AN HISTORIC institution founded in Meirionnydd is preparing to take its show on the road.

Merched y Wawr, a national women’s organisation, marks its 50th birthday this year and a series of exhibitions is planned to mark the milestone.

However, before setting off on a national tour celebrating five decades of meeting socially, there was a question mark over how the exhibition panels were to be transported from venue to venue.

Step forward Ifor Williams Trailers, which loaned them a fit-for-purpose trailer.

It was a fitting contribution to the celebrations as Merched y Wawr was born in the village of Parc, near Bala, just a few miles away from the company’s headquarters in Cynwyd, near Corwen.

To mark the anniversary each of the movement’s 13 regions was asked to create a handmade panel depicting their areas, all in specific colours.

Other panels depict the national organisation, the magazine Y Wawr, and the Clybiau Gwawr.

The exhibition will be launched by the Welsh Assembly’s presiding officer Elin Jones in Machynlleth on 20 May and will then go on tour, visiting the Urdd and National Eisteddfodau, Royal Welsh Show, National Library of Wales and other venues across the country.

On 19 June it will open in Parc, where it all began, and the final showing will be in the Pierhead, Cardiff in October.

National director Tegwen Morris was thrilled with the trailer company’s assistance.

“I have been towing their trailers for as long as I can remember and am delighted that the company has agreed to help us in this way,” she said.

“It will make such a big difference to the staging of the exhibition and I cannot thank them enough,”

The local connection has also been particularly pleasing to members of the Parc branch of Merched y Wawr, seven of whose current members were among those who helped to establish the branch 50 years ago.

Sulwen Lloyd Davies, who is the branch president and honorary president of the national organisation, recalls the circumstances which led to the birth of the movement.

It came about following the launching of a WI branch in the village in 1966.

Though most of the members were Welsh-speakers the national organisation refused to provide material in the language, prompting them to come up with the idea of setting up their own parallel movement.

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