Winter Olympics 2010
On the 20th July 2010 Stanley Avenue sent 38 Year 7 and 8 students to participate and compete at the Totara Springs Town and Country Sports Camp and what a fantastic 4 days it was!!!
Before reporting on the outstanding achievements of our students I cannot help but draw on our School values and the various dimensions of our Stanley Avenue Learner, and highlight how evident they were amongst our students throughout the week. Caring and respecting each other, the other teams and the environment, Working as a team, on and off the field, thus linking to all students showing and applying a high level of understanding of what it was/is to be a team player, being connected, communicating effectively, having an understanding of each other’s well being both physical and emotional and of course striving to succeed. All of these values and dimensions were drawn upon frequently whether consciously or unconsciously. To me it reinforces the belief in why it is so important to instil these values and learning dimensions into our students, ensuring they are equipped with the necessary skills and attributes to cope in the various situations they might find themselves in.
Onto the achievements. With 13 schools being represented ranging in size from 100 students to 700 students and 20 sports being played it was always going to be a busy and active few days. Tuesday morning kicked of very quickly after our arrival with the cross country starting at 9.30am. Congratulations to Campbell Millward on winning the Cross Country, Taine Sweeney in coming 3rd and Meg Skilton being 1st girl. The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday were based around the round robin games and our team proved for another consecutive year that they were going to be a formidable force on the field. Making the semi finals in Indoor Hockey, Indoor Soccer, Basketball, Netball, Rugby, Soccer, Hockey, Draughts, Chess, Tennis, Wall ball, Softball, Touch Rugby, was clear evidence of this. A goal of ours was to then convert as many of these semi finals into finals and it is pleasing to report that Indoor Hockey Boys, Indoor Soccer Boys, Both girls and boys basketball, Rugby, Touch Rugby, Softball, Netball, Chess and the Wall ball teams managed to do just that.
A special Mention must go to out Netball girls, both Basketball teams and our Wall ball team on their success in winning their finals and receiving the 2010 trophies for their codes, an outstanding achievement. In addition to these trophies we as a team also won Cross Country, Athletics and Overall School for the 3rd year running.
All of these achievements are something to be extremely proud of. The one thing that makes me most proud is that every student is able to stand up tall and accept congratulations on our schools achievements as each student contributed in a large way to the teams overall success.
I would like to say thank you to our Sponsors who made generous contributions to help get us there, Stanley Avenue P.T.A, Fonterra, PGG Wrightsons, Heathcoate Appliances, handi Hooke ltd, Snakes sportswear and Unichem Pharmacy Te Aroha.
A sincere thank you must go to the parents who came out and supported the students with their efforts. Thank you, Julie Sweeney, Angela Millward, Wayne Gore, Vicki Jones, Stacey and Daryl Davies for all of your efforts.
We were also extremely lucky to have two wonderful Camp parents who supported Miss McKinnon and I with not only the sport side of things but the pastoral care. Mr van Bysterveldt and Mrs Thompson, thank you!
Finally our boys and girls did themselves and our school extremely proud. There were frequent positive comments from outside parties and it made me proud to be a part of this team. It was a few days that I feel the students will remember for years to come and will look back fondly on.
Please click on the album under the media section to view photos and videos of the camp.
Geoff Booth