The young English evangelist, Howard Guinness, toured Australia in 1930 to encourage university students in evangelism.
He helped form campus student groups starting in Sydney,[1] then Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart, including Sydney University Evangelical Union (SUEU) and Melbourne University Christian Union, which celebrated their 75th anniversaries in 2005.
[2] These groups, led by the SUEU and the MUCU, joined together to form a network in 1936 as the Australian Intervarsity Fellowship or IVF, which later changed its name to the AFES in 1973.
[2] In 2005, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first student groups in Australia, AFES ran a "Year of Tertiary Evangelism" involving coordinated events on university campuses throughout the country and the printing of 40000 copies of Mark's Gospel to be freely distributed throughout the year.
The most recent NTE conference was hosted at Exhibition Park in Canberra[5] (EPIC), and was attended by up to 1400 students from around Australia.
[4] She notes that students converted by AFES are bringing their "newly-acquired conservative stance into parish life.