Hi everyone,

 

It has been some time since the last update, so quite a long edition this time, but hopefully something of interest to all of you. As you see I am in the United Kingdom for the Christmas/New Year period and have an Old Boys event organized for then. If you know Old Boys in that part of the world please let me know contact details so I can get in touch.

The venue is booked and the date set for our first function in London for some time.

The Spread Eagle in Camden Town (141 Albert Street, NW1) will host us from 5 p.m on Saturday January 9^th with the first drink on TBC  and some finger food provided. Spread the word to your TBC mates across the UK and get together for some great reminiscences. Please drop me an email onThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  to RSVP. Blackstick Andy Hayward is one of the first to say he is a starter!!!!

 

After 6 weeks in the UK in the heart of winter it will be great to get back to some sunshine and some cricket. The Old Boys matches will be a little later this year with a date set for Sunday February 7^th  again at Matapihi. A long weekend and again the opportunity to test those reflexes and catch up with some of your old team mates. Same format as previously with a  BBQ lunch (Max Heimann back on the tongs in 2016) served between two T20 matches. Let me know if you are in!

After 3 years of saving and organization a group of Te Puna based rugby players headed to France on a22 day trip to see the land of their ancestors. The names Borell, Bidois & Poitier all have a history that dates back some 150 years to early Catholic settlers from France and there were a number of Old Boys who made the journey ….. Tapa Borell (1985-8), Aidan Kuka (1994-96), Greg Stevenson (2001-5), Hamish Boyce (2002-6), Marty Stevenson (2003-7) and Resden Hirama (2009-13).

 

At present count there are 21 TBC Old Boys on the Staff, however we are one down this term as Andy Turner has followed recent Deputy Principal Richard Hall to Dunedin and Otago BHS. Richard took up the position of Rector last year and now Andy has started as his Deputy.

A new addition to the Science Department this year has been Justin Brewer. He has run a number of businesses since his days at TBC in the 1990s but now returns to his old school as a first year teacher.

 

Most successful of our tournament teams this year were the Under 14 Rugby Team. Their tournament saw them beat Wellington College, Hastings BHS & Rotorua BHS in the  pool matches, which put them through to the final against New Plymouth BHS. They won this game also to take out the tournament.

 

Indoor Bowls Nationals saw some TBC success with Nash Smith defeated in the quarter finals of the singles while Anthony Ouellete ended up 4^th. These two combined in the doubles competition where they were beaten in the last bowl of the final for 2^nd place.

The football 1^st XI were competing in Nelson and eventually placed 14^th. They had a tough pool with 2 top 8 sides in their group – those being Westlake BHS & St. Kentigern College. In the Super 8 competition the boys performed well, beating Hamilton BHS in the semifinal before losing out to New Plymouth BHS in the final.

 

Three hockey sides were involved in tournament week with the 1^st XI contesting the Rankin Cup in Auckland. They were unbeaten in pool play with 2 wins & a draw against the very strong St. Pauls  Collegiate team, but were placed 2^nd because of an inferior goal difference. Having given their all in this last pool game things went awry after that and the boys placed a creditable 12^th.  In the Super 8 the team ended up 3^rd, having been beaten by eventual winners Palmerston North BHS in the semifinal and beating Napier BHS  for 3^rd.

 

The 2^nd XI travelled to the South Island for the first time for the Galletly Cup for 2^nd XIs  in Blenheim. The side performed well but only had the 1 win and placed 9^th.

 

The Under 15 side contested the Tanner Cup in Hamilton and ended up 9^th with a 2 win, 2 loss & 1 draw record which was better than we have done before as several of our eligible players were in the 1sts or 2nds.

 

It was not the greatest season for our basketballers, placing 7th in the Super 8 competition and after being in a tough pool at regional qualifiers the team did not qualify for Nationals.

 

Underwater Hockey have been very strong performers in recent years but in 2015 the team was not as successful.   The Seniors placed 6^th while the Juniors were 4^th with recent team players Keegan Thomson and Ben Richards coaching. They had just been members of the New Zealand Under 19 side that had won the world title.

 

Swimming has not always been particularly strong but, with a number of competitors at the Junior level, TBC was well represented amongst the 500 competitors at the NZSS competition. Several Year 9s competed in the 15 & Under division and were 9^th in the 200m. medley relay and 10^th in the 200m. freestyle relay.

 

A squad of around 50 players completed a tour of the United Kingdom & Ireland during the last holidays and after a tough season they rounded things off very well with 9 wins out of 10 matches in an amazing tour. A highlight of the trip was seeing the All Blacks play Georgia at the Rugby World Cup in the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff.

 

Recent NZSS competition has unearthed some TBC talent in this sport with Aiman Fariz National Champion in the 69kg division while Xavier Albert was runner up in the 77 kg class.

Kane Sefton  and Dylan Williams have both been selected to represent New Zealand for the New Zealand Youth team.

 

Daniel Hintz, who is heading off to contest the 800/1500m. double at NZSS nationals in Timaru in December, has just competed in the Australian national cross country championships.

Levi Offner has just competed in the national champs and placed 4^th.

 

The 2015 New Zealand Open Championships were held in Papamoa and Dylan McKInlay, a long standing member of our sailing team, placed 5^th in the open division.

 

TBC was strongly represented in representative rugby sides in the 2015 season. At the Bay of Plenty Under 19 level we had 9 players, while there were 12 in the Under 16s. In the younger grades where the rep teams are Western BOP there were 7 students at Under 15 level and 9 in the  Under 14 grade.

 

TBC students picked up medals at the recent NZ Judo Championships. Mitchell Ihaia won gold in the 100 kg Junior Men’s division while Josh Preston gained silver in the Senior Boys 55 kg division.

 

Daniel Tuiraviravi has been involved with the schools successful kayaking programme since his arrival at TBC but has recently represented Fiji at the Men’s World Championships. He has one more K1 event to race to see whether he qualifies for the Rio Olympics.

 

TBC were represented in Wellington by Adam Herbert  and Peter Burman in the Sheilah Winn workshops to select a group to represent New Zealand at the Globe Theatre in London. Neither made the final cut but this was the first year we were represented at this level and they both gained significant valuable experience.

The 2016 Youth Parliament will feature 2 TBC lads as local MPs Todd Muller and Simon Bridgesselected  Hugo Thompson and Grahame Woods to represent them at this annual event.

 

It has been some time since the Hillsdene Reflector (the TBC newspaper which was particularly strong at the school in the 80s & 90s) was published, but it is about to be revived. Staff members Win Jones and Old Boy Harlie Deacon in the English Department  will resurrect the paper on-line in the New Year and has an enthusiastic group of students keen to take up the challenge. Watch this space for further details.

 

The TBC Debating team took on TGC in the annual Lions debate and emerged victorious.

For the second time in 2 years the Business Studies Department has taken a small group of Year 13 students on a trip to China. The boys itinerary included Guangzhou, Shanghai & Beijing where they visited sweatshops, markets, factories and the Zespri offices as well as doing some other sightseeing.

There is quite a profile for TBC actors on our TV screens at present. Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien  is hosting a show called The DNA Detectives which tracks the ancestors of a number of New Zealand identities.

 

The New Zealand drama Step Dave has just reappeared on our screens with both Rawiri Jobe, who plays Azza, and Shane Cortese in a supporting role involved.

Head Prefect Erik Thomson comes back to our sets after his Packed to the Rafters stint in a new drama called 800 Words. He plays George Turner, a Sydney newspaper columnist who quits his job and shifts to a remote New Zealand seaside town with his two teenage kids.

Shane Cortese gets back on the boards in Auckland next month in the show Guys and Dolls in which he plays the charming gambler Nathan Detroit who is trying to set up an illegal craps game.

 

Te Kahu Rolleston is an Old Boy poet and Waikato University alumnus who was the  winner of the Aotearoa National Poetry slam competition and is also the National spoken word champ. He has been selected to attend the Banff Centre in Canada for their Indigenous Writing Programme.

 

 

Earlier in the year I reported that Tim Taylor had set out to beat the World Record for kayaking in 24 hours. He duly kayaked to Cathedral Cove and back thus completing 214 kilometres in 24 hours. He had to jump through a good number of hoops to have the record formally ratified by the Guiness Book of World Records but has now had official confirmation ……….. an impressive effort.

 

They have not been at school for a while but Luke Johnson and Connor Probert were both part of the TBC football programme before they went to Auckland to try to make the Under 17 World Cup side. They have just returned from a very successful tournament where they qualified second in their pool and then were beaten 0-1 by Brazil in their attempt to make the quarter finals.

 

The new first class season has begun and Kane Williamson played one game for Northern Districts before heading to Australia with the Black Caps. In the first test loss he scored another century and half century and is integral to the Black Caps batting lineup and a future captain. That still leaves 4 TBC Old Boys in the squad led by Daniel Flynn, with Joe Carter, Bharat Popli  and debutant Brett Hampton.

 

There has been a group of players selected for a Junior Black Sticks training programme next  month which includes last year's Head Prefect Hamish McGeorge, Joe Lyons and current 1^st XI goal keeper Wade Bennett.

The recently completed National League competition involved 2 Old Boys – former Black Stick Steve Graham and Tom Lysaght. Our most accomplished player, Andy Hayward, has signed up to play for London-based club  Hampstead & Westminister and was not able to return to New Zealand for the recent Oceania series.

 

Peter Burling & Blair Tuke have been nominated as one of the five finalists  in the 2015 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of he Year.

Allen Oliver (1985-9) attended Waikato University studying Chemistry and became interested in x-ray crystalography, completing an Masters before then finishing a Doctorate at Auckland University. He then accepted a post-doctoral scholarship at the University of California Berkeley before moving on to Santa Cruz & Notre Dame where, as Associate Research Professor, he has been able to teach courses in chemical crystalography at both universities. He has now had further promotion to full research professor and assists other research institutes all around the world.

 

Not sure whether there will be another message before Christmas, but if not all the very best for a happy and safe Christmas and great New Year. If you have not got along to any of our events how about making it a New Year's resolution to do just that! As usual too, if you have news that may be of interest to the group please get back to me.

 

All the best,

 

Rob.