Today in 2020 the ABC has 150 plus  members covering New Zealand and overseas, 

Chapters around New Zealand are located in Northland, Warkworth,Auckland, Wairarapa, Wellington Christchurch,, Central Otago and Dunedin. with additional members from both the North Island and the South Island

From humble beginnings......the recollections of John Sansom

In 1989 a small group of people met as a "bookbinding interest group!”, namely Pamela Robson, Jocelyn Windsor, Marthin Mare, Jack O’Brien, Peter Goodwin and John Sansom. Prior to this there was correspondence back and forth with Edgar Mansfield in the UK to establish if he knew of a bookbinders guild in New Zealand as Edgar, prior to moving back to the UK, had been an artist, sculptor and teacher at Fielding High School.

Edgar of course later began a movement in Britain which heralded the renaissance in bookbinding.

Edgar’s advice to me was “do your own thing and get on with forming our own guild”. This we did and

from the 'Interest Group' the Association of Book Crafts (NZ) Inc. was finally formed. Marthin Mare

was the first newsletter Editor and the first letter was produced in 1989. Those six original members

are still active members today. Our  letterhead and logo were designed for us by David Buck.

Arthur W. Johnson, the author of several books, binder, calligrapher and teacher who later became

our Patron and made a number of visits to New Zealand with his wife Pamela, an international tutor

in lace making. They both fell in love with our country, especially the Catlins area.

At the time we became an Incorporated Society we had 22 foundation members.