Equality South West (ESW) and the Women's National Commission (WNC) held a joint event in Taunton on, Monday 14 July 2008.

We are very keen to hold events around the UK to hear the voices of women from all the regions to ensure we are representing women's voices from all parts of the country. The aim of this event was to update partners and colleagues in the South West region on WNC activities and to give WNC the opportunity to hear what the important issues are for women in the South West. We were greatly supported in organising and hosting of this event, by ESW.

Jackie Longworth Chair of ESW, welcomed delegates and WNC Chair, Baroness Joyce Gould began the event giving the keynote address. Joyce provided a detailed presentation about the recent work of the WNC. Other speakers also included Holly Dustin from the End Violence Against Women Coalition who spoke about the Gender Equality Duty, Annie Crocker who covered the experiences of Romani Gypsy Women, and Manjula Bray who works with OCPA (Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments) talked about women getting into public life.

A very informative short film titled 'No More Peanuts - Winning Equal Pay' was shown and included interviews with women who had challenged their pay disparity and fought for work of equal value being recognised fairly.

Two lively workshops were held to highlight which 'hot topics' were most important to women in the South West. One of the most significant issues was transport and public transport in particular, and included issues of its quality and availability. Other topics raised included, child care, caring in general, children impacted by domestic violence, equal pay, funding issues for local groups and media representation of women and minority communities, including the traveller community. It was inspiring to witness so much healthy discussion and debate.

There was a good turnout of delegates, and we hope that many of them will now be keen to become WNC Partners, particularly as we want to increase the number of Partners we currently have from this region.

We will be looking closely at the issues raised during the event, and will see how we can incorporate these into the work we are doing. We will also follow-up on those queries raised, but which did not receive answers on the day.

Thanks again to all who helped with the event from ESW, and to all who attended. We look forward to holding our next event in the South-West region.