History

The WHE had its inception more than 25yrs ago, when a group of committed home educating parents got together, with a vision to form a community, from across the home schooling philosophies and demographic, for support and connection. This was long before our smart phones and social media made networking so easy and accessible. 

They charged a small membership fee, to cover costs of newsletter printing, postage etc and to assist families with the costs of activities. 

Over the years the group has gone through many changes, with a large percentage of the Whangārei district’s home schooling families being members at some point. 

Over the years many trips, events and meetups have been organised through the group, with the small membership fee going towards subsidising costs, or paying in advance for discounted tickets.

In 2016 the group formally became Whangarei Home Educators Incorporated. This meant we could apply for outside funding to continue to subsidise member families while keeping membership fees low. An example of this was funding from the Oxford Sports Trust to subsidise a snorkelling trip to the Poor Knights Islands for participating member families as part of an EMR (Experiencing Marine Reserves) workshop. This trip would otherwise have been cost prohibitive for many of our families. 

Being an Incorporated Society requires a few legal boxes to be ticked, and so WHE has a committee, has an AGM in late Autumn/early Winter and submits financial accounts annually to the Companies Office.  At this year's AGM, the committee decided to reinstate a small membership fee, to better enable us to provide great activities and opportunities for our children.  We will also continue to organise fundraising. This will put us in a better position to successfully apply for grants for those more expensive ideas.