The award-winning volunteers were dismissed last June following what has been seen as a personality clash with management.
They said yesterday they accepted the apology and now wanted to move forward in a spirit of reconciliation and dignity.
Jonette Hodge, Barbara Bayliss, Margaret Barrow, Alison Stretch and Michelle Rowe had had their services terminated.
A sixth volunteer, Julie Mulholland, resigned in support.
Their dismissals caused an outcry among Wanaka cancer patients and their families, who continued their own support group meetings without the society's input.
The group yesterday thanked the public in Wanaka, Upper Clutha and Otago and Southland for their support, along with John Wilson and Ted Lloyd, two key negotiators with the society over the past 10 months.
The apology follows the resignation, announced last Friday, of Dunedin-based chief executive officer Wendy Houliston.
Another Dunedin-based manager caught up in the clash resigned in early March.
Otago-Southland branch chairman John Walsh told the Otago Daily Times on Friday Ms Houliston's resignation resulted from "philosophical differences with the board on some key issues" and the earlier resignation of the other manager was "unrelated" to Ms Houliston's departure.
Mr Walsh has declined to comment on the connection between Ms Houliston's departure and the Wanaka volunteers' dismissal in June last year.
He said in the apology he did not take sides with any party but had rescinded the dismissal letters sent to the volunteers last year.
"I regret we cannot erase what has occurred. We can correct it, and we will learn from it for the future," he said.
Mrs Mulholland has rescinded her resignation.
The volunteers said they wanted "to go forward with grace and dignity and look to the future", which included working for the society again under a new volunteering agreement.
They also said they supported the society's paid support officers.
The rift emerged after the women asked questions last May about how the society was using the $210,000 raised at the 2009 Central Otago Relay For Life in Cromwell.
Ms Houliston said last year the society had decided to change its structure and the proceeds of the fundraiser would be applied to new, paid support positions, including the new employees' cars and resources.
She did not think the debate about money was a pivotal matter in the dismissals.
The volunteers said the experience had been a "great big wake-up call" to any volunteers that they could be legally excluded from mediation processes prescribed for employment relations.
The services they offered included meals, transport and emotional support.
Some of the volunteers have survived cancer; others have families and friends affected by the disease.
Mrs Bayliss recently discovered her breast cancer had returned for the third time.
