and crime. Many lack the security of a two-parent family in a unifying culture. These findings have been substantiated by the Ontario Addiction Research Foundation surveys in high schools across the province in [977 and I979. where it was found very little difference existed between rural and urban populations. and drugs and alcohol were major problems. t'oirr'd page i5 5