Waikato Women – Find your tribe

Who knew there was such a thing as friendship dating? I hadn’t heard of this either, but while researching upon subcultures, I stumbled across a subculture group called ‘Waikato women – find your tribe’, on Meetup NZ. I was intrigued to find out more, so I contacted Sarah Clarke, the organiser of all the ‘find your tribe’ groups across New Zealand. Sarah lives in the Coromandel, but because she is the group organiser for the six different women friendship groups amongst New Zealand, she does a lot of travelling and running around. Sarah is so passionate about what she does that she doesn’t mind putting the extra work and effort in. Sarah’s role as the group organiser includes assembling all the paid events, such as the friendship speed dating events, retreats, after work drinks plus so much more.

Sarah started up this group in March 2016. As a certified therapist, Sarah knew there was a real need for strong friendships amongst women. She discovered that in this age and time, so many women are quite lonely and need a few friends to help get them by and enjoy life as they should. This was Sarah’s main intention and purpose for creating the ‘find your tribe’ groups to bring women together in a room, on an online connect page or a specific weekly event to create “beautiful friendships.”

Sarah has been the organiser for over four years, over this time she has experienced many highlights and very limited low lights that have made her want to continue on in this role. Sarah’s ultimate highlight occurred this year when a cancer patient, who was feeling very low, with multiple suicide attempts, decided to come along to one of the friendship events. This woman had a life-changing experience and now she is in a much better place of life, all thanks to the group itself and the many women inside the organisation.

The group is open to anyone who identifies as a woman, which makes it super-inclusive for all ages and is suitable for all different interests. However, as most groups do nowadays, there are a few rules that members must adhere to. Each person that joins the group must have a genuine interest in making new friends and so no self-promotion should take place as well as there shouldn’t be people interested in getting mental health support as it is not the place for that. Having rules like these ensures that it is a safe and welcoming environment for women to be a part of.

The Hamilton group, in particular, is the largest and is growing each week. There are over 500 members, with new women joining each week. Each event the group runs is different and so there never really is a typical amount of people.

“Once women have found their own friendships, they tend to no longer need the group anymore,” admits Sarah.

Of course, all women are different and like to do different things, and so not all paid events will look interesting for all. So, it is encouraged to write a post on the group page about your particular interests and see if anyone wanted to join you in this interest at any point in time.

I went along to one of the ‘Waikato – find your tribe’ group events, a spring picnic in the gardens. It was a beautiful day and I was excited to see how the group was like in person. The crowd that came along to the event wasn’t huge, including two families with their kids and husbands and two other single ladies in their mid-40s. It was more intimate, due to the smaller size, for the ladies to connect with everyone and feel more comfortable to share their opinions about different topics, deep and easy-going.

Overall the ‘Waikato women – find your tribe’ is a growing group that I believe will impact the wider Hamilton community. I was only informed by just a few of the life-changing friendships, but as the groups evolve more and more new friendships will be created.