Osteopaths New Zealand holds the 2026 ONZ Symposium at Rydges Wellington Airport on Saturday 5 September 2026, 9:00am to 5:30pm, under the theme "Elevating Osteopathy: Specialist Perspectives". The one-day programme runs a plenary stream alongside a hands-on practical room, with keynote Pili Munoz and speakers covering concussion care, pelvic health, shoulder taping, medication interactions, clinical measurement and cyber risk. ONZ describes it as its largest gathering of osteopaths in New Zealand.
Osteopaths New Zealand (ONZ) will hold the 2026 ONZ Symposium at Rydges Wellington Airport on Saturday 5 September 2026, with registration from 8:30am, sessions beginning at 9:00am and a 5:30pm close. The association bills it as its largest gathering of osteopaths in the country, running under the theme "Elevating Osteopathy: Specialist Perspectives". An informal Friday Social precedes it at the Rydges hotel bar from approximately 6:30pm on Friday 4 September, catered for attendees who add it to their registration.
The organiser is Osteopaths New Zealand Incorporated — Ngā Mātanga Wheua ō Aotearoa, usually shortened to Osteopaths NZ or ONZ. It was formed in March 2013 as a community run by osteopaths for osteopaths, and describes itself as the professional organisation representing registered osteopaths throughout Aotearoa, with over 370 members. Its stated mission is to advance osteopathic healthcare and give the profession a unified voice, working toward a 2030 goal of being the united voice for osteopathy in New Zealand. The association is administered from Browns Bay, Auckland, and is led by a board drawn from across the country. In July 2026 that board confirmed a transition to an executive leadership model and appointed the association's inaugural chief executive.
ONZ is a membership body, not a regulator. Registration of osteopaths in New Zealand sits with the Osteopathic Council of New Zealand, a separate organisation. The two are routinely conflated in event listings; the symposium is an ONZ event.
The 2026 edition carries named sponsors — FxMed, which is also a year-round ONZ partner, alongside D3 and Affiliated Insurance.
The published draft timetable is a single-day, two-stream format: a plenary room and a practical room running in parallel. Andy Gibson, founder of Healthwise Osteopaths and Headwise Concussion Care, opens with "Concussion Care Reimagined: Where Osteopaths Lead", set against a hands-on shoulder-taping lab from Whangārei-based Neil Holmes. Wellington pelvic health physiotherapist Liz Childs, who sits on the National Executive of Continence New Zealand, presents "Pelvic Floor Matters" mid-morning. Miro Dordevich, Cyber Portfolio Lead at QBE NZ, covers cyber risk for healthcare practitioners before lunch.
The afternoon pairs Belinda Fellowes on drug interactions in musculoskeletal practice with the first half of keynote Pili Munoz's two-part paediatric session on the thoracic diaphragm, then closes with New Plymouth osteopath Mick McBeth on measurement, documentation and credibility — a session aimed directly at the reporting osteopaths do for ACC and multidisciplinary teams — running alongside part two of the Munoz workshop.
The audience is registered osteopaths, osteopathic students and related allied health practitioners. ONZ has previously confirmed that attendance is open beyond its own membership. The framing throughout is continuing professional development: hands-on technique workshops plus sessions on documentation, medication interactions and cyber exposure that speak to practice management as much as to treatment. The association's 2024 symposium carried a stated minimum of six hours of formal learning, which gives a fair sense of the CPD weight of a full ONZ symposium day, though no CPD-hours figure has been published for 2026.
Rydges Wellington Airport sits at 28 Stewart Duff Drive, Rongotai, built into the Wellington Airport terminal with direct access from inside the airport itself. The hotel has 134 rooms and a purpose-built conference centre; Rydges publishes a maximum event capacity of 120 guests across 13 flexible spaces and two restaurants, with the Karaka room the largest single space at 120. Meeting rooms have natural light and views over the terminal and runway, integrated audio-visual equipment and complimentary Wi-Fi. Whiskey Lima Golf and Peloton Bar & Eatery are the on-site food and beverage outlets, and the Friday Social uses the hotel bar. ONZ has arranged a dedicated booking link with the hotel for attendees staying on site.
For a national association drawing members from across both islands, the terminal-adjacent position is the operative fact. Delegates flying in walk from the gate to the venue with no transfer leg and no ground-transport coordination. The Wellington CBD is roughly a 20-minute drive, and the Airport Express bus runs frequently between the airport and the central city for those who prefer to stay in town. Covered multi-storey airport parking sits opposite the hotel for delegates driving in. The trade-off is the inverse of a CBD conference: near-zero travel friction on the day itself, at the cost of incidental access to the city.
This is a textbook small-association national conference — one day, a two-stream programme, and a single property handling plenary, breakout, catering, social function and accommodation without a delegate leaving the building. It is also a repeat booking: ONZ ran its 2024 symposium at Rydges Wellington Airport in the same one-day format, moved to Auckland Airport for a larger joint Australia–New Zealand conference in 2025, and has now returned to Wellington for 2026.
That rotation between airport-hotel venues is the instructive part. For professional bodies whose members are geographically dispersed and are giving up a Saturday, the airport precinct competes directly with the CBD on the metric that matters most — time from plane to plenary — and increasingly wins.
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