Hi
A Happy New Year to you and I trust that the excellent foundations we have established for the Old Boys Association in the last months can be built on over the next year. As I told you last time I am in the UK for the year but will still attend to some tasks relating to the Association and will still be contactable on my normal eamil address. I am very excited about getting a meeting organised in London around the middle of the year and will firm up details about that before too long. There have been a few things happen in the last weeks .......
Mahe Drysdale completed a stellar year by being named World Male rower of the year for 2009 and then he was also awarded the Lonsdale Cup which goes to the athlete in an Olympic sport that achieves at the highest level in a calendar year.
The BOP golf team won the inter-provincials for the 3rd time in succession recently with this performance even more amazing considering only one of last years team was involved. Old Boy Kieren Muir was team captain while 2 of our 2009 Year 13’s were also involved with Brad Kendall winning most of his matches at No.4 while Nick Meyer was travelling reserve but in fact played one match.
TBC has one more national champion for 2009 as in December Cameron Higgins & Nick Tomsett, after little more than 12 months experience, tipped up the defending champions to win the New Zealand secondary schools lawn bowls championships.
Year 13 identical twin brothers Peter and Matthew Bridgwater have just found they have been accepted for Yale in 2010. The pair have been strong academics in their time @ TBC and were gold medal winners in the Lightweight Coxed 4 so met the rigorous criteria set by this prestigious American Unjversity which has produced 5 American Presidents.
Old Boy and current staff member Aramahou Ririnui has had quite a taste of reality TV through the year. A TV 1 series called One Land features 3 New Zealand families set in the 1850’s living as they would have done with the technologies of that period and their interactions with each other. Aramahou’s family, who were only able to speak Maori, and another of Maori background lived at the pa while the 3rd were of European background.
Boxing Day at the Mount is traditionally the day of the King of the Mountain race from near Mt. Drury to the top of Mauao & return and victory this year went to Old Boy Iain McDonald who won for the 4th time. Iain completed the gruelling return trip in 19 minutes 11 seconds.
Joseph Schmidt, who was DP at TBC for several years earlier this century but then left to take up full time rugby coaching with the Blues, has more recently been plying his trade as assistant to former BOP Coach Vern Cotter with the French club Clermont. They have reached the finals of the French competition in the last 3 seasons but he will take up a new appointment for the 2010/11 season with Irish club Leinster. Joe played rugby in Ireland in the 90’s .
Old Boy Austen Childs has been on a tennis scholarship in the US at the University of Louisville for about 3 years but hit the headlines recently in the NZ Residentials by beating our top ranked player Dan King-Turner on his way to the finals where he was eventually beaten. On the Circuit in the US he was named the Big Easts men’s player of the year and is 12th ranked on the Collegiate circuit.
Old Boy yachties continue to perform well with Peter Burling & crew Blair Tuke pushing the world champion crew all the way in the 49er class at the Sail Melbourne regatta. Sam Meech was lying 10th in the Laser Radial class while Thomas Saunders was 7th in the Radials. Sam is one of 4 contenders for a $15,000 Westpac sports scholarship designed to identify & reward potential Olympic & World Champions.
Old Boy and former Tauranga Boys College staff member, Tame (Tom) Kuka, has recently been appointed Principal of Bay of Plenty's first total immersion secondary school which starts in February. The school begins at the Polytechnic site at Windermere with 33 year 7-13 pupils, but will have the capacity for 350 students at the Bethlehem Road site, where it will start in 2011. In his time at Tauranga Boys College, Tame began the Bilingual Department - New Zealand's first, and since leaving was Maori Education adviser for the University of Waikato.
As we try to expand on the excellent start we have made with the Old Boys Association in 2009 I would really appreciate it if you are able to forward contacts of any Old Boys you know who you think may not be on our lists to date.
Have a great year,
Rob Leslie
Old Boys Coordinator
