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Menzies College Newsletter
16 September 2022 - Term 3 Week 8
From the Principal's Desk
Kia ora koutou katoa
We welcomed Monday’s announcement that the Covid traffic light system has ended and that masks are no longer required on school buses. Individuals who test positive for Covid still need to isolate for seven days but household contacts do not. Instead households are asked to complete a RAT test each day, for five days. Therefore, students who are household contacts but test negative and do not have Covid symptoms, should continue to attend school.
All the other recommended public health measures will stay in place as we know they reduce the spread of infectious illnesses including Covid. These include ensuring indoor spaces are well-ventilated, maintaining good hand hygiene, encouraging everyone to cough or sneeze into elbows and getting tested if they have Covid.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank staff for the extras they have done to keep the school open throughout this time. This included combining classes, covering for isolating staff, duplicating work on the Google Classroom for students isolating and generally pitching in where required. Special thanks go to our regular relievers as without their help we would not have been able to stay open.
This week Year 11 to 13 students have been sitting practice exams. This is part of the preparation for final exams that start in early November. Getting experience with digital exams was also part of this experience for Year 11. Staff will be working hard to get results to students before Whanau conferences on Tuesday 27 September. The expectation is that holidays will be used to study.
Yesterday, Edendale Primary School made an announcement regarding the use of the photography business that replaced Geoff Horrell upon his retirement. It had come to light that one of the business owners was unsuitable to be involved in taking school photos due to a conviction 10 years ago for possessing objectionable material. Menzies College also used this firm to take photos at the beginning of the year. The person concerned was on site as were two other women who were doing the portrait photos. Deputy Principal, Mark Bennett was present at all times. It has not been considered necessary to police vet photographic service providers in the past as they do not have unsupervised access to students. We have arranged for a different photographer to take sports photos next Tuesday.
Thank you to Margie Dale for all the hours of organisation that has gone into the ski trip leaving today. Also a huge thanks to Peter Power, Sarah White, Pete Holden and Vicki Matthews for giving up their weekend to ensure 62 students get this opportunity.
Nga mihi
Kath Luoni
Principal
Whanau Conferences Year 9-13
Whanau conferences will take place on Tuesday 27 September from 3:45pm-7pm. From 5:30-6pm the NCEA talk with Year 10 students/parents will take place in the school hall. Use the link below to make your conference bookings:
Important Dates
September
- 20 - Sports Photos
- 23 - Netball prizegiving and AGM
- 26 - Queen's Memorial Day - school closed
- 27 - 101 Geography trip to Gore
- 27- Whanau conferences Year 9-13
- 27 - Year 10 parents NCEA talk
- 28 - SIT talk for seniors
- 30 - Last day of Term 3
- 17 - First day of Term 4
- 20 - Youthmark Ceremony
- 24 - Labour Day - school closed
- 26-27 LMV athletics
November
- 4 - Last day for senior students
- 7-2 December - NCEA Exams
- 14 - HPV Vaccinations
- 19 - Southland Primary Athletics
- 25 - Teacher Only Day
- 28 - Teacher Only Day
- 29 - 2 December - Year 10 Mavora camp
December
- 12 - Last day of Term 4
Sport & Culture Photos Timetable
BE AT HALL 10 MINUTES BEFORE YOUR PHOTO
BE IN CORRECT/TIDY/CLEAN SPORTS OR SCHOOL UNIFORM
LINE UP TALLEST TO SHORTEST WITH THE CAPTAIN AT THE FRONT
ALL OUTSTANDING UNIFORMS MUST BE RETURNED CLEAN AFTER YOUR PHOTO
CAPTAINS - PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR COACH/MANAGER KNOWS WHEN YOUR PHOTO IS
8.50am Ball Committee
8.55am SADD Committee
9.00am Peer Support
9.05am Rainbow Confidence
9.10am Kapa Haka
9.20am Menzies Band - Southern Stones
9.25am Small Bore Rifle Shooting
9.30am Cricket - 1st XI
9.35am Cricket - Junior Boys
9.40am Equestrian
9.45am Southland Secondary Schools Tennis Champs
9.50am Interval
10.20am Netball - Menzies A
10.25am Netball - Menzies Senior Tournament team
10.30am Netball - Menzies B
10.35am Netball - Menzies Senior
10.40am Netball - Menzies Year 9-10
10.45am Netball - Menzies Development
10.50am Netball - Year 9-10 Tournament team
10.55am Netball - Menzies Green
11.00am Netball - Menzies Red
11.05am Netball - Year 8
11.10am Netball - Year 7
11.15am Netball - Moffett Cup Year 7 team
11.00am Netball Moffett Cup Year 8 team
11.05am Trap Shooting
11.10am Bow Hunting
11.15am Fly Fishing
11.20am Basketball - Secondary A Grade Boys & Basketball - Senior Boys Tournament Team
11.25am Basketball - Secondary A Grade Girls
11.30am Basketball - Secondary B Grade Boys Red
11.35am Basketball - Secondary B Grade Boys Green & Basketball -Year 9-10 Co-ed Tournament team
11.40am Basketball - Intermediate Boys
11.45am Volleyball - Term 1 Senior team
11.50am Volleyball - Term 3/4 Senior Team
11.55am Beach Volleyball - Junior Girls
12.00pm Football - Girls 1st XI
12.05pm Football - Southland Representatives
12.10pm Duke of Edinburgh
12.20pm Lunch
1.15pm Rugby - Eastern Girls
1.20pm Rugby - A Grade
1.25pm Rugby - Moffett Cup team
1.30pm Rugby - U16
1.35pm Rugby - Tournament Team
1.40pm Rugby - 1st XV
1.50pm Hockey - Senior Mixed & Hockey Tournament Team
1.55pm Hockey - Junior High
2.00pm Southland Swimming Champs
2.05pm Southland Secondary Schools Indoor Bowls
2.10pm Southland Secondary Schools Bowls
2.15pm Southland Junior Adventure Racing Teams
2.20pm Mountain Biking Champs
2.25pm Southland Orienteering Champs
2.30pm Menzies College Cross Country Champs
2.35pm Southland Secondary schools Cross Country
2.40pm Southland Primary Cross Country
2.50pm Menzies College Athletics Champs
2.55pm Menzies College Regional Representatives
3.00pm
3.05pm
Achievement Slip Draw
Congratulations to the following students and staff members:
Week ending 9 September
Seniors: Logan Andrews, Liana Gauldie, Kimberly Orr, Anna Sinclair and Mrs Susan Leggett
Week ending 16 September
Juniors: Briar Lee, Royston Ramage-Tai, Myah Dean, Kadence Hunter, Mrs Margaret Dale
Your canteen vouchers can be collected from the office.
Careers/Transition Department
University Scholarships for Year 13 Students
MoneyHub, a consumer finance website, has published a guide to hundreds of scholarships for any student planning to start University in 2023. The comprehensive list includes scholarships offered by every University as well as those specifically available to local students. A list of privately-funded, Maori, Pacific and International University scholarships complete the list. Applications close throughout the year with tens of millions of dollars available. MoneyHub has also published a list of tips for scholarship success. For more details and to find suitable scholarships visit the MoneyHub Scholarship page.
Stuart Clark
Careers/Transition Department
English Department
Congratulations to Jordan Hutton (Year 11) for his selection as part of a national creative writing mentoring programme. This programme is being offered to the most talented creative writers in New Zealand and Jordan has worked really hard to be selected for this. The end goal is that he will have his writing published - watch this space!
Lucy McKelvie
Head of English Department
Science Department
Future Oceans Extension & Enrichment
A group of 11 Year 9 and 10 students were involved in a two-day programme at Southland Boys' High last week experiencing marine science with the guidance of oceanographers and biologists. Ranging from the physical properties of the ocean to the complexity of all the life it sustains, students used a variety of investigative methods to explore marine biodiversity, what factors impact it and how the future might look. The programme aims to develop knowledge and skills within the science of ocean warming, plastic pollution, and ocean acidification.
Margaret Dale
Science/ChemistryTeacher
Photo below:
L to R: Renee Crump, Lachlan Dale, Cleveland Ramage-Tai, Myah Dean, Anna McMullen, Amethyst Kaal, Alyssa Gauldie, Ruby Ritani, Sophie Ross, Max McConachie (sitting)
Year 13 Chemistry
Last Sunday and Monday the Year 13 Chemistry class travelled to the chemistry department at the Otago University. They completed the practical component for an internal achievement standard 'Carry out a practical investigation' worth 4 credits. They looked at the concentration of salt at different distances from the estuary to find a trend.
Margaret Dale
Science/Chemistry Teacher
Photos below:
L to R: Jake Kiernan, Josiah Ashman, Abby van der Straaten, Zavana Davey, William Johnston
L to R: Wiremu Scott, Kimberly Simmons, Logan Andrews, Sherlene Novo
Science Residential Programmes
Lewis McKelvie (Year 11) has just finished his six month programme through Otago University Marine Studies Centre. This involved Lewis travelling to Portobello for two residential components where he worked on a research project looking at the trends in water temperature, water density and chlorophyll content of the outer harbour.
Logan Andrews (Year 13) was selected to participate in the University of Otago Science Academy this year. He attended two residential camps in January and September where he was introduced to research science and gained knowledge, practical skills, communication in science and became familiar with a range of career options to scientists. He worked hard to complete his online component throughout the year.
Margaret Dale
Science/Chemistry Teacher
Photo below:
Lewis McKelvie (left) & Logan Andrews
Year 9 Plastic Chemistry
Plastic is polymers which are long molecules made up of repeating units. These units are known as hydrocarbons as they are made mainly of hydrogen and carbon. As part of this course, Year 9 has been studying carbon and the different forms it can take: graphite, fullerene, diamond, coal, etc. Below are photos of some crystal models made from marshmallows to show the uniform structures that give diamond and other crystals their strength.
Karen Clark
Science Teacher
Year 8 Energy
As part of the energy experiments Year 8 have been doing, they are testing how long it takes for the thermal energy of a candle to break the string and converting the gravitational potential energy in a fishing weight into kinetic energy as it falls and into sound energy as it hits the table.
Karen Clark
Science Teacher
Sports Department
Eastern Basketball
Congratulations to Maddix Dickson (Year 8) who was selected for the U13 Eastern Basketball B tournament team. The team had two wins and two losses in Queenstown this past weekend. Two weeks ago they played in the Dunedin tournament playing Southland, Otago and Central Otago teams. What a great experience!
Basketball Tournament
Menzies college sent a group of young lads to the Southern Cup Basketball tournament in Dunedin over tournament week. The first game we came out on top with a large point margin setting us up for high expectations for the rest of the tournament. We then got killed by the second top team in our grade. Reality has never hit us harder!
The next day we were down a player as he lost a scrap between himself and his bed cramping his neck. We then had a good game against the top team of our grade, Shirley Boys High and had a very close game for the first three quarters. We then continued to play excessively well through the rest of the tournament having a tight game between Christs College, even when our strong handsome captain Peyton sprained his ankle, yet still persisted and ran the court for the majority of the game with a limp. We also gave John McGlashan College a hiding - no more needs to be said! Finals came and we had a good hard game but sadly being defeated and finishing 8th out of the 12 schools. Not bad for a school who have never had a tournament team.
Huge thanks to Mrs Adam for organising our team and keeping us in check. Thanks to Mr Landreth and Andrea Russell for having to put up with us rowdy lads for a week. Thanks to our coaches - Keegan Knapp and JM Nunez for keeping our heads high and running the boys. Thanks to Sam Ramage for stepping up and playing with the big boys.
Menzies College Girls Football Team does it again!
Our girls 1st XI football continues to be the most consistent sports team at Menzies College. It is basically a new team this year and they finished as winners of the Southland Football College League Girls; Division 2 Champions for 2022.
The girls with three players from the 2021 team, were able to develop as a team pretty quickly and gained the results they they were capable of. This included 9-0 and 12-0 wins against James Hargest and 7-0 over Fiordland College. This continues their record of finishing 1st or 2nd place for the last seven years.
College Football League
2022 - Division 2 Winners
2021 - Division 1 Runners-up
2020 - Division 2 Winners
2019 - Division 1 Winners
2018 - Division 1 Winners
2017 - Division 1 Runners-up
2016 - Division 1 Runners -up
Squad 2022
Zoe Muir, Brooke Loveridge, Sophie Leitch, Asha Dickson, Tessa Wishart, Johanna Olive, Amy van der Straaten, Olivia Perriam, Paige McEwan, Paige Loveridge, Savanah Costello, Hayley Porteous, Lexie Kimura, Abby van der Straaten, Maia-Rose Henderson, Kailey Yeoman (Manager) Carl Lambert (Coach)
The girls will receive their medals at the school assembly on Wednesday, 28 September. Well done team!
Photo below L to R:
Back row:
Carl Lambert (Coach), Tessa Wishart, Asha Dickson, Olivia Perriam, Savanah Costello, Brooke Loveridge
Front Row: Johanna Olive, Sophie Leitch, Maia-Rose Henderson, Hayley Porteous, Zoe Muir, Paige McEwan
(Absent: Kailey Yeoman, Amy van der Straaten, Abby van der Straaten, Lexie Kimura, Paige Loveridge)
Carl Lambert
Coach
Menzies College Hockey
This is only the second year Menzies has had a hockey team in local competitions for quite a long time and we were lucky enough that the Hockey New Zealand South Island Mixed Hockey tournament was being held in Gore.This gave us a great local chance to test ourselves in tournament hockey.
Over the five day tournament we played six games, some against outstanding hockey schools. We had a tough pool coming up against St Kevin’s first, Kavanagh and then Wakatipu. Unfortunately, we lost all pool games placing 4th in the pool but we had already played some excellent hockey and were getting better each game. On Wednesday we took a tough loss to Verdon College which put us on an 8am game for the Thursday morning against East Otago High School. This was a tough game for both teams and the Menzies team really stepped up and gained a solid win. This placed us against Kaikoura College on the final day playing off for 13th position. Again, this was a tough game but our team kept their spirits up and came out with another win to finish off the event.
While we were away we had the opportunity to watch some great hockey, go swimming as a team, play frisbee golf and go bowling. This was a great chance for us to see what tournaments are all about and we are looking forward to building further in 2023. Thank you to everyone who supported the team, gave us rides, and cheered us along.
U15 Rugby
On 27 August, nine Menzies boys travelled to Nelson for the U15 rugby tournament as part of a combined team with Gore High School. The team played five games of rugby over three days. There was some great rugby played and also some great learning experiences. Special thanks to our manager Tracey McLellan and coach Jeremy McLeod.
Ben Guthrie
Year 11
A Netball
Sunday 28 September saw us leaving at 8am sharp travelling to Timaru and balancing Ms White's driving with everyone's baking in the back and only sacrificing 4 bits of fudge!
On Monday we started with a bye in our draw meaning we were only playing one game which allowed us to be pumped right from the start. Timaru put on the tropical island weather which made the week of supporting and playing great. We started off with a tough loss to Roncalli, 36-19 a very strong team which allowed us to be prepared and keep our heads up for Tuesday. A regular occurrence saw us keeping our bodies prepared for a week of netball by dipping our legs in the freezing water at Caroline Bay.
Tuesday was another cracker day playing Waimate, a strong side losing 43-26. After having a well worth team chat, Tuesday afternoon saw us playing Collingwood where we came out rearing to go right from the start having a strong win 41-18. With the positive spirits up, Wednesday had us playing Tokomairiro, a side we were confident we could win and we proved this right with a score of 37-17. We knew our game against Buller High School would be crucial to determine if we could place 17th. We had to win but unfortunately it was a disappointing rough game resulting in a loss 37-17.
After the postponement of our Monday night dress up, the van was filled with excitement as we drove back to the hotel for our movie theme dress ups. We had a variety of characters ranging from minions, home alone characters, cat in the hat and our sister nuns. Not many of us here can say we have ever seen Sister Luoni. We hopped in the van on an excursion to McDonalds in our costumes which received much attention and many funny looks from the public.
Thursday came around fast with many sore bodies. We Started the day off playing Kavanagh College. We knew this game would be a tough one but knew we could do it. As Shania Twain would say, ‘Let's go girls.’ After a well fought game we had a win over Kavanagh by two goals 21-19 which got us pumped for the final game of the tournament. It was a nail biting game, the goal differential always being below five goals, playing Hutt Valley only to result in a loss by one goal 35-34. It was gutting but I was so proud of the girls for the awesome fight right to the end and never giving up. Bring on next year!
Sophie Ferguson
Year 12
Battle of the Codes
Last week saw the annual 'Battle of the Codes' - Netball A v Senior Rugby in a game of netball. As past experience has shown, it was a tough game. Shoulder blocks and sneaky elbows had bodies hitting the floor on a regular basis. Unfortunately the boys couldn’t cope with such brutal tactics! They also struggled with the rules which were strictly enforced by the referees, Mrs Luoni and Arin Read. At the end of the lunch break Netball A came out on top 11-9. As the photo shows, winners are grinners.
Technology Department
Metalwork student, Tyler Olive doing an oil service on a vehicle.
Community Notices
The Vetco Wyndham & Districts Pet Day
Sponsored by Vetco supported by Farm Source, Farmlands, Wyndham Freight Services, FMG, Wyndham Four Square & ANZ
The Vetco Wyndham & Districts Pet Day Committee held their AGM and General meetings on Thursday, 25th August with no change to the elected Committee positions. Thank you to those of you that were at the meeting to show your support and help get this year’s Pet Day under way.
This year’s Pet Show will be held on Tuesday, 1st November at the Wyndham A & P Showground and the theme for 2022 is 'Sheep'. Now is a good time to start thinking about entries (particularly those who intend on bringing pet calves or lambs) and further information will go out in the last week of Term 3. There are the usual categories including: Animals (NB: Dogs Years 3-8 only); Fancy fruit/vegetable; Sand Saucer (preschool & Year 1-2 only); Floral Art; Needlework; Science invention/model; Baking – No-cook baking, muffins (all age groups), Large Cakes & Biscuits (Years 3-8 only). Please note that only one entry is compulsory and a second is optional.
The committee have made the decision to hold Pet Day this year but we will keep you informed if anything changes with respect to Covid. We hope to make Pet Day a fun, family day so bring on the great weather! If you are able to help judge at Pet Day, we would love to hear from you. Any enquiries please get in touch with Bathan Muir (President) on 206 6334.
Wyndham Pioneer Lions Club Recycling
The Wyndham Pioneer Lions collect many things that raise money for the underprivileged and disadvantaged but we can do more with your help.
Tear tabs from aluminium cans and wine bottle tops raise funds for ‘Kidney Kids’.
Glasses (both reading and sunglasses) and hearing aids are distributed in places like the Pacific Islands, improving the quality of lives who cannot afford such ‘extravagances’.
Aluminium cans and cardboard are collected by The Pakeke Lions in Gore.
If you can help it would be appreciated if you could take them to Menzies College or contact
Mrs C Garthwaite on (03) 206 6223.
Elections 2022
Here are the links to the video on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch8MRfUjc-u/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southlanddistrictcouncil/videos/2407487536058211
Contact Us
Email: admin@menzies.school.nz
Website: https://www.menzies.school.nz
Location: Alma Street, Wyndham 9831, Southland, New Zealand
Phone: 03 206 4979