The Club has been contacted by Rex Hendry, the President of the New Zealand Antarctic Society, asking if we could put a link to the Society on our website. I have done this. Rex has also sent the folloiwing information about the Society.
“In 1933, a group of influential New Zealanders, along with Antarctic adventurers Rear Admiral Richard Byrd and Sir Douglas Mawson, held a meeting to discuss the future of Antarctica. This was the inaugural meeting of the New Zealand Antarctic Society. Apart from WW2, the Society has run continuously since then.
The Society took an active role in creating public and political support for New Zealand’s involvement in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE) 1955-1958 and International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957-1958. These expeditions established Scott Base and New Zealand’s continuous scientific presence in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. Key figures of this period, Sir Edmund Hillary, Leader of the TAE’s New Zealand Party and Dr Trevor Hatherton, Leader of the IGY, were both influential in the Society.
The Society brings people interested in the Antarctic region together to share their knowledge with others, to foster interest in the region, to seek and support the protection of the Antarctic environment, and to promote New Zealand’s interests. The Society is incorporated and governed nationally by an elected council and regionally through three elected branch committees (Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury).
Recent rejuvenation of the Society has set a new strategic direction, moving from a ‘Victorian Society’ to a ‘for-purpose environmental organisation’, looking to engage in more advocacy, oversight of [NZ] Antarctic Science and policy, education and outreach, updating communication, and preserving some of its own history. It publishes the renown ‘Antarctic’ magazine twice yearly.”