Well guys it’s been a fun year . We started out at Year
13 camp where we dominated in the sporty events as
expected and the Haka and Skit (won’t mention our
attempts at photography and chanting). We nearly won
the camp shield. We imagined that House Leading would
be easy, standing in assembly, looking pretty good,
collecting all the prizes, winning all the events. But ...it
wasn’t quite like that, it was great fun though.
We started the House Events with swimming sports.
We were both taken aback at the amazing dress-ups of
our great Tainuians. As usual the effort people put into
the events was incredible. We had queues of swimmers
wanting to do the relays and it was hard picking the
teams. Well done to our great champion swimmers:Hunter Burns Junior Boys’ Champ and Sebastian Feller
Intermediate Boys’ Champ. Despite all our efforts we only
came 3rd.
Next up was Athletics, lots of yellow body paint, bare
(male) torsos, great costumes and again bravery shown
by lots of tainuians in competing to their best. Well
done to Georgia Hulls ,our Junior Girls’ Champ.
Our entrance,
changes and choerography were
the best of the night and our movements
and singing was so accurate. An amazingly
powerful Haka rounded our performance off. Special
thanks to Albert Ashton helped by Ashleigh
Shepherd, Alex and Tyler Whatuira and Holly
MacDonald. We were so proud of our house on
that night, all the hard work had come together and
it was all worth it. We took out a well deserved
first placing.
TANUI HOUSE
Although we jumped higher and longer than other
houses, ran faster than them and threw things further
there were not enough non-championship entries for
us to finish ahead of the other houses.
Next up was the dreaded Theatre Sports, in the
history of all the years of inter-house Theatre sports
competitons, Tainui has always come last. Not to
be deterred this year, our brave team led by Devin
Farmery, took to the stage. At the last minute Ben
and I had to find paper,scissors and a rock to fill in
a vacancy and I got the job which was very nerve
wracking. We alI thought the Tainui team was far
and away the funniest (and looked the best) but yet
again the judges’ vis ion must have been mistaken
as they were laughing so much! A change this year.
We came second (along with all the other houses
apart from Kauri).
The quiz: as usual, way too many people wanting
to take part , we had to cut it down ruthlessly to 3
junior and 3 senior teams. Luckily all our teams were
full of brainy students who had studied hard for this
challenge. Great stuff, we came joint first overall. At
last our talents were being recognised.
Then, the time we had been waiting for, our Kapa
Haka performance. Hours of practice, piles of feathers, plenty of branches, our moko artist, costume
designs, litres of baby oil, and body paint, pots of
UV paint and our own UV light.
WE WERE AMAZING.
At last it was winter and time for Touch. The Girls
and Junior boys turned up to practices and were
moulded by Albert Ashton into a fierce tactical
force. Senior boys were way too cool to train but
despite that they did manage to pull off a victory.
Due to a strange timing issue most of our girls had
to leave their game early for a rugby tournament
leaving us a bit short handed. We are sure this
was a plot by the other houses to stop us from
winning. Our teams looked good, were full of
passion, ran fast but didn’t always make the passes
count. Never mind, another third place.
Last event was the mighty tractor pull. We
performed well in our practices, studied the video
of our last victory at this event and we were ready.
Until a 12 tonne steam engine appeared on a
damp and dismal lunchtime. It was a very heavy
engine and thanks to Mr Fenton picking us out of
the hat first we had to get the huge engine moving
first. As usual we looked good and gave it heaps
of passion. We started very well , looking to be a
record breaking effort, but the little uphill slope at
the end slowed us down and we lost by 0.05 of a
second.
So we come to the end of our Year 13 and we
are both sad that the year is coming to an end.
We will miss doing assemblies but hopefully you
have been entertained and enjoyed our assemblies
and maybe you have even been motivated to work
harder for Tainui. That is the true Tainui spirit.
When we all participate we are much stronger.
Thanks to all the year 13s for their support for
what we tried to achieve and thanks to Mrs Hulls
for her constant encouragement and belief in us.
Farewell to Mr Simonsen and Mrs Hulls and Good
luck to the 2014 Tainuians.
Shavon Konia and Ben Broughton