Meeting People Over 60 In New Zealand

Meeting new people gets harder as you get older, especially once you've finished up at work or shifted to be nearer the mokopuna. It's worth the effort though, for the head as much as the heart. Here are ten ways for Kiwis over 60 to meet other over 60s, online dating included:

• Get Down To The RSA

  Worth saying plainly, because plenty of people assume otherwise: you don't have to have served to go to the RSA. Most welcome associate members, and a good many have rebranded themselves as RSA and Community Clubs precisely because they want locals through the door. There are 182 of them around the country with more than 65,000 members between them. Cheap meals, housie, snooker, darts, raffles and a room full of people your own age. Same goes for the cossie clubs and chartered clubs, and if you join one, Clubs New Zealand membership usually gets you into the others as well.

• Join A u3a Group

  u3a came to New Zealand in 1989 and there are 88 groups now, 53 in the North Island and 35 in the South. It's for people in the third stage of life, which is their phrase for after the career finishes. No exams, no assignments and no qualifications at the end. Some groups run monthly meetings with a speaker, others run lecture series, and nearly all of them have smaller interest groups underneath: history, gardening, current affairs, walking, books. You end up in a room with people who chose the same subject you did.

• Call In At The Menz Shed

  MENZSHED has 136 sheds and over 4,000 members nationally. A shed is a workshop where blokes turn up, build and mend things, and talk while they're doing it. Their own research last year found something worth repeating: of the men surveyed who scored high for loneliness before joining, the number dropped from 29 to 8 afterwards. One member is quoted in it saying that if it weren't for the shed he might not be here. Worth knowing that some sheds welcome women and a few run women's sessions, so it's not automatically men only.

• Do A parkrun, And Walk It

  Free, 5km, every Saturday at 8am, at around seventy locations up and down the country. The part that matters for us: walking is expressly fine. parkrun has a thing called parkwalk and every event has a tail walker whose whole job is to come in last so that nobody else does. You register once, print the barcode, and it works at any parkrun in the world. The coffee afterwards is where the actual talking happens.

• Find A Tramping Or Walking Group

  Most towns have a tramping club, and most of them grade their trips, so there'll be easy and social options alongside the hard ones. If a full tramp is more than you're after, Walking New Zealand keeps a directory of walking groups nationwide, and the names tell you who they're for: 60's Up, Kiwi Seniors, Happy Wanderers, Strollers. There are heart and arthritis walking groups too. And if your GP has ever mentioned a Green Prescription, that's the referral to your regional sports trust that gets you into this sort of thing with a bit of support.

• Learn The Phone At SeniorNet

  If the smartphone still gets the better of you, SeniorNet is the answer and it's been doing this for years. Learning centres around the country, run by volunteers who are the same age as the people they're teaching, covering phones, tablets, email, internet banking, online shopping and staying safe online. Small groups, no jargon, and no such thing as a silly question. You'll learn something useful and spend a couple of hours a week with people in exactly the same boat.

• Join Grey Power Or Age Concern

  Grey Power has been going since 1986, takes members from 50, and has around 76 local associations. It's an advocacy outfit first, but the local branches meet, run speakers and have a social side, and the membership discounts are worth having. Age Concern runs 34 local organisations and is more on the support side, including an Accredited Visiting Service that matches a volunteer with someone for a weekly visit. Both are also good places to volunteer, which puts you alongside people who care about the same things you do.

• Take On The Otago Central Rail Trail

  Not strictly a club, but it belongs on this list because so many people over 60 do it and almost nobody does it alone. It's 152km of old railway line from Clyde through Omakau, Ophir, Naseby and Ranfurly to Middlemarch, and being a rail line it's gentle the whole way. People take anywhere from half a day to five days over it, the operators shift your bags between pubs, and you get talking to whoever's doing the same stretch. There's an accessible ride guide too.

• A Wander Round The Garden Centre

  Not glamorous, and none the worse for it. Palmers have been going since 1912 and most of their stores have a Cafe Botannix attached. Kings Plant Barn have seven around Auckland, also with cafes. Free parking, no drink involved, plenty to point at, and open in daylight. As a first meeting it's a good deal easier on the nerves than the pub, and nobody thinks it's odd. The garden club and the bowling club, indoor or lawn, do the same job with more regularity.

• Online Dating

  Last of the ten, and worth a go. Sites built for older New Zealanders, like Singles Over 60, keep it simple, because everyone's in the same age bracket and there for the same reason. You can search, message and take your own time before meeting anybody. One thing genuinely in your favour here: if you're 65 or over your SuperGold Card gets you free off-peak public transport, which is 9am to 3pm and after 6.30pm on weekdays and all day at weekends. Meeting someone across town for a 10am coffee costs you nothing but the morning.

Whichever one you pick, it works the same way: turning up more than once is what turns strangers into people you know. Most groups will happily let you come along and see how you get on before you commit to anything, and if the first one isn't for you, there are nine others above it.

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