Shelley Comeau was acclaimed to her Oromocto seat.

A record number of women took a workshop in Fredericton this weekend aimed at helping more women get elected.

The workshop was the last of six held in New Brunswick by the Canadian Federation of Municipalities.

It was designed to provide would-be politicians with a practical toolkit to run for office: how to organize a campaign team, how to get votes by going door to door, networking, handling media interviews and overall strategies.

Parties train candidates at the federal or municipal levels, but people are on their own at municipal elections.

There were 27 women at the two-day event, including law student Courtney Mills. She is considering a run for Fredericton city council in May.

"The information about campaigning, the media and training, is really great. But [the best] is the networking — meeting all of these women who support other women," she said.

"It's very empowering and it's very encouraging to see that we have so many women who are interested in getting our voices heard."

Only 1 woman councillor in Fredericton

The federation says women make up just 25 per cent of the members of municipal councils across the country.

Fredericton has 12 council seats. One is held by a woman. The federation backs the United Nations goal of having 30 per cent of elected officials being women.

Shelley Comeau, deputy mayor of Oromocto, was acclaimed to her seat in a 2009 byelection. She will be running her first campaign in May.

"I've learned a lot about actually organizing people to help you out. Sometimes that happens in a municipal election. People think they're going to run, take care of everything by themselves, and everything is going to fall into place," she said.

"It's a lot of work and things that I never would have considered, I learned about in this workshop."

Municipal elections in New Brunswick will be held in May.