Continued… In Oceania

• Teams were introduced to Australia in 1960 by Stephanie and Max Charlesworth, a Melbourne couple. They discovered Teams while in Belgium in the 1950s and had taken part in “Teams by Correspondence” in New Zealand in later years.
• The first team in Australia operated by correspondence between couples spread around the world including Stephanie and Max Charlesworth.   On their return to Melbourne, they formed a non-affiliated group of couples. In 1960 Judy and Greg Armstrong returned to Australia after being part of the first English-speaking team in Cheltenham UK.  A three-month piloting program began in Melbourne in 1961, and 7 of the 8 couples and a Chaplain formed the first team.  Soon after, the Charlesworth’s group voted to join the Teams Movement and were called Team 1.
• In 1969 the Leading Team in Paris noted that the Movement had grown steadily in Australia. Teams had started in Brisbane and were just beginning in Adelaide and the ACT. So it decided that the Movement in Australia would be an independent Sector.
• The Movement continued to steadily grow and in the mid-90’s adopted the name “Teams – A Married Couples Movement’. The Oceania Super-Region was formed incorporating the Teams of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Hong Kong.  The Philippines established a Team in 1999.
• There are five Regions in Australia – Queensland, ACT/NSW, VictoriaEast, VictoriaWest, and South Australia/Northern Territory/Western Australia. There are Isolated Sectors  in New Zealand and Philippines who are liaised by the Oceania Team.
• In New Zealand the Teams Movement was introduced in 1995 by Peggy Corrigan (from England). Who with the help of the local parish priest she started and piloted seven teams.  Several decades later in 2018 four teams started in Hamilton and another in Auckland in 2019. (more information on teams in Hamilton and Auckland can be included in NZ’s own page on website)
• The first Team was established in the Philippines on the island of Cebu in 1999. Fr Jose Burgues, a Spanish Piarist priest who had been a Spiritual Counsellor in France, supported by a Liaison Couple in Australia, brought six couples together to form Cebu 1. Leleth and Troy Sorono were the first Responsible Couple.  Today there are five Teams in the Isolated Sector of Cebu. (more information on teams in Cebu can be included in Philippines own page on website)