Community Trust of Southland Scholarships

Left to Right: Atrayl Elliott-Roderique, Patrick Stone, Emma Borland, Patrick Wilkes, Charles More and Tim Lindsay.

Congratulations to the above students on being awarded a Community Trust of Southland Scholarship this year. Well done to you all.

SixStar Scholarship - Tourism

Congratulations to Sophie Ward on being awarded the SixStar Scholarship in Tourism. This scholarship is worth $20,000.00 over the three years of her study. Well done Sophie.

Maori and Pacifica Scholarships

Congratulations to Atrayl Elliott-Roderique and Emma Borland on receiving a Otago University Maori and Pacifica Scholarship this year. Only 30 students per year are awarded these scholarships and they are worth $10,000.00 for one year.

Invercargill Licensing Trust Scholarship Recipients

Left to Right: Patrick Stone, Emma Borland, Patrick Wilkes, Charles More, Gavin McLeod, Jake Michels, Tim Lindsay and Charles More. Absent: Margeret Maka, Matthew Short and William Ward.

Congratulations to the above students on receiving an Invercargill Licensing Trust Scholarship for this year. The students will receive $2,000.00 for the next three years while they are studying.

Project Invercargill-Lille 2010

Project Invercargill-Lille 2010 – Kiwis on Tour (SBHS, SGHS, JHC, VC) – these words and logo appeared on the teeshirts of 19 students and three teachers from the Invercargill high schools who recently spent four weeks in Paris and Lille.

It was the other side of an exchange from Lycee Kernanec in Lille, fourth largest city in France. An entire English class spent three weeks in Invercargill in February and this was our return visit.

We spent the first week in Paris and visited all the major tourist attractions – Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Sacre-Coeur Basilica, Musee d’Orsay, Versailles, the Louvre, Pantheon, Sainte-Chapelle church, Arc de Triomphe, the Pere Lachaise cemetery, the shopping centres of Les Halles, La Defense and the Champs-Elysees. Up and down stairs and metro stations, we got quite fit (and blisters), and got to know the metro system well enough to participate in an Amazing Race event.

After a week, it was north to Parc Asterix where we met up with our host brothers and sisters from Lille. It is a huge amusement park similar to Disneyland, but with the Asterix theme. Everyone had a wonderful time there before heading further north to Lille to meet the parents and families and to begin the three-week stay there.

School on the following Monday began at 8.00am and ended for some at 6.15pm, albeit with some time off in the middle. Lunch at the sit-down canteen always consists of a three-course meal – a salad, a main course of either fish, meat or pasta dish and some vegetables or chips, and a dessert or fruit or cheese.

It was different not to wear a uniform, to be locked out of the school until just before classes started, to have free time if the teacher was absent, to be able to leave or go to a study room if you didn’t have a class, and it was horrifying to see the large numbers of students outside the gates smoking. Classes were not always easy to follow, but we had our own work to do and we gradually were able to understand more and more. French students do work a lot harder than us. Wednesday afternoon is free, but Saturday morning classes are held.

At the weekends some students were lucky to be taken by their families to London, or Belgium or other parts of France. We also spent a day at Arras and Le Quesnoy, two places which have connections to NZ with the war – Nzers were partly responsible for tunnels in Arras and a NZ battalion scaled the city walls and freed Le Quesnoy from the Germans, so they show a great deal of respect for NZ.

We also went to Bruges, chocolate capital of Belgium and also famous for its lace and its canal. We visited a museum and a church there too. Another outing was a tour of the city of Lille with commentary from their Visitor Centre and a foot rally around the old part of the city, some of which dates from the 13th century.

The group was welcomed by the Mayor of Marcq-en-Baroeul, the suburb of Lille where the school is based, and gifts were given to the students and teachers. They were also responsible for organizing a rugby match between the “All Blacks” and a local team, and donated a trophy which has come back to Invercargill – couldn’t be brought back as hand luggage because it could have been used as a weapon on the plane!
The trip was a hugely enjoyable experience and many friendships were cemented and a lot learnt about ourselves. It is certainly worth the time spent fundraising and getting prepared for it, and our knowledge and understanding of the language improved. The Lille students are certainly looking forward to hosting us again in 2012, and it would be great for present Year 10 or 11 students to consider. There will be an information evening and photo presentation from this trip on Thursday 28 October at 7.30pm at SGHS staffroom for those interested

Verdon College Banner

Erin Young is well known in the St Theresa's community for her magnificent patchwork and now Verdon College has been fortunate to have received one of her wonderful creations . Erin has created a new banner for Verdon College to replace our tired banner which was made for the school at least fifteen years ago by Kathy Ryder. As well as the new banner we have also received as Erin calls it a 'pinney' for our rostrum. The College community provided the finances for the materials used in the banners but the hours and hours of work put into the new banners was a labour of love by Erin. Erin and Alister have had a long association with Catholic education in Invercargill. Erin was educated by the Dominican nuns at St Catherine's (nee Crawford) and Alister went to Marist. Their three daughters (Jane, Gretchen and Alison) all went to St Catherines and their son David went to Marist. Verdon College is very grateful to receive this wonderful gift.

Board of Trustees Student Representative

Congratulations to Olivia King our new Student Representative on the Board of Trustees for 2011. Well done.

PTA Christmas Fundraiser

Dear Verdon Family

This first week of term you will receive your CHRISTMAS TRUFFLE ORDER FORM. This fundraiser has huge potential to earn much needed funds for the school to help with sports teams uniforms and sports gear restocking. It would be fantastic if you could sell as many as you can as they make an ideal Christmas gift and they are handy to have in the deep freeze over the h0lidays.

We would appreciate your support also in the making and packaging the truffles over the weekend of 12 and 13 November. This is a great opportunity to meet others in our school community.

Orders with payment please to the school office by FRIDAY 29 OCTOBER. (Cheques payable to Verdon College PTA). There is also a prize for the family who sells the most and the Verdon house with the greatest number of students/parents to help make them.

Thank you very much.

Verdon College, PTA - working hard for your school.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Lachlan O'Driscoll, Alisdair O'Reilly and Harlam Haydon who were part of the under 65kg Southland Rugby Team that were runners up at Christchurch Tournament during the first week of the school holidays. A special congratulations to Harlam who was selected for the South Island Under 65kg representative rugby team at this tournament. Well done.

Year 10 Speech and Poetry Competition

Left to Right: Megan Middlemiss, Josef Winders, Ella Prendergast, Scott McDonald and Alex Keene

The year 10 Speech and Poetry Competition was held last term with the finals being held in the last week. We congratulate the above students on their success as listed below:

Speech: 1st= Ella Prendergast and Megan Middlemiss

2nd Scott McDonald

Poetry: 1st Josef Winders

2nd Alex Keene

Year 9 Speech and Poetry Results

Left to Right: Tomas Adams, Daniel Boyle, Henry More, Gabe Winders and Shanay Fannin

The year 9 Speech and Poetry competition was decided at the end of Term 3 and we wish to congratulate the above students on the following results:

Speech: 1st Daniel Boyle
2nd = Gabe Winders, Tomas Adams

Poetry: 1st Shanay Fannin
2nd Henry More