National Gatherings
The 2024 National Gathering for Friendship Force clubs will be held at Silverstream Retreat in Upper Hutt on Thursday 4 and Friday 5 April 2024.
Following the Gathering there will be home hosting offered by our local clubs over the weekend of 6-7 April.
We are looking forward to another great few days of friendship and fun.
A very successful Lakeside Gathering was held in Taupo in August 2022. Kudos to the great teamwork from the Taupo Club for hosting this event at MiCamp at Waitetoko. Reports from the Gathering can be found in Google Drive in the My Pages section (members only).
The next Gathering will be held in the Wellington area in early 2024, hosted by the Wellington Club.
A National Gathering for FFNZ members was held from 13-16 April 2021, at El Rancho holiday park, Waikanae. Reports on discussions and ideas presented at the National Gathering have been prepared by the Field Reps. A summary report has been sent to all members, and is available again here.
Friendship Force Field Days
Nuts & Bolts Days, Feilding
The annual Field Day for the clubs in the lower half of the North Island is held in Feilding in August/September. The first event in 2008 was held at the Sanson Rugby Club, and then moved to Feilding in 2012. It is called Nuts & Bolts Day after the trophy competed for at the day, which is constructed from nuts and bolts.
- 2020 N&B Day : The Nuts & Bolts Day in 2020 was hosted by the Wellington Club. The N&B Trophy was won by the Wellington Club, and the South Taranaki Club will run the competition at the 2021 event.
Building Bridges, Hamilton (formerly L&P Day)
Clubs in the top half of the North Island hold an annual field day, the first of which was a picnic at Paeroa Racecourse about 1997. It was named after the trophy of an L&P bottle which became the award for winning the day's competition. The event was moved to the Thames Rugby Clubrooms in 2008, and then in 2019 to the Hamilton area.
The 2020 event has been named 'Building Bridges' and was held in Hamilton on 9 August. Field Rep Gwendolyn Needham coordinated this event.
2020 Marlborough.
The 2020 New Zealand Conference was hosted by the Marlborough Club.
2019 Boulder, Colorado.
The World Conference in 2019 was held in Boulder, Colorado.
A very successful New Zealand Friendship Force National Conference was hosted in February 2018 by Whangarei Club, New Zealand’s ‘farthest north’ hive of Friendship Force presence and activities.
The Friendship Force 2017 World Conference was held in Manchester, England, from 24-28 August 2017.
For information on the conference go to the FFI website www.friendshipforce.org.
