Friendship Force Gathering
22 October 2024
From October 25 ninety-five people from mainland Australia, Canada and New Zealand will be arriving on Norfolk Island for a Friendship Force Gathering. Friendship Force is the name of an organisation that began almost 50 years ago. The name can be misleading because it is not a friendship or dating group. It does however promote friendship around the world because it is an international home hosting organisation.
The organisation has clubs all around the world and it exists to break down barriers to friendship and peace across the globe. This is done by club members spending about a week staying in the homes of another club. Club members from Perth, say, might travel to Vancouver and Santa Barbara, where the local club hosts, feeds and shows them their community as a local might see it. It is very different from being a tourist and staying in a hotel or travelling with a tour company.
Friendship Force Gathering
Friendship Force began in the USA under the patronage of President Jimmy Carter and has since expanded to Europe (both East and West), South and Central America, Canada, the UK, Taiwan, Japan, Oceania and Thailand as well as many states in the US. The organisation spread to Australia and New Zealand around 40 years ago and members have been travelling to promote the goals ever since.
Members usually travel as a group and can visit as many as three different clubs on what is called a journey. Clubs also host people in their homes as a way to showcase their ‘world’. The only cost to travellers will be their travel costs, a fee to the host club so that they can ‘show them around’ and pay for welcome and farewell. A fee is also paid to the organisation to keep it managing the matching of hosting requests. Visitors usually bring a small gift and shout their hosts to a thankyou dinner.
If you would like to know more about Friendship Force you can check it out at friendshipforce.org or join the Gathering on October 30 at 10.30AM at the Paradise Hotel for morning tea and conversation with members who can share their experiences with you. You might want to start a club here on Norfolk.
Registrations are important and this can be done by contacting Gigi at the Norfolk Island Travel Centre phone 22502 by Tuesday 29th October.