International Women's Day Dinner

March 14, 2024

Each year Oberon Council sponsors a dinner to celebrate International Women's Day, and for 2024 it was held for the first time in the Community Centre. A large group of Oberon's women attended, plus five token males - two boys from St Joseph's Catholic School, the fiancé and a friend of one of the speakers and the photographer.

Some of the crowd in the foyer

Evidence that there was at least one man there

There were two speakers on the night. The first was Dominica Koudrin, who told everyone about getting into a career in pharmacy, a job choice seen as exclusively male not so many years ago.

Dominica Koudrin

The other speaker was Oberon resident Eugenia Miroshnikoff, author of the book The Matryoshka Doll. The book takes the form of a memoir and it is a tribute to her courageous traditional Russian born family who survived oppressive political regimes in their escape to freedom, eventually settling in Australia. Eugenia talked about the histories of the times they lived through to an attentive and appreciative audience.

Eugenia Miroshnikoff

Some more about the book:

Eugenia has said that the book had taken her many years to compile. The effort was worth it because the book has been nominated for several literary awards.

• A shortlisting for the NSW Premier's Literary Award in two categories (UTS Glenda Adams for New Writing, and Multicultural Award)
• Shortlisting for The Foundation for Australian Literary Studies - Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Awards.
• A nomination from The Association for the study of Australian Literature ALS Gold Medal Award

If you want to read more the Library has a copy of Eugenia's book available for borrowing, although there might be a waiting list. You can buy your own copy at Shawline Publishing* or amazon.com.

(* Shawline Publishing went into liquidation in October, 2024. You can read about this at the Australian Society of Authors.)

If you weren't there, you missed out

Special thanks have to go to Councillor Helen Hayden who arranged the table decorations, the students from Oberon's schools who helped with the preparations and the Council staff who brought it all together.

See some photos from the dinner here

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