Hi all,
The 2019 school year is over and it will be 2020 before we know it. Best wishes to all of you for Christmas and I hope that you have a great New Year. It is not long since my last note so this will be relatively brief.
Staff News
Our final staff gathering of the year saw four of the staff recognised for their 25 years of service to the College with the presentation of the silver spoon award. Congratulations to Chris Lee, John Cox, Winn Jones and Neil Howard.
Annual Cricket Fixture
We have got the beautiful Matapihi ground of Neil Craig booked for Sunday, February 2nd and we will play T20 cricket after arrival at the ground from 10 a.m. A BBQ lunch will be provided between innings and later in the day there are 2 international T20s at the Bay Oval. The White Ferns play South Africa @ 4. p.m. & Black Caps play India @ 8 p.m. It should be a spectacular feast of great cricket! Come along and enjoy the day.
Annual Dinner
With the 60th Jubilee now more than a year behind us your Committee is focused on the organisation of the 2020 Dinner. A date of Friday, September 11th has been set. Your task is now to put this in the diary and start to get the word out to your mates, so that you can support what is always a great event. More details will follow in the New Year.
TBC Sport
Golf
2019 school leaver Mitchell Kale performed superbly in the New Zealand Men’s Amateur Golf 36 hole final last month in finishing second at the tournament in Auckland. He began the last match of the competition eagle, par & then hole in one eagle on a 170 metre par 3, but was eventually beaten on the 33rd hole by Sam Jones of the Manaia Club in Taranaki.
Indoor Rowing
Year 10 student James Hollard set a WORLD RECORD in the 13-14 year category for a 30 minute row when he powered his way to 8007 metres, which beat the old record by over 400m metres.
Football
Year 13 student Riley Bidois has played a large amount of his football for the Tauranga City AFC in the last 2 years and at the Western Springs Under 17 tournament recently won the Golden Boot as top goal scorer. His successes have been monitored by the professionals as he has just headed to Wellington where he has joined the Phoenix Reserves side.
Tennis
Junior tournament week saw our best young tennis talent head to New Plymouth to play for the W N Campbell trophy in a quadrangular format against three other Super 8 schools. The tournament began well with a 6-0 victory over Palmerston North BHS while the second match gave a similar impressive result against Napier BHS. This meant the last day featured the two unbeaten teams in a play off for the trophy with TBC up against the hosts New Plymouth BHS. After 5 hours of great tennis TBC prevailed by a set count back after matches had been completed with the scores locked at 3 all. The successful TBC team was Carrigan Hartley, Jack Quilty, Conrad Visagie and Lachlan Donaghy.
Rugby Touch
The NZSS Touch Championships were held in Rotorua last week with TBC coached by Atirau Ohia and Old Boy Carlos Savage. The team qualified for Divison 1 out of their pool, which meant 4 games on Saturday against PNBHS (6-4), St Pat’s Silverstream (6-3), RBHS (4-6) and Marlborough BHS (9-6), which meant we we crossed over against Hamilton BHS in the semi final. Eventual winners Hamilton were too strong in the semifinal, but the boys fought out a tough last game against Manukura to secure third place. Campbell Lucas and Chad-Isiah Roberts were both selected in the Tournament Team.
The third place getters at the NZSS Touch Championships photographed below.
TBC Arts
Music
Year 13 student James Robinson has been a significant contributor to the Arts at TBC through his time at the College, being a member of the successful Big Band and conductor of Big Band #2. James has just received the results from his Trinity Music exams: ATCL, which he passed with Distinction.
Old Boys Sport
Super Rugby
The Chiefs squad for the 2020 season includes three Old Boys who have been regulars over the last couple of seasons, with Sam Cane, Nathan Harris Aidan Ross all set to feature in the forward pack in the coming season.Steamers lock Aaron Carroll had been called into the Chiefs as a replacement late in the 2019 season and now has been handed his first full contract with the Blues. The 26 year old was an important member of the BOP side that won the Mitre 10 Cup championship and got the call up when Baden Wardlow was forced into retirement.
Rugby Sevens
The Te Puna club has continued with the great success of 2019 as they recently won the Baywide Sevens tournament, beating Rangataua 29-5 in the final. Old Boy player/coach Marty Stevenson was very happy with the result, which saw the side back up their successful 2018 campaign.
Cricket
Kane Williamson will lead the Black Caps out onto the Melbourne Cricket Ground in a Boxing Day test for the first time since 1986 next week, in what should be an incredible atmosphere as thousands of Kiwis descend on Melbourne for the match.
Joe Carter, Daniel Flynn, Bharat Popli and Brett Hampton all continue to feature for Northern Districts in the various formats, however with a large contingent of our players away with the Black Caps wins have been a little hard to come by.
Old Boys Politics
The recent local body elections saw at least 2 Old Boys successful in their campaigns for public office. Garry Webber was re-elected for a second term as Mayor of the Western BOP District Council, while Andrew Hollis has been elected on to the Tauranga City Council after a strong campaign to address congestion issues on SH 2 to Katikati.
Old Boys Arts
Tauranga Art Gallery
The first solo exhibition of work by TBC’s own Graham Hoete (Mr G) entitled Home"" took 10 months to complete and will feature at the Tauranga Art Gallery until February 9th. The work is inspired by Tauranga Moana and particularly explores his whakapapa to Motiti and Matakana Islands.
Television
1984 Head Prefect Erik Thomson is back filming another series of the popular Packed to the Rafters in which he features as head of the Rafter family Dave Rafter.
Dave Shaw keeps very busy as Producer, Cameraman, Editor and Chief Bottle Washer for The Red Stag Hunters Club television show of which he is the backbone.
Author
Old Boy Rangi Krishnan, whose father Rama taught maths at the school for a good number of years, has published a couple of books of fiction available on Amazon as ebooks or paperbacks. They are titled "Paint it Black & "Paladins Unbound". Rangi’s website is https://www.ephiinspired.co.nz
Old Boys Travel
A recent report in the local paper cataloged the adventure of 28 year old Old Boy Oscar Curry and his girlfriend as they drove a 1996 Land Rover Discovery 1 on a 300 day, 40,000 kilometre journey from Ireland to South Africa. Oscar, a heavy diesel mechanic by trade, included Morocco, Benin, Mauritania, Cameroon, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola in the 20 countries that they visited during their epic adventure.
Old Boys Achievements
The 2019 Time Magazine Inventions of the Year edition has on its cover a bike made in Amsterdam (VanMoof -the Tesla of Bikes) that Old Boy David Shoemack has had considerable involvement with. He has worked for the company for the last 4 ½ years and is currently their Chief Marketing Officer having seen the company grow from 25 to 250 employees in that time. They are not available in New Zealand yet but one day...
That completes my news for 2019. Please feel free to pass on anything that you think will be of interest to others in 2020 editions. On behalf of the Committee I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Rob Leslie
