The new school year is underway the Covid of 2020 has not stemmed the flow of people to the Bay of Plenty….. our school roll for 2021 has settled at around 2100 students with 970 boys In the Junior school. The playground is getting more crowded and this will be exacerbated later in the year with the beginning of new building in the area of the staff carpark ……….
Memorial Service
There will be a memorial service held for former Principal Mr. Norman Morris at St John’s Anglican Church, Otumoetai on Saturday, March 13th at 2 p.m. Mr Morris was Principal of Tauranga Boys’ from 1971 to 1984 and passed away in Christchurch in January aged 96. In his time at the College his considerable achievements included establishment of the BOP Polytechnic, introduction of the Bilingual Department (Aronui) at TBC, introduction of a reading development programme using adult volunteers and developing Rataroa Lodge to provide a base for Outdoor Education opportunities.
Old Boys Meeting and 2021 Dinner
The TBC Old Boys Committee has met this month and at the meeting approved almost $11,000 of funding to current students at the College who are in need of financial assistance to maximise their potential at TBC. This is very much in keeping with our vision that “no boy is left behind” ……. There are a number of ways that Old Boys can help here that will be outlined in more detail at a later date.
The meeting also determined that this years Old Boys Dinner will be held on Friday, November 19th so please put that date in your calendars now so that you are able to get along and join us for what is always a great occasion. More details to follow.
New Staff
There are a number of new staff for the year and we have welcomed back a number of Old Boys …
Ryan Brake (2002-6) is teaching itinerant Music
Manaia Harawira (2012-16) is teaching Maori Performing Arts and in the Aronui Department
Aidan Kuka (1994-6) has come from Tauranga Intermediate and will teach in the Aronui Department and also be Head Coach for the 1st XV
Brendon Weatherley (1995-99) will teach Social Studies and English after previously working in Real Estate and local Radio.
Student Leaders
The following students have been selected as our student leaders for 2021 ..
Head Prefect Corban Laban-Palmer
Deputy Head Prefect Jordan Toy
Sports Captain Grady Forbes
Arts Captain Shahil Shearman
Academic Captain Lucas Cowley
Academic Scholarship
Academic Captain Lucas Cowley (son of Old Boy Drew 1981-5) has been awarded the Garth Sim Scholarship which provides $1500 to support his Tertiary studies. Lucas haws a distinguished academic record having gained Excellence Endorsement in NCEA Level 1, Level 2 & Level 3. He gained Scholarship in Chemistry and across his whole school career has gained 238 Excellence credits.
Scholarships numbers gained for 2020 were down on recent results however TBC held its own against the other WBOP schools. Eleven boys gained 16 scholarships in total across 7 different subjects.
Centurion awards are given to students who pass ALL of their academic standards. There were 8 awards of GOLD Centurion (Level 3) made to 8 current students .. Hayden Collier, Lucas Cowley, Joe Mortimer, Jack Hoggard, Patterson Kelly, Ben Tortoiseshell, Riley Parnwell and Josh Manners. There were 28 silver centurions (Level 2) and 74 bronze centurions
(Level 1).
As well as these results Andrew Friskney was Endorsed at Level 1 while still in Year 10 and there were 54 Year 11 students who were Endorsed with Excellence at Level 1.
TBC Sports
Cricket
The Super 8 tournament was held the week before school started and with quite a young side TBC performed well to finish second. TBC played Gisborne BHS (200 run win), Hastings BHS (59 run win ) & New Plymouth BHS (4 wicket win) in pool play and ended up against Palmerston North BHS in the final. Our total of 162 was below par and PNBHS achieved the total 6 wickets down. TBC fought hard but were thwarted by the best batsman of the tournament Heaphy who scored 87 and plays for the Manawatu Men’s side. This was the fourth successive second place for our lads but not to Hamilton BHS who came 4th. Top performers were Liam Collett who scored 112, Harsh Patel 69 and bowling figures by Liam Collett (4/22), Darcy Collett (3/12) and Ben Vyver (3/24).
Motocross
Connor Hart placed 7th in the 15-16 year old division on his 125cc machine at the New Zealand Junior Motocross competition.
Rowing
TBC had almost 20 boys competing in the North Island Club Rowing Championships. In the Under 18 and Men’s Novice divisions. Our rowers gained 5 gold, a silver and 2 bronze medals.
Football
Harley Gardiner and Tristan Kawana have been selected in the New Zealand Maori Under 16 football team.
Athletics
The 2021 event at the Domain saw a significant improvement in the record for the Junior High Jump. Regan Wilson jumped 1.80 metres which was a 10cm. improvement on Burton McAdam’s old mark. In the Intermediate 100 metres hurdles Connor Brown ran 14.08 which broke the previous record of D.arcy Slattery.
The three championship winners were Joe Mortimer (Senior), Eli Marsters (Intermediate) & Jaehui Lee (Junior)
Interested Old Boy John Bowden enjoying the sports with Athletics Coach Gareth Hyett
Beach Volleyball
Aaron Gibbs and Isaac Strange have gained the bronze medal in the New Zealand Secondary School Year 11 beach volleyball competition.
Touch Rugby
Landen Marks was a member of the Bay of Plenty Under 16 Mixed team that beat 15 other regional sides in the National Youth tournament in Auckland to win the national title..
Futsal
TBC had a Senior and Junior team at a Super 6 tournament featuring several of the top teams from the North Island. Our Senior side beat Hamilton BHS (3rd In North Island) and Selwyn College (5th) before being beaten 4-1 by Mt Albert GS. These results meant TBC were to play MAGS again in the final but this time the results were reversed with TBC victors 2 goals to nil. Our Junior competition our lads placed 4th.
Super 8
Golf TBC had a team competing in each division of this years tournament in Palmerston North. The A team placed 6th with the highlight being Nathan Clark’s 69 which was the low round of the tournament. The B team placed second with Taine Larsen winning the individual stableford competition..
Volleyball The TBC side beat Rotorua BHS and New Plymouth BHS in pool play before being beaten 2-3 by Gisborne BHS. TBC beat Hastings BHS in their semi-final 3-0 but in the final were outplayed by an impressive Napier Boys’ side and thus came second.
Tennis Our side began the tournament well with pool wins against Hastings BHS, Palmerston North BHS & Napier BHS. This saw the team up against New Plymouth BHS in the final which we lost
TBC Arts
Music
Year 10 student Michael van Lieshout played in front of his biggest audience ever when he played in front of 20,000 people joining front liners L.A.B. at Wharepai Domain at the One Love Concert recently. Michael has been taught by LAB front man Joel Shadbolt from the age of 6 and was invited to join the band in this one off performance.
Old Boys Arts
Television
Erik Thomson is the lead in a new ABC comedy show Aftertaste that features a disgraced international celebrity chef who returns to his roots in Adelaide. I have no details as to when this might show in New Zealand. He has also been filming a reprise of the popular Packed to the Rafters called Back to the Rafters which will feature most of the cast from the previous show that had ended almost 10 years ago.
Writing
Award winning investigative crime reporter Jared Savage released his book Gangland at the end of last year which has been a good seller. It is the story of our underworld of organised crime and violent gangs.
Old Boys Leadership
Former Head Prefect Anaru Palmer has been selected for the Tuia Mayoral Mentoring for 2021. Western Bay of Plenty Mayor Garry Webber (also an Old Boy) will work one to one with Anaru to help him achieve his goal of working in International Relations and as an Indigenous Rights Ambassador.
Old Boys Sport
Cricket
There have been a good number of our Old Boys performing at various levels through the summer. Kane Williamson has led the Black Caps to success against the West Indies and Pakistan and currently they lead the visiting Australians 2-0 in a 5 match T20 series.
Joe Carter continues to lead the Northern Districts side with Brett Hampton as a regular team mate. The Northern Districts A team has included Bharat Popli, Peter Drysdale, Taylor Bettelheim, Ben Pomare and Tim Pringle as well. At various times.
Taylor Bettelheim (2019 1st XI captain) has probably had the most impressive performance as he backed up a century for Bay of Plenty with an unbeaten 211 against Thames Valley – the third highest score ever in the 80 year history of BOP cricket.
Staff member and Old Boy Charles Williams scored 147 (87 balls) in a total of 313/7 for Northern Districts Maori in a losing cause against club side Kaipaki.
Rugby 7s
Leroy Carter was included in one of the 2 trial sides that were selected to pick the side for 2021.
Motocross
Sixteen year old Madoc Dixon left school at the end of last year and has begun 2021 in fine style winning the national junior 125 cc title last month. Since then ,in the second round of the NZ MotoX competition at Rotorua, he became the youngest rider to win a Senior national round.
Yachting
The finalists for the America’s Cup have now been determined and Peter Burling with Emirates Team New Zealand will take on the Italians on Luna Rosa in the finals to determine where the America’s Cup will end up in 2021.
Peter Burling and Blair Tuke were awarded the Lonsdale Cup which is
Hockey
There were over 90 Masters Hockey teams scheduled to play in Tauranga this week but unfortunately the latest lockdown saw this event cancelled. A number of Old Boys from around the North Island were scheduled to take part. These included …… Shane & Kris Mortensen (Taranaki 35s), Mike Stevens, Phillip Diggelman & Steve Graham (Tauranga 35s), Narayan Singh, Luke Rutherford + staff members Mark Page & Nigel Burling (Tauranga 40s), Krishan Singh, Glenn Adolph & David Osman (Tauranga 45s), David Excell (Wellington 45s),Murray Jones (Wellington 50s), Grant Hunt (Wellington 60s) & Nigel Pointon ( Harbour 65s).
Rugby
Recent Old Boy Cole Forbes has just won his first professional rugby contract with the Glasgow Warriors. He is eligible to play for Scotland through a Scottish gradfather.
Athletics
Tuariki Delamere is still involved in competitive athletics and at the recent NZ Masters Games he won the Men’s 65-69 javelin competition.
That’s it for now but if anyone has news that I could add in my next edition please email me on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. If any of you have not checked out the TBC Old Boys Facebook page do so too as there is often more details on some of the se stories there …..
All the best for now,
Rob Leslie
