Term 1 #8 15 March 2019 NewsletterCollege St Andrew’s College

To the Andrean Community “Now this could only happen Wednesday 6th March was one of the longest days of the year. Not, of to a guy like me course, in terms of any solstice or solar system alignment, in fact, our And only happen in a town part of the universe seemed to be the opposite of alignment and natural like this cycles – in the oppressive heat and stubborn dryness it seemed that time So may I say to each of you had stopped. Boys stood around dejectedly, dressed for rugby, but sent most gratef’lly away to wait out the heat. The sky, an indifferent blue without a breath of As I throw each one of you a wind, stared down blankly, uncaring. kiss

This is my kind of town, I realized then the desperation that those whose livelihood depends on Chicago is the earth must feel as they look out over the dull, dead brown earth with My kind of town, Chicago is its brown dust, deprived of its ability to generate life. How shallow our My kind of people, too inconvenience of shortened showers and having to let ‘yellow mellow’. People who smile at you.” The mood in the town reflected all of that. There was a sense of oppressive heaviness of spirit. ‘How much longer can this go on?’, the unspoken - Frank Sinatra words on every stoic lip. Nec Aspera Terrent St Andrew’s College Nec Aspera Terrent

WEEK AT A GLANCE When the first drops of rain began to fall over Grahamstown, the mood lifted immediately. And when the rain persisted, becoming more than Friday 15 March: dry drops of insignificance...Celebration! As our spirits rose, so too every Football - Victoria Park Challenge (1st bush and every tree seemed to look up and give thanks, the dusty leaves Team) of endurance washed clean and green. Transylvanian Youth Summit - Cluj- Napoca, Romania to 27/3 Hockey U14A Rob Taylor Festival to It is almost that, for its absence, nature appreciates these rains more. The 17/3 (EL) sports fields, having tasted the dry dust and having endured the hard, hot 19h00 - Junior Production - soil, finds the rainwater sweeter than if it were just another downpour. Performance 2 The emerging green bright in appreciation. And while the drought is by no means broken, we have, I sense, endured the longest day, and the Saturday 16 March school is looking beautiful again. Hockey - All teams internal matches Rugby - Rugby Day It got me thinking of all of the tough times this old place has endured. (A) - Level 1 Gala (Newton It is deeply reassuring to me that through the good times and through Park Pool) the tough times, for 165 years College has stood firm – there exists a 19h00 - Junior Production - community of Andreans that celebrates with us in times of triumph and, Performace 3 especially, stands firm with us in times of trouble.

Monday 18 March And what a year it is turning out to be! The winter sports seasons are in Music Prac Tests full swing, the oppressive heat giving way just as the first war-cries echo 10h40 - Grade 12 Design All day through Grahamstown. Our supporters emerged from the first game of practical exam to 18h00 the season wet and hoarse, but, especially, happy. 18h00 - Astronomer’s Club

Tuesday 19 March There can be no doubt that our town faces some serious challenges (as 17h15 - Grade 10 Leadership Forum it no doubt has many times in its long history), but in a world that is ever 18h45 - Copernican Society a more complex space in the lives of young adolescents journeying to adulthood, there are distinct advantages to an education away from Wednesday 20 March urban pressures in the relative tranquility of a small education-centric Swimming - SA Junior Nationals to town. It keeps us honest, it keeps us humble, and as we experience the 24/3 (Durban) ups and downs of real life, it keeps us grateful for our abundant blessings. 12h00 - Grade 11 and 12 KKNK tour to 24/3 13h00 - CE Committee Meeting There really is no town like Grahamstown - its ‘makhanda’ town! 14h00 - Hockey, various teams vs Kingswood

Thursday 21 March Human Rights Day Football - Wynberg Boys Winter Sports Festival to 25/3 Hockey U14 ISHF (Bishops) God Bless Rugby: Grey Rugby Festival

Visit: https://my.sacschool.com for Alan Thompson full calendar [email protected]

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COLLEGE LIFE

College staff honoured

On Monday 11th of March, a small garden tucked behind Espin House was named honouring College’s grounds, gardens and maintenance staff. Particular mention is made of Phindile Jackson Manzi, who like so many others did and still do, rise early to prepare fields and stay late to pack up and tidy up and prepare for the next event. We live on a beautiful campus, with outstanding facilities that exist because of the hard work of many who go largely unseen. Some of us were lucky enough to be friends with Jackson Manzi, and are delighted that his dedication and commitment to the school we love has been honoured in this manner as a representative of much larger group of people.

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Transylvanian Youth Summit

St Andrew’s College will be represented by three boys at the very first Transylvanian Youth Summit to be held at Transylvania College in Cluj-Napoca from 18-22 March. They will also enjoy a cultural tour of Romania. Matthew Thompson, Philip Beynon and Olwethu Pule will join a group of ten schools from four continents to debate three globally relevant topics: The Rise of Extreme Nationalism, The Right to Education and Education for Diversity. Transylvania College is a member of the G20, an informal coalition of schools from around the globe initiated by past St Andrew’s College Headmaster, David Wylde.

Craig Cuyler

Blood Drive

The South African National Blood Service collected 65 units of blood from St Andrew’s College and Diocesan School for Girls pupils and staff in February.

The winning St Andrew’s house which donated the most units of blood was Espin House, followed by Mullins House and Upper House tied for second, Armstrong House took third and Merriman House and Graham House shared fourth.

Hamper draw:

The winner of the hamper was Nicholas Rogan.

Thea Steele

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ACADEMIC Grade 8 & 9 Design exhibition The Grade 8 and 9 Design students displayed their work completed during the first term.

Grade 8 Clay Jewellery project and Two-Point Perspective City Scape Drawings.

Grade 9 Tiny House Architecture project and Perfume/Aftershave Bottle Computer Aided Design project with some 3D printed models.

Joha Dreyer Design & Technology

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Monitoring Shower Times Showering is one of the major areas of water consumption for an average person, and so to cut down on water usage, the shower is one place where small actions such as decreasing the amount of time you’re in the shower for, can make a huge difference on the amount of water used, and ultimately the amount of water wasted.

Upper House, has recently installed, eighteen shower timers, one into each shower cubicle in the house, to make it easier to keep a tab on the length of your shower. Even though the water does not completely switch off once the timer is finished, you definitely challenge yourself to ‘race against the clock’.

While it might seem like a very small change, the timers have definitely had an effect. Speaking from personal experience, I have definitely utilized them when I shower, and in turn, have saved a good amount of water, by simply reducing the amount of time I am in the shower for.

Matthew Schaefer Visit from Mr Bruce Collins As part of our Guest Speaker Series we were visited by Mr Bruce Collins (from St Alban’s College) on 11 and 12 February. His visit challenged the status quo and left us with plenty of food for thought. On the Monday he held workshops with Grade 9 and 10 boys on (among others) the masks they have to wear to fit into institutional culture. He confronted myths around masculinity. Mr Collins also held a very constructive workshop with both the St Andrew’s College and DSG staff during our Continuous Development session which reignited many important conversations. On Tuesday morning during Assembly he explored male privilege and challenged both our boys and staff to expect more from ourselves in all our interactions with others. Mr Collins is an English teacher at St Albans College where he heads up Maretha Potgieter Innovation in Teaching. He has also been an Action Research team leader for the Director of Transformation & IBSC for a number of years. Diversity www.sacschool.com St Andrew’s College Nec Aspera Terrent

CULTURAL

Women’s Day Celebration International Women’s Day took place on 8th March and Lisa Maqula, one of the 2019 prefects, decided to mark the day by organising a celebration assembly with the help of her prefect body. The original plan was to have a joint celebration with St Andrew’s College on the Lower Field, but the amazing rain put paid to this. Instead, the schools joined together in the Centenary Hall where the crowd was entertained with music by Nicole Ruwodo, a dance piece choreographed by Lisa Maqula and some slam poetry from Lisakhanya Kota (VGHS). The highlight however, was the address by Oyama Mzayidume and Jonathan Shamwana. It was a wonderful celebration of the power of women presented by the women of DSG.

Lisakhanya Kota (VGHS).

Dance Group

Jonathan Shamwana and Oyama Mzayidume

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Cooking Club Cheese-Stuffed Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Breasts 1. Heat oven to 350°F. In 8-inch skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add onion, mushrooms and thyme, cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender. Set aside. 2. Between pieces of plastic wrap or waxed paper, place each chicken breast, gently pound with flat side of meat mallet or rolling pin until about 1/4 inch thick. 3. In medium bowl, mix mushroom mixture and Gruyère cheese until well blended. Place heaping 1/4 cup mushroom mixture on center of each chicken breast. Roll chicken over filling, tucking ends to enclose filling, secure with toothpick, if necessary. Carefully wrap each chicken breast with 3 bacon slices. Place in ungreased 8-inch square (2-quart) baking dish. 4. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in the center. Nutrition Information:

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SPORT

Dear All

Rugby The start to the winter season has been characterised by some dramatic weather conditions in and around Grahamstown. Last week we experienced very hot temperatures with thunder storms mid-week and then it cooled down and the rain continued into the weekend. Whilst every effort had been made to ensure that rugby could be played on Saturday, including putting the cover over the pitch on Lower Field, there was an almighty thunderstorm around 07h30 on Saturday morning which saw a good part of Lower being flooded by storm water that could not be contained within the drainage system. Drastic action was necessary and a team of Grade 8 boys, along with the Ground Staff, set about raking up the debris and brushing water off the playing surface and, remarkably, rugby started on time and we had a full day of fixtures in cool but pleasant weather conditions. With another downpour on Monday evening, Grahamstown has had over 80mm of rain and the fields are already bouncing back from the desperately dry months that we have endured. Let’s hope that this rain will continue to the point that it resolves the water crisis for the town and the farmers going forward.

Nico Malan High School proved to be a more than suitable match-up early in the season and were very competitive in the junior ranks. There were certainly encouraging signs from our juniors as they competed well but went down at A team level, with the B teams generally performing very well. The senior teams that played all had good first outings and the 1st XV will be well-satisfied with the 47-12 win at this stage of the season. This weekend, Graeme College host their Annual Rugby Day with teams from

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around the converging on Somerset Field. The St Andrew’s College 1st XV will be taking on the visiting SACS High School from Cape Town at 13h50 on Saturday on Somerset Field. Our U16A side will play Pearson High School at 11h00 on Marais Field and the U14A’s will play Cambridge High School at 10h00, also on Marais.

Hockey Despite the inclement weather last weekend the 1st XI Hockey side got to play all their matches at the Tony Godding Festival hosted by Selborne College in East London. The boys found the going pretty tough but showed good improvement through the weekend. They will be hoping to improve some of the results when they play a number of these schools in the derby day environment later in the season. This weekend the U14A side head to East London to play in the Rob Taylor Festival also hosted by Selborne College. This will be the first occasion that the coaches will see these boys in match conditions so it will be a good learning environment for both the boys and their coaches.

Cricket What the weather did interfere with, was the regional final of the CSA T20 Cricket competition which was scheduled to be held on Saturday in East London. We were due to play the winners of the Border Kei region and . Their match was rained out on Friday and moved to Saturday. This too was rained out resulting in Hudson Park winning a sudden death “Bowl Out” and advancing to the final against

Cricket 1st XI players, Nicholas Barlow, Guy Rushmere, Ryan Ford, Liyama Dotwana and Nicholas Frances

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College on Sunday. College travelled to East London on Sunday knowing that the chances of playing a full game were slight, given that the cool, rainy conditions still prevailed. After the match was called off the teams moved to the Border Indoor Cricket Centre where they proceeded to lock horns in another “Bowl Off”. Described as “the most stressful thing that they had ever done” by some of the boys, the selected College bowlers managed to put one over their Hudson Park counterparts and they were able to celebrate the opportunity to progress to the National Coca Cola T20 Schools Tournament to be held in Pretoria at Tukkies this weekend. College will play three pool games before entering the play-offs. This high-profile tournament should provide the boys with a wonderful opportunity to get a taste of the big time and to express themselves in this format.

Road Running Last Wednesday we had a large number of boys run in the Makana Brick 8km Nite Race. The sweltering conditions experienced earlier in the day did moderate somewhat by 17h30 but things were still hot and sticky for the runners. This event has been a feature on the Grahamstown calendar for the past 20 odd years and serves as a fundraiser for needy causes.

Basketball The wet weather on Saturday meant that the Basketball matches scheduled for College, as part of the Eastern Cape Championships hosted by Kingswood College, had to be moved to Rhodes and Kingswood. The College 1st Team lost two of their matches very narrowly, whilst winning their third match very comfortably. Unfortunately this was not enough to get them through to the final stages. They will look back on the season and reflect on how they can build on the experiences of the past couple of months as they go into the third term.

Athletics Last week two of our U15 sprinters took part in the Eastern Cape Athletics Championships in the 100m event. After qualifying for the final, both having won their heats, Myles Boden and Ayomedeji Israel- Akimbo ran superbly to finish in 1st and 3rd positions www.sacschool.com St Andrew’s College Nec Aspera Terrent

respectively in the final, running very competitive times. This means that Myles has qualified to compete in the South African Junior Athletics Championships to be held in Port Elizabeth next week and we wish him all the best.

Soccer Our 1st Football Team will be taking part in the Victoria Park Soccer Challenge this weekend in Port Elizabeth. They are up against a number of Eastern Cape schools and this should prove to be a good test of where they are at this year, before heading off to the Wynberg BHS 2nds Festival in Cape Town next weekend. Play starts on Friday and the play-offs are on Sunday.

Water Polo There are a number of our boys, plus Mr Grant Mackenzie as coach, who have travelled up to Johannesburg to play in the SA Nationals for the Eastern Cape U18 Team. Matt Hillary, Ben Jevon, Josh Cowen, Matt Dovey and Richard Leach were all selected for the Eastern Cape Currie Cup team. We wish them well.

It is always a good day of rugby at the Graeme College Rugby Day, with large crowds gathering to get an early insight as to how teams will match up this year. This year 2nds U16A should be no different. If you are in Grahamstown, East London, Port Elizabeth or Johannesburg supporting your boys, I trust that you will have a wonderful sporting weekend. Kind regards

Pete Andrew Director of Sport U14A

1sts 3rds

www.sacschool.com Information Evening

Prospective parents are warmly Wednesday 20 March 2019 invited to attend anInformation Evening on our family of leading Mataligilo Farm, Mazabuka, Zambia independent boarding schools Thursday 21 March 2019 St Andrew’s College Latitude 15 degrees, 35F Leopards The Diocesan School for Girls Lane, Lusaka, Zambia St Andrew’s Preparatory School 18h00 situated in Grahamstown in the Children are encouraged to Eastern Cape. accompany their parents. For more information and toRSVP contact Cherié Wille +27 84 549 7710 | [email protected] A family of three boarding schools highly regarded for excellence in all spheres of education.

Information Evening

Prospective parents are warmly

invited to attend an Information Tuesday Evening on our family of leading 19 March 2019 independent boarding schools 18h00 St Andrew’s College Sea Cliff Hotel, 10 Toure The Diocesan School for Girls Drive, Msasani Peninsula St Andrew’s Preparatory School Dar Es Salaam situated in Grahamstown in the Children are encouraged to accompany their parents. Eastern Cape. For more information and to RSVP contact Cherié Wille +27 84 549 7710 | [email protected] A family of three boarding schools highly regarded for excellence in all spheres of education.