Riverside Community

Riverside Community is an intentional community located in a tranquil, rural setting close to the Abel Tasman National Park and the township of Motueka. It is described as New Zealand's oldest intentional community, founded by Christian Pacifists in 1941. The community is also the birthplace of the Riverside Community Trust, a charitable trust founded in 1953 by early community members to promote religion, advance education and support vulnerable groups within New Zealand society. While the Trust's Board and the Community are nowadays pluralist and secular entities, both continue to uphold the values of Riverside's early members and provide education and support to the wider New Zealand public. The Trust offers affordable workshops and learning opportunities for children and adults with an emphasis on teaching crafts, agricultural and horticultural skills throughout the year. The Trust's Riverside Cultural Centre is a welcoming space for weekly classes ranging from yoga to drama and for community groups to get together. All trust enterprises are solely run to generate income for supporting many New Zealand charitable organisations which care for vulnerable, unwell or disadvantaged individuals. Riverside Community members consider themselves caretakers of the trust and seek to complement the trust purposes and the board's efforts. Riverside Community Lunch is a weekly open-invite lunch organised by Community Members.

Riverside Community was established in 1941 by a small group of Christian Pacifists who, in the face of the 2nd World War, were eager to practice ways of communal living based on cooperation and sustainability and the repudiation of war. The founders believed equality and social justice to be the main pillars of peace. One member of the group, Hubert Holdaway, contributed 30 acres of farm land and orchard in the Lower Moutere Valley, and some of the group moved there to live. Many of the men spent the war years on prison farms as conscientious objectors to the military scheme during the 2nd World War while their wives and children lived on the community farm. After the war, the Riverside Community Trust was formed in 1953 and over time more land was purchased, hilly scrub land was cleared and new business ventures were started. To this day, all income from Riverside Trust Board's enterprises continue to be used for the promotion of education and to support the 'sick and the poor' as set out in the trust deed. Over the past decades, Riverside's intentional community has gained worldwide recognition as an example of co-operative and communal living and is today New Zealand's oldest intentional community. Both Riverside Trust and Community have come a long way from the original religious focus, and nowadays both entities consider themselves secular and pluralist. Yet, Riversiders (members and trustees alike) still see their strength in adherence to the founders' basic principle: 'If a group of individuals pool their resources, co-operate and live simply, they can create a resource and surplus income to be used for the greater good of society' (Hubert Holdaway).

An intentional community and charitable trust promoting education, sustainability, peace and co-operation.

1. 1Intentional Community | Lower Moutere | Riverside Community NZriverside.org.nz
2. 2About the Community | Riverside Community NZriverside.org.nz