Who we are
The Buffs is a fraternal organisation, open to all men from 18 years of age, who pledge allegiance to New Zealand. The basic unit of our organisation is the lodge or minor lodge. Progressive Lodge of New Zealand is the over-arching organisation, that is made up of minor lodges.
Lodges meet regularly, at meetings you can expect a bit of ceremony and tradition, but mainly a lot of fun. Lodges often meet at RSAs, at pubs or in their own halls. The Buffs are all about fundraising, fun and friendship.
Lodges also travel to other lodges to take part in ceremonies and of course more fundraising.
See our lodges page for lodges near you!
What we do
As a fraternal organisation, our goals are building friendship and supporting charities or individuals in need, all while having fun.
Outside of usual lodge meetings, the Buffs run fundraising events for charities, visit other lodges to help with their fundraising events, and hold the odd working bee for a member or their family in need.
Within the Progressive Lodge of New Zealand, we keep administration and ceremonies to a minimum, emphasising our core values - known as the obligation vow - to (for example) “succor and defend a worthy brother.” That is to look after one another and our communities.
Our history
The Progressive Lodge of New Zealand of the Buffs was formed on 2 June 2016 as a new, progressive “banner” within the tradition of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (RAOB). The Buffs have existed in one form or another in New Zealand since the 1900s and in England since 1822.
The first lodges to form part of the Progressive Lodge were Jack Canty no. 211 and Railway Lodge no. 196. Both lodges had previously been part of the Grand Lodge of New Zealand (GLNZ) banner.
By the mid-2010s, the lodges were kept open only by the efforts of an enthusiastic few who would travel great distances to help other struggling lodges maintain a quorum. A group of new Buffs slowly became involved in the two lodges, and greatly increased their numbers, so much so that both Railway and Jack Canty lodges are now the best attended in the country. The members decided that there had to be a better way to run Buffaloes and that the order was worth saving. In the absence of any other option, they gave up on GLNZ and voted democratically to form the Progressive Lodge (PLNZ).
We believe that our obligation and the “first-degree lecture” give us clear instructions of what the order stands for and how we should operate. We continue to have many friends in GLNZ and enjoy the fraternity that comes with those friendships.
Since that time, we have grown strongly. We have built up significant assets, which are all in a registered charitable trust (the Buffs Charitable Trust) and the average age of members is now in the high 30s.
One of the things that we do, and it is in our rule book, is to make sure all of our accounts are available to every member. That way there can be no division or dissension around money.
Our goal is to give at least $100,000 a year to charity while continuing to grow our asset and membership base.
We are very proud of what we have achieved and hopefully have laid a pathway for the order to survive for another 50 years or more.
Buffs Charitable Trust Board
In 2021 two lodges of the PLNZ formed the Buffs Charitable Trust Board. The trust is a registered charitable trust and as such all our accounts are published online for any member of the public to see. There is full transparency for where all the assets and expenditure of the trust is going.
We chose to do this rather than use the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes Trust Board (RAOB Trust), a trust established by parliament under the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes Trust Act 1966. We did this because we have had concerns about the transparency of the RAOB Trust. No accounts have apparently been produced for the RAOB Trust for over 20 years.
The Buffs Charitable Trust has a clear mission to grow both our asset base through capital-protected investment (mainly by owning the meeting places or “halls” where lodges meet, and leasing space in the same buildings to commercial tenants) and grow our charitable work.