With all the rain we had over summer, we were pretty excited to land a perfect evening for our annual Runway Friends and Whānau Picnic. This event is always a highlight on the calendar for our team and families, and once again it delivered a night full of fun, connection and plenty of laughs.
Our theme this year was “Kiwi As Summer” which, turns out, isn’t the easiest thing to dress up for! We might be a bit boring as Kiwis, but we still had some great effort put in by the kids, including our costume winner, Joshua, who fully committed as a kiwi bird (beak and all!).
The giant wooden games sparked some friendly competition, and the bouncy castle was going non-stop. Huge thanks to our amazing helper, Brett, who kept an eye on all the high-energy bouncing kids! And the wonderful Sonia who helped with the handing out of sunglasses to all the registered adults!
Our creative station this year was to make and decorate jandals. There was plenty of colour, stickers and bling to make them stand out! We’re always so grateful for our Kids Club volunteers who show up to help at these events. Eva ran the jandal art like a pro, while Luke was “in charge” of the water gun target station… although it didn’t take long before he became the target. The kids had an absolute blast chasing him around and it is safe to say he was a very popular moving target!
Of course, we had our usual tug of war and sack races, and this year we added a pavlova relay which was a hit for one main reason: shaving cream. Teams had to build a “pav” in stages, but let’s be honest… it quickly became about the shaving cream and who’s turn it was to empty a can of it onto the plate!
We were excited to invite back Laura from Create Happy who attended our last years picnic and painted the delighted faces of the kids. She did an amazing job once again, painting everything from cartoon characters to Pokémon to beautiful flowers. She really is incredible!
The classic Kiwi sausage sizzle brought the smell of summer. With the BBQ going and onions frying, you can’t call it a Kiwi summer without one of these
One of the new additions was our parents’ bingo card. We love our Runway community and wanted to encourage parents to connect with each other because it really does help knowing others who are in the same boat. And what better way to do that than through a bit of fun and games? We collected all the completed cards and drew a winner, who took home a gift basket packed with Kiwi favourites from Whittaker’s chocolate and Wattie’s tomato sauce to classic onion dip and more.
To everyone who came along to the Runway Friends and Whānau Picnic, we want to say thank you. Thanks for being part of our community and making these events so special. We hope you had an awesome evening!
