The depths of winter and all of a sudden there is a great deal going on with a range of Old Boys functions in the next month.
Auckland Function
This event will take place on Friday, August 19th beginning from 5.30 pm at the Bluestone Room on Durham Street in the middle of the city. Principal Robert Mangan will be there and the Old Boys' Association will buy your first drink and provide nibbles for the occasion. Spread the word to your mates and get along to catch up with other Old Boys who call our largest city home.
Annual General Meeting
The TBCOBA Annual General Meeting will be held in the staffroom on Monday August 22nd from 7pm. If you would like to get involved with the great work this group of enthusiastic Old Boys do please come along and support this important event.
Sports Day and Annual Dinner
Friday September 9th is the date for this annual fixture. The winter codes (rugby, hockey, soccer and basketball) play Old Boys v Current 1st teams from 3pm in the afternoon, before the dinner at the school later that evening.
The Guest Speaker/MC is James McOnie of Crowd Goes Wild fame, who will have just returned from the Rio Olympics. Old Boy of the Year is Steve Saunders, who won the 2014 Westpac Business Awards “Excellence in Business Leadership”. He is a Landcare Research Director, Priority One Board member and is Managing Director of the Plus Group of companies – a horticultural solutions business that operates a science research and robotic technology development centre.
Tickets are $75 or a table of 10 for $695, with 3 course meal and wine included. Get back to me or see details and book tickets on our website: www.tbcoba.org.nz.
Winter Sports Tournament
There are a large number of TBC students who will be contesting all manner of titles in winter tournament week and I’m sure they would appreciate your support . Here are the details:
28-29/8 NZSS Indoor Bowls in Wellington
28-30/8 NZSS Jnr Basketball Regionals in Rotorua
28/8 – 2/9 Rugby U15 Tournament @ Massey, Auckland
28/8 – 31/8 Rugby Colquhoun in Palmerston North
28/8 – 31/8 U15 Hockey Tanner Cup in Hamilton
29/8 NZSS Golf in Nelson
29/8 – 31/8 NZSS Table Tennis in Palmerston North
29/8 – 1/9 NZSS Badminton in Hamilton
29/8 – 1/9 NZSS Football Premier Tournament at Papamoa
29/8 – 2/9 Hockey 1st XI Rankin Cup in Wellington
29/8 – 2/9 Hockey 2nd XI Galletly Cup in Taupo
1- 4/9 NZSS Underwater Hockey in Wellington
1- 2/9 NZSS Rugby Top 4 (Rugby) in Palmerston North
3- 4/9 NZSS Cycling Championships in Auckland
3/9 NZSS Postal Weightlifting Championships
23- 26/9 Clay Target National Champs in Christchurch
26/9 – 1/10 NZSS Basketball National Champs in Palmerston North
30/9 – 2/10 NZSS Mountain Bike Champs in Dunedin
TBC Arts
Smokefree Rockquest 2016
Group Ah Jeez, which includes Head Prefect Elijah Taula and Deputy Head Mitchell Nemeth along with 2 lads from Bethlehem College, have made it to the last 8 in this year’s contest. In its 27th year the competition plays to some 10,000 people every year and has launched the careers of many of New Zealand’s top young acts.
Regional Manu Korero
Anaru Palmer has acquitted himself well taking out the 2nd placing for Senior Englishin the competition this year.
National Mooting Competition
Our relatively inexperienced team of Hugo Thompson, Graeme Woods and William Huang performed well to make the top 6 out of a total of 69 teams at this year’s competition.
Production
The TGC/TBC production of Fame has just completed its season at BayCourt. Elijah Taula, Mitchell Nemeth and Fletcher Oxford all played major roles in this ambitious show, however it was Year 11 student George Hiku who stole the show with his portrayal of the singing and dancing.
Big Band
TBC’s Big Band 2 traveled to the Rotorua Rhapsody event . This group of musicians, which contained a good number of boys new to jazz performed outstandingly and were rewarded with a Gold Award.
Chess
Our Super 8 chess team placed 3rd in the 2016 BOP competition with Tyler Creightonawarded MVP for the tournament and Reuben Magee named Best Player on Board 4.
TBC Sport
Hockey
It has been a busy start to the term for the 1st XI as they prepare for nationals in a few weeks time. We hosted a quadrangular tournament which saw national championsWestlake BHS, Palmerston North BHS & Kings College. A 4-2 loss to Westlake after excellent wins over Kings & PNBHS saw our team place second.
Super 8 has just been completed and after defaulting their first match because of snow on the road between Taupo & Napier the side beat PNBHS in the semi before losing to Hamilton BHS in the final, which we dominated. The young side has impressed and is in good heart for the Rankin Cup.
Basketball
Super 8 competition has just been completed here with TBC placing 3rd. Pool play saw TBC top of their section, but they lost to Napier in the crossover and so came up against Hamilton BHS in the battle for 3rd place. In a close contest TBC came out victorious in a very competitive tournament.
Martial Arts
Year 9 student Hank An has just competed in the NZ national Judo competitionwhere he won the Under 45 kg event.
Toby Langdon’s excellent results in Midlands regional and national Taekwondotournaments have seen him selected to represent New Zealand in the World Cup in Budapest in October.
Rugby
Super 8 rugby finished a week ago and the 1st XV completed their schedule with an excellent win against Gisborne BHS to place 4th in the competition. With most games now over the representative season begins and TBC has 15 students in the BOP Under 18 squad and 5 in the BOP Under 16s.
2nd XV rugby halfback Louis Grindrod who had been injured in the Napier Super 8 fixture is now back at school and on his way to a full recovery. The neck injury saw him airlifted to Middlemore before moving to the Otara Spinal Unit where it was expected he would spend at least a couple of months. Fantastic to be able to report that he was back at TBC within a month.
Clay Target Shooting
TBC won the Super 8 competition for the first time since 2011 by 7 clear points from Palmerston North BHS. Other competition results included 3rd place in the North Island Championships where Brady Anderson was 2nd and Hamish Williamson 3rd in the single rise.
Surf Lifesaving
An injury to Kane Sefton has opened the door for his contemporary Daniel Barron to take his place in the New Zealand Junior Black Fins to compete in the World Rescue Championships in Holland later in the year.
Badminton
The team of Caelan Potts, Jerome Badshah, Bodhi Harris and Michael Crispwon bronze in Division 1 of the BOP Badminton finals.
Indoor Bowls
Anthony Ouellet and Andre Doroffaef competed in the pairs at the North Island secondary schools title and finished up winning the event.
Underwater Hockey
Guy Roberts has performed well in recent competitions and been selected in the New Zealand Under 18 team.
Other News
Two of our students have made the finals of the Young Innovators competition the winners of which are decided by Public Vote. Ryan Gilbertson has developed a pet collar which detects epileptic fits in cats and dogs while Daniel Corteze has developed a drone which would be used in disaster zones to locate victims.
Old Boys Sport
Rugby
The 2016 Steamers squad has been announced and there are a number of Old Boys involved again. Te Aihe Toma (after his last few weeks has been spent with the Highlanders), Jeff Thwaites, Sam Cane and Dan Hollinshead have all been selected and preseason has gone well with wins over Northland and Taranaki.
The local premiership was won for the first time ever by Rangataua, which featured a good number of Old Boys and was coached by TBC staff member and Old Boy Aramahou Ririnui.
Olympics
TBC had 6 competitors at this year’s Olympics led by Mahe Drysdale who backed up his gold medal winning performance in London by winning again in Rio by the narrowest of margins to become New Zealand’s oldest ever gold medal winner. Kayaker Mike Dawson made the final of the Canoe Slalom and after qualifying 5th ended up 10th in the final which was a significant improvement over his performance in London. Kayaker Bryden Nicholas is also there representing the Cook Islands.
The sailing programme has finished with 2 of our 3 of our Old Boys collecting medals – Peter Burling (gold), Sam Meech (bronze). The third, Jason Saunders, also acquitted himself well well.
2011 Gappie Ruaridh McConnochie has gone from strength to strength since his season with Rangataua and returns to the UK after the Olympics with a Sevens silver medal. Craig Gribble has been officiating at the Games as he has been in charge of all of the Umpires at the Hockey venue.
Squash
Jamie Oakley will contest the World Junior Individual and Teams SquashChampionships in Poland shortly and after that shift to the USA where he will take up a 4 year scholarship at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He follows older brother Julian who is in the States on an athletics scholarship.
Kayaking
Tom Taylor has been awarded the prestigious Graham Egarr Memorial Paddlerecognising his outstanding service to sea kayaking. Last year he broke the world record for paddling 209 km in 24 hours.
Cricket
The international season has begun well for Kane Williamson as he led the Black Caps for the first time in tests and the team beat Zimbabwe 2-0. Personally Kane performed well becoming the youngest ever player to score a test century against all 9 test-playing nations while lifting his test average above 50 for the first time. The team now moves on to South Africa for 2 tests there are well placed after the first day of the first test.
Boccia
I have just stumbled on the international sporting career of a former pupil of mineMaurice Toon. He attended his first Paralympic Games in Athens in 2004 where he beat some of the world’s best in qualifying for the quarter finals in the individuals and getting silver in the teams event. At the World Champs in 2006 the team went one better to take out the title against hot favourites Portugal. Since that time he has continued to compete internationally in Greece, Malaysia, Brazil, Canada, China and Hong Kong.
Other Old Boy News
Immediate past President of the Old Boys Association Bill Holland has just beenreelected onto the TECT Board here in Tauranga.
Former staff member and former Deputy Mayor of Tauranga Greg Brownless has announced that he will stand for the Mayoralty of the City in the local body elections later in the year. Greg has had a 6 year absence from local body politics when he set up a funeral business in Sydney and in 2011 was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal for Services to the Community.
Old Boy Terry Leaming (aka Hori BOP) will also have another tilt at the mayoralty, having contested the elections on several occasions previously.
Old Boy and former staff member of 27 years Graeme Moore has put himself forward as a candidate for a seat on the Tauranga Council at the local body elections later in the year.
Western BOP Member of Parliament Todd Muller has spent some of his parliamentary recess time in the USA where he has attended the Conventions for the Presidential candidates.
Grahame Morton has been involved in international affairs for a considerable period of time and I have just discovered that he is our current High Commissioner to Indiabased in New Delhi. As such he appeared on TV this week as he was showingMasterchef cooks Karena & Kasey around his home town.
I hope to see a good number of you at the various events over the next month or so. Please pass on news to me for future editions.
Kind Regards,
Rob Leslie.
