# Australia + New Zealand Welsh diaspora: routes that exist (2026)

Harvested 2026-10-30 (skills harvest). The 04:43 run skipped this topic as "too thin". This file names the routes that actually work, with numbers. It is a small, older audience, but it reads about family history.

## Audience size (primary sources)
- **Australia, born in Wales:** 29,250 people (ABS 2021 Census Country of Birth QuickStats, read). 37% are aged 55+ (5,851 aged 55-64 alone); 73% are citizens. ABS adds small random changes for privacy.
- **Australia, Welsh ancestry:** about 156,000 (Wikipedia "Welsh Australians", from the 2021 census; not checked against ABS tables). The census form has no Welsh tick-box, a frequent complaint in the "Welsh in Australia" Facebook group, so the real figure is likely higher.
- **New Zealand:** small. Wikipedia gives 6,708 born in Wales and 3,705 by ancestry (2013 census; single source, not checked). Stats NZ has a 2018 "Welsh" ethnic-group summary page, but it loads with JavaScript and was not read.

## The routes, ranked by reach
1. **"Welsh in Australia" Facebook group** (facebook.com): ~31K members (search snippet). Members post learning questions ("where to learn Welsh in Brisbane"), census gripes and choir events. It is the biggest single room in either country. No posting rules were read, so read them before anyone posts.
2. **Sydney Welsh Society / Cymdeithas Cymry Sydney** (sydneywelshsociety.com, read). The 2026 site lists three ways in:
   - "Newsletter partnerships": a free community newsletter that takes "relevant collaboration", discussed with the editors;
   - a free "Welsh Sydney Directory" for Welsh-connected organisations, reviewed before it is published (entries show "Welsh connection verified" with a review date, e.g. 2026-10-18);
   - Learn Welsh classes at three levels (Central on Tuesdays, Pennant Hills on Mondays, Eastern Suburbs at weekends).
   Next event: a Christmas party at The Mercantile Hotel, 21 Nov 2026. Contact: [address kept in the project workspace], Instagram @sydneywelshsociety.
3. **Melbourne Welsh Church** (320 La Trobe St; 173rd anniversary on 30 Aug 2026). It publishes a monthly bilingual newsletter, *Y Wawr / The Dawn* (June 2019 PDF on its site), with a "Cambrian News" column for the Cambrian Society of Victoria. It also has a YouTube livestream channel. Office: [address kept in the project workspace]
4. **New Zealand:**
   - The Welsh Society of Wellington (founded 1907) has its newsletter and choir "on hold" (nzwelsh.wordpress.com, read), so it is a weak route.
   - The Welsh Cambrian Society of Canterbury (Christchurch, founded 1890) sends members and "friends" a newsletter before each meeting and holds a Cymanfa Ganu every two years. The page was last updated 2018/19, so the contacts may be stale.
   - The Auckland Welsh Club sends a newsletter by email to anyone who asks the secretary. It runs a St David's Day dinner, football and rugby.
5. **Choirs as event hosts:** Sydney Welsh Choir (concert 8 Nov 2026; St David's Day afternoon event), Cantorion Sydney and the Melbourne Welsh Male Voice Choir (St David's Day concert). They have audiences but run no editorial slots.

## Playbook
- **Lead with roots, not the case.** These rooms respond to "my grandmother came from Glamorgan" stories, Welsh-learning help and St David's Day. Offer the free bilingual pages first: the documentary scenes are free at v0.0.1, plus the Welsh-learner glossary pages if they are built.
- **Use the free doors only:** newsletter collaboration, directory listing, event-calendar mentions. Never paid ads (zero spend), and never DMs to strangers.
- **Time zones:** Sydney is UTC+11 in Nov-Mar, so 08:00 Sydney is 21:00 UK the previous evening. Schedule posts for the evening in Australia/NZ and the morning in the UK. A St David's Day item has to reach editors by late January.
- **Measure:** UTM `utm_source=sydneywelsh|welshinaus|melbwawr&utm_medium=newsletter|fbgroup&utm_campaign=anz-diaspora`. Our stop rule (not an industry figure): if a route sends fewer than 10 visits in 60 days, drop it.

## How we apply it to Cedwyn
1. **HubSpot draft only, on the owner's GO:**
   - a short note to the Sydney Welsh Society newsletter editors offering a free bilingual item, "Reading one Glamorgan farm's records", with links to the free /documentary/ scenes and the Welsh pages;
   - a directory enquiry, if Cedwyn counts as a "Welsh-connected organisation".
   Neutral third person. The note never names the owner and never uses the banned words (states, assertions, per, second-hand report, not checked, reported, deception, taken). Never "tenant farmers".
2. **St David's Day 2027 pack** (images and two sentences, free) ready by 20 Jan 2027 for the Sydney and Melbourne newsletters and the Facebook group. A group post goes only after reading the group's rules, and only if the owner wants it.
3. **Mailchimp:** reuse the "where are you reading from?" field proposed in the North American file, and add AU and NZ options.
4. **Not worth effort now:** the dormant Wellington society; the Canterbury society until its contacts are confirmed.

## Sources
- abs.gov.au (read)
- en.wikipedia.org ; en.wikipedia.org (secondary)
- sydneywelshsociety.com , /partner-with-us/ , /directory/ , /learn-welsh/ , /news/ (read)
- melbournewelshchurch.com.au (snippet)
- nzwelsh.wordpress.com (read)
- canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz (read)
- aucklandwelshclub.com (read)
- facebook.com (snippet: 31K members)