General Assembly 2025

Report from Hillary Keir, Board Member

We kicked off this year’s AGM with the re-election of seven of our board members, followed by a clear overview of the association’s finances and a look back at a lively and fulfilling year.

In 2024, we reached 88 members, welcomed 223 participants, and hosted 22 events. Highlights included our monthly Pub Nights, a Waitangi Workshop in February, and a memorable AGM guest appearance by Kiwi opera singer Julien Van Mellaerts. We marked Anzac Day with our annual dinner and a day trip to Le Quesnoy, and kept busy over the summer with picnics in both Paris and Lyon, as well as co-hosting the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony Event with the New Zealand Society UK. Later in the year, we also enjoyed an opera evening featuring New Zealand talent, a special reading and music night for board member Dunstan’s book Departures, and wrapped up the year with a festive Christmas party at The Black Sheep Society.

The evening closed on an inspiring note with guest speaker Sharelle Govignon-Sweet, who shared her story of coming to France, the importance of honouring Whānau and ancestors, and her journey back to her Māori roots.

Looking ahead, we shared a few plans already in motion for the upcoming year, including a Tikanga Workshop, a new spin on Pub Night, the ANZAC Dinner, and more to come.

The event in pictures:

You are cordially invited to attend the General Assembly of the France New Zealand Association. The General Assembly will take place at the New Zealand Embassy in Paris, 103 rue de Grenelle, 75007 Paris on Thursday the 6th of February 2025. The meeting will start at 7 pm.

All members who have paid for 2025 have the right to vote. We'll welcome you from 6.30 pm.

New members are welcome. If you haven't renewed your membership for 2025 you can do so by going to our membership page

Do let us know if you are coming. Please note that it is mandatory to let us know you will be here to be able to access the Embassy premises.

We encourage you to participate in this event, as a reminder we are required to have the participation of at least one third of our members to be able to hold our General Assembly. In order to calculate this quorum we will base it on the number of members of the Association on February 5 at 12:00 pm.

If you cannot be present, you can have another member of the Association vote in your place, by both signing the proxy document attached to this email. The document needs to be sent to your proxy and they need to present it on the evening before the beginning of the AGM, or return it, signed to the email address on the document.

This year we will ask you to renew 7 administrators (following the end of their 3 years mandates). We will of course also be presenting a round up of 2024 activities, the 2024 financial statement, and the 2025 activities calendar, which we are very much looking forward to sharing with you.

The AGM will be followed by a talk by Sharelle Govignon-Sweet about her life in the South-West of France (Occitanie) as a Māori New Zealander. Sharelle lives in Albi, in the Tarn region, with her French husband and their two children. Their boys attend a bilingual Occitan-French school, as the links between te ao Māori and the local occitan culture made it an obvious choice to bring them closer to their whakapapa.

Sharelle is a New Zealander who identifies as Māori/European. A Treaty educator in New Zealand, Sharelle now teaches cross-cultural communication skills to university students.

Drinks and nibbles will be served afterwards, allowing a chance to catch up with each other.

Event details:

New Zealand Embassy in Paris, 103 Rue de Grenelle, 75007 Paris
6.30pm - 10.00pm
Thursday 6 February 2025
Members only

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