North Island annual reunion, a message from Sigrun Edda

Hallo everyone.

Our annual North Island reunion was held at Awakeri on March 5th to 7th 2010. Thank you, Nicola and Finnbogi, for all the great organising and effort. The dinner was brilliant, and so was the breakfast. This was much appreciated, and will be a hard act to follow!

The turn-out was much better than the two previous years, and that was great to see. A big welcome to the two new families that showed up, Hilmar, Leeanne, Runa Lind, Arana and their children.

At the meeting we decided that we would stick to being a ‘social club’ rather than a fully fledged ‘society’ , with bigger obligations and expectations than our members are keen on.

There will be no membership fees at this stage. The money in the Icelandic Society’s account will stay there for the time being.

We will not be taking part in the Scandinavian Festivals on a permanent basis, but ‘play it by ear’ each time. The next Scandinavian Festival will be in Norsewood in February 2011, and Vivien and Petur Hognason have offered to represent us there. They will no doubt give us an update on the program closer to the time, and everyone is welcome to attend.

However, this will not replace our reunion in 2011, which will be held somewhere in the ROTORUA district. The 3 Icelandic families in the area will work at finding a suitable venue, and we will let you know the details closer to the time. We will be working on having this the first weekend in March, as per tradition.

I’m trying to start up a scrap book from our reunions, and would love to be able to go back to the very first one in Waharoa in 1982. I have got a good selection of photos from 2005 and 2007, but anything else is sadly missing. Please email or post me any photos you can spare, I’m sure this exercise will be worth it in the long run.

I have updated the contact list to the best of my ability, and will email it to everyone. Please let me know if you see any mistakes, if you know of people on the list that have left the country, or if you know of anyone missing. This list just keeps on growing, but there are quite a few people there no-one has seen or heard of for years. I’m not sure what to do about that; I’m not keen on dropping anyone off just because they haven’t been in contact for a while.

I would love to see more of your news on our blogspot, that is what it is for. It doesn’t have to be of great importance to the wider world, just a bit of fun for us here in NZ.

Regards

Sigrun Edda Crowe