Dozens of groups have sprung up across the country, providing retirees with new friends and, ultimately, cheaper funerals

Quilting, lawn bowls and bridge it is not. Elderly people in New Zealand are enthusiastically embracing a new pastime: coffin construction.

Scores of retirees across the country have formed clubs so they can get together and build their own coffins. They say the activity is cost-saving and helps to combat loneliness.

The original coffin club was founded in Rotorua in 2010 by former palliative care nurse Katie Williams, 77. Since then the model has spread around the country, and there are now a dozen coffin clubs operating in both the North and South Island.

“Because of my work and my age I had become a perpetual mourner,” says Williams.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Katie Williams, founder of the Kiwi Coffin Club, with her coffin. Photograph: Katie Williams

“I had seen lots of people dying and their funerals were nothing to do with the vibrancy and life of those people. You would not know what they were really like. That they had lived and laughed and loved. I had a deep-seated feeling that people’s journey’s deserved a more personal farewell.”

Williams initially launched the Kiwi Coffin Club in her garage, with no tools, no volunteers and no idea how to construct a coffin. But after a host of handy local men came on-board – she calls them “the darlings” – the club took off, and soon moved to a larger facility to cater to its swelling numbers.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of the Kiwi Coffin club of Rotorua in New Zeaalnd’s North Island. Photograph: Katie Williams

“There is a lot of loneliness among the elderly, but at the coffin club people feel useful, and it is very social. We have morning tea and lunch, and music blaring, and cuddles.”

As well as members building their own coffins (home-made coffins cost just NZ$250) the group also construct baby coffins for the local hospital, which they donate for free.

Jeanette Higgins, also 77, lost her daughter and husband in the last two years. Death was on her mind. Last year she attended the club but got “spooked” at the last minute, and didn’t return again until a few months ago.

“I think I was a bit overwhelmed initially, I couldn’t decide how to decorate it,” says Higgins, who eventually settled on a silver and black pattern and blue lid.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Colin Barnett, a member of the Kiwi Coffin Club, planking on his wallpapered, newspaper coffin. Photograph: Katie Williams

“But when you start getting on with it, and sanding and painting, you don’t really think about it [death]. I am of the opinion that it is very healthy to face up to the inevitable. It is an emotional experience and it helps you resolve... something. I feel quite prepared now, it is stored in a cupboard at home, waiting for me.”

Williams says the club is particularly appealing to Maori people, who often have large families and find the cost of funerals “crippling”, and families who come from “stiff-upper lip backgrounds”, who may have previously found it difficult to confront the impending death of a loved one.

It is stored in a cupboard at home, waiting for me. Jeanette Higgins

“Our motto is; it’s a box until there is someone in it. And while it’s just a box, it brings us together.”