Z Club is affiliated to the Zonta Club of Christchurch, Canterbury. Zonta International was originally a women’s service organisation, but is now open to all genders.

Our Zonta Club is one of 1133 worldwide and the organisation has been operating for 102 years providing service and advocacy for women and girls.

Our Z Club has been part of Avonside for 28 years, providing leadership goals to students, as well as fundraising and service for many women and children’s charities in that time.

Despite a fractured year owing to Covid in the first term, our Z Club girls have been busy providing Service and having Fundraising events for Canterbury Heart Kids, the charity they have chosen to support this year.

Although I wasn’t able to visit the school in Term 1, the girls did a great job of organising themselves, with Vice-President Nicole Kim also running a recruitment drive on a lunch break, which brought in eight more girls. They also made 50 cute Easter “Bunnies” from chocolate eggs and stick on “eyes” which they gave to Heart Kids.

At the beginning of Term 2, we were finally able to induct this year’s Board and my Zonta Club President Marie came along to perform the little ceremony. Formally inducted were Kate Hardin as President, Nicole Kim as Vice-President, Anh Nham as Secretary and Jaely Barnabe as Treasurer. Our guests included Principal Catherine Law and Amy Coet, our liaison with Heart Kids, who spoke to everyone about the work they do.

Volunteers helped out at the Heart Kids Birthday Party in June at Inflatable World, serving up food and organising games. Also in June, we had the first major fundraiser of the year, selling boxes of slices/cakes to friends, family, teachers and also Heart Kids families. This proved to be a real winner, making $1300 profit.

In September, we had our next Fundraiser which was a Pub Quiz Night at One Good Horse Tavern in Parklands. Up until lockdown, this had been the major fundraiser each year, but being able to run the Quiz again this year was great, and it was the most successful yet. With proceeds from entry ticket sales and raffle ticket sales, we made $1788. This year we will be giving Heart Kids $3132 after our fundraising efforts.

On 6 November a small team of Z Club girls will be cooking dinner for the residents at Ronald McDonald House. This will be the first time since before Covid, so the girls are excited to be going back and providing this great service for the families.

Jan Suckling

Zonta Club of Christchurch-Canterbury