In January 2024, we ran the inaugural Uniting Canterbury Women Menopause Event. Around 120 women attended this free event, to hear from menopause coach, Meredith Wiseman, who covered the health aspects of peri-menopause and menopause, and careers counsellor, Amanda Smidt, who talked about managing menopause in the workplace for employees and employers. Anne Crombie from Crombie and Price donated some amazing full sized feminine intimate and sleep products for our ladies to take home! It was a special evening, and it is wonderful to be doing our part in opening the conversation about menopause, a subject that is often hard for women to talk about, especially those in some cultures. Many connections were made at this event, and we loved the heart-warming feedback we received and the ripple effect the event has created. Many women have since joined Meredith’s Making Menopause Marvellous Facebook group, and have connected with Amanda, to continue these very important conversations.

We ran two more of our popular Around the World in Eight Cafes events. The first was back at Five Star Vietnamese Restaurant. This event was funded by Ryman Healthcare to provide an experience for some of its future female residents at its new Northwood retirement village to have the ‘UCW experience’ mixing with women of many different cultures at a Uniting Canterbury Women run event. Our next (and sixth overall) Around the World in Eight Cafes event was at Bikanervala Indian Restaurant for a group of 28 women of diverse cultures, representing the following countries – Lebanon, Albania, Algeria, Samoa, South Africa, Germany, Nepal, Singapore, Colombia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand.

We continued our fun ‘Tea for Three’ initiative in 2023 – an online evening event on Zoom, where groups of women join us online, and are randomly split into breakout rooms in groups of three to have a 15 minute discussion about two fun questions which have been set. This is a great way to bring women together to connect in the comfort of their home. We are planning a live Tea for Three event in 2024.

We had a brilliant surprise at our online Tea for Three event in June, when the wonderful Jacqui joined us all the way from California! She saw our event on Eventbrite, checked out our website to make sure we were kosha, and stayed up until 12.30am to join us. It was another great night of wonderful connection and conversation, and we heard about some new friendships forming as a result.

We were buzzing after our inaugural Tea for Three event in early May. Thanks so much to the fabulous women who joined us for this fun evening of connection and conversations. Tea for Three is an online event, with a super simple format. We randomly split the main group into groups of three in separate 'Zoom rooms' with some fun starter questions to break the ice and prompt a 15-minute conversation. The women had three conversations during the evening, and we all came back to the main room at the end. It was such a great event that we have decided to create a ‘Winter Series’ of Tea for Three online events, which will culminate in an in-person Tea for Three event for all who attended an online session, giving them the chance to meet their new friends in person.

In March, UCW co-founder Jo Bailey, ran a Writing Life Stories Your Way Workshop for a group of predominantly Muslim women, to help them to get their stories onto the page. Alongside the learning, it was a wonderful session of sharing, with some incredible stories told at the event, which was held at Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House. We can’t wait to hear about the women’s future storytelling progress!

In February, we were delighted to help Shannon Malik and Steffi Brightwell of Narrative 4 launch the Christchurch branch of the story exchange organisation at Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House. The House was the perfect, private, peaceful setting for our wahine to dive deep, be vulnerable and share some incredible stories about a moment in their lives when they felt powerful. A big thank you to Shannon and Steffi for creating a safe space and guiding us through the process, which really helped us all to build confidence and empathy, and to hold the space for another wahine's story, which was then shared with the group. It was very powerful, and we had an insightful debrief at the end about the many positives we took from the day.

There was so much chatter and amazing energy at our Around the World in Eight Cafes event at Five Star Vietnamese Restaurant, on 19 November 2021. We tried to seat women alongside people they don't know to encourage new friendships. We placed some 'connection' questions on each of the tables, but the conversations were so instant the questions were really not needed. Thanks again to Gina Satterthwaite and the Fife Foundation for supporting this event, and Li from Five Star Vietnamese Restaurant for her amazing hosting and delicious food (definitely worth five stars). We also enjoyed hearing from Li's daughter, Hannah, who gave us a great short talk about Vietnamese food and their family restaurant (at Fendalton Village Mall) which we highly recommend visiting!

Almost 600 women came to the inaugural Uniting Canterbury Event at the Centennial Chapel at St Andrew’s College in Christchurch on 10 July 2019. It was a beautiful evening of connection, support and aroha for our Muslim sisters, following the tragic terror attack. It was a beautiful evening of connection, support and aroha for our Muslim sisters following the tragic terror attack of 15 March 2019. You can watch the highlights of the inaugural Uniting Canterbury Women event in the video opposite.

Uniting Canterbury Women hosts coffee and food catch ups for women from all cultures and ethnicities in Christchurch. Each time, the groups meet at a different ethnic café, to connect, share stories, share food, and learn new things about the food and culture from the café owner. Not only is it a great way to connect women, we also learn about different cuisines and cultures, and support small local ethnic businesses. It’s a win win! We are grateful to The Christchurch Foundation, and Fife Foundation, for their support of our Around the World in Eight Cafes initiative.