Back row: Sarah McDonald, Charlotte Williams, Holly Cadzow, Stephanie Lambie, Charlotte Boyce and Jamie Boyce. Front row: Renee Hodgkinson, Rose Tansley-Broad, Kimberley Martyn and Vienna Sutherland.

December 2008

It was great news to hear how very well our Years 9 and 10 Waterpolo Team did in the South Island Waterpolo Tournament for Years 9 and 10 teams held in Invercargill. The girls won every game they played and were placed 1st in the South Island, beating James Hargest 19-3 in the semi-final and Burnside High School 4-1 in the final. We congratulate all the girls in the team on a wonderful result.

Special congratulations to Stephanie Lambie who was selected as the Most Valuable Player for the whole Tournament (selected from all participants).

Thank you to Mrs N. Martyn for her unfailing support of the team as Manager and for the generous fundraising she undertook to help the girls get to Invercargill, and to everyone who bought the peonies we enjoyed seeing at the school entry each morning. We also acknowledge with appreciation Rene Theelen, Coach, and the assistance of Rhys Heatley.

	Laura Bridger, Year 8

December 2008

Laura Bridger was placed first in the Years 5 – 8 category of the University of Canterbury Rutherford Science Competition. She will receive a $500.00 cash prize. This is a fantastic effort considering the huge number of entries from all over New Zealand. Well done Laura!

	Laura Manson, Natasha Keillor and Erin Wilson. Photograph courtesy of the ODT.

November 2008

The success of three Year 13 girls in winning major Scholarships has been wonderful news this term. We congratulate Natasha Keillor, Laura Manson and Erin Wilson most warmly on their significant achievements. Natasha Keillor is the recipient of one of the 21 Russell McVeagh School Leavers Law Scholarships worth $7,000 and a University of Otago Leaders of Tomorrow Scholarship worth $2,000. Natasha who received the only Russell McVeagh Scholarship to be awarded south of Christchurch plans to study Law at Otago and also complete a Science degree. Five of the Russell McVeagh Scholarships were awarded to South Island students. Laura Manson won the Otago PricewaterhouseCoopers Aspire Scholarship worth $7,000 – one of 16 awarded nationally. Laura is studying Law and Commerce at Otago University next year. Erin Wilson won one of the five Kelliher Economics Foundation Awards (the sole recipient south of Christchurch) given nationally worth $12,000 and a Victoria School Leavers Scholarship worth $4,000 for academic excellence. Erin plans to study Economics at Victoria University next year.

	Paige Parslow-Boyd and Hazel Loughrey

November 2008

Congratulations to Paige Parslow-Boyd in Year 13 who was awarded 1st Place nationally in the category Photography at the finals presentation – an outstanding achievement.

Well done also to Hazel Loughrey in Year 12 who gained 2nd Place nationally in the category Communication Design – Book Cover.

"Oliver" was performed at the Mayfair Theatre on the 4th, 5th and 6th of September. Click here to see the image gallery.

What a great success "Oliver" was! We were delighted with the response and support from the school community and the general public, and very pleased that the students performed to virtually full houses at the Mayfair Theatre all three nights. Holding the musical at the Mayfair Theatre proved its worth - everyone enjoyed the authentic theatre experience, the orchestra liked performing in a proper pit and students helping front of house and backstage with lights, props, sound and make-up appreciated the opportunity to gain skills in a real theatre.

The performers deserve full credit. From the orchestra to the singing, dancing and acting wonderful teamwork was evident and some great talent as well.

Thank you so much to all the Columba students involved and also to the boys from John McGlashan College and Otago Boys' High School for a very impressive and most enjoyable musical. Well done!

A special acknowledgement also to Mr David Corballis (theatrical director), and to the following staff: Mr Richard Madden (musical director), Ms Teresa Andrew (design), Mrs Janiene Hill (choreography), Mrs Christina West (stage manager), Mrs Jan Paterson (production manager) and Mrs Pauline Dunbar (make-up).

Poster design by Alice Marsh, Year 12.

	Left to right: Yani Hung, Emma Hutton and Dr Julia Matheson. Photograph courtesy of the ODT.

September 2008

Julia, Emma and Yani leave this month to begin their studies at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Julia Matheson won a 2008 Rhodes Scholarship to study for a doctor of philosophy degree in medical oncology at Balliol College, Oxford University. Emma Hutton won the 2008 Girdlers’ Scholarship, regarded as the undergraduate equivalent of the Rhodes Scholarship, which will take her to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, to study music. Yani Hung was short-listed for an undergraduate place at Oxford University and was successful at interview, and will study medicine at Pembroke College.

We warmly wish the three of them all the very best for their studies in the UK.

Click here to see the Year 10 Deep Cove Camp Movie (mpg 40.8 MB).

	Anna Fields

August 2008

Anna Fields, Year 13 won a Gold Medal for Science in this year’s ICAS Science Competition.

This means that Anna gained the highest mark for Year 13 in New Zealand.

It is the second year in a row that Anna has won a Gold Medal for Science. Well done, Anna!

	Nanae Sato, Natasha Dwan and Asayo Takada. Photograph courtesy of the ODT.

June 2008

For the second year running a Chamber Group with Columba students has won the Otago Chamber Music Competition. This is a very significant achievement with fifty ensembles involving 167 students taking part.

The winning group was Trio Boulanger consisting of Asayo Takada, piano, and Nanae Sato, cello, from Columba College and Natasha Dwan, flute from Logan Park High School. They played a challenging modern piece, Trio for Flute, Violoncello and Piano Mvts. 1, 3 and 4 by American Composer, Ned Rorem.

The Dresden Trio with Annabel Drummond, violin, Anne-Sophie Shogimen, piano, from Columba College and Dominic Shogimen, cello, from Otago Boys’ High School was awarded the Adjudicator’s Award for an outstanding performance. The Dresden Trio performed Piano Trio No. 2 in F major Opus 80 3rd movement by Schumann.

The adjudicator, Kenneth Young, gave four Highly Commended Awards with two going to groups containing Columba students: Dwalliessapyuto Quartet (Nanae Sato, cello) and KhachaKorean Trio (Sophie Bang, piano).

It is noteworthy that Columba College students were in fourteen of the groups performing over the weekend of the 14th and 15th June at Marama Hall.

By John Lewis, Otago Daily Times - 21st June, 2008

	Eyes for Innovation ... Columba College pupils Amy Anderson, Lee White and Anna Fields hope their idea of using "Sun Spot" miniature computers to monitor and prevent the effects of high winds or earthquakes on buildings could one day be developed into reality. Photo: Jane Dawber - Otago Daily Times

There was no time for building Terminators at the Otago Secondary Schools Technology Innovation Challenge in Dunedin yesterday.

Year 13 pupils spent their 'time more productively, dreaming up applications for Sun Spots - miniature computers which can be used to control robots.

A team from Columba College won their category when they came up with the innovative concept of using Sun Spots to monitor the 'effects of high winds or earthquakes on high-rise buildings or bridges.

Lee White (17), Anna Fields I (17) and Amy Anderson (18) said they would use the Sun Spots to control robots which could provide support for areas of bridges or buildings which were losing their structural integrity in the event of high winds or earthquakes. The technology could also be used to send safety warnings about structurally unsound buildings which were in danger of collapsing.

The Idea was one of many creative innovations based around three topics at the University of Otago Information Science Department. Alongside Sun Spots, pupils also worked on applications for virtual world technology (three dimensional computer worlds in which buildings and friendships can be created) and developed their own online communities like Bebo and Facebook.

The most innovative ideas in each category were given computer-related awards.

Global Network Inter-connectivity Research Project manager Melanie Middlemiss said while the event was designed to foster links between secondary schools and the University of Otago's Information Science Department, it was also aimed at flexing pupils' minds and making them think outside the square.

Dr Middlemiss said it was the second time the event had been held at the university and, because last year's was so successful, it had been opened up to schools throughout the Otago region.

Results: Sun Spot Category:

Columba College (Lee White, Anna Fields and Amy Anderson); Online Community Category: Taieri College (Shane Elfield, Christina Sandford and Josiah Wood); Virtual World Category: Kings High School (Matthew Morris and Marc Gillan).

June 2008

Click here to view the China Trip photo gallery.

	Back row: Michaela Little, Gabrielle McFarlane, Laura Carruthers, Deborah Lambie, Rebecca Blanchette, Georgina Martin. Front row: Tiffany Robinson, Jessica Barton, Jana Leifeld, Rebecca Duff, Pippa Lucas.

April 2008

Congratulations to our wonderful Equestrian team on gaining 1st Place overall in this year’s event held on Saturday, 29th March and for bringing the trophy back to Columba College for the fourth consecutive year. The girls competed superbly in the dressage and show jumping events, and deserved their overall win.

In the team were: Laura Carruthers and Deborah Lambie (Co-Captains), Rebecca Blanchette, Pippa Lucas, Rebecca Duff, Georgina Martin, Jana Leifeld (German Exchange student), Gabrielle McFarlane, Jessica Barton, Michaela Little and Tiffany Robinson.

Special thanks go to Mrs Pauline Carruthers who has so capably managed the team in recent years, and to all the parents for their support and encouragement of their daughters’ involvement.

	Emma Hutton

Emma Hutton has been announced as the Girdlers’ Scholar for 2008 after a rigorous selection and interview process. Emma was one of seven students (all in Year 13 last year) short-listed for the final round of interviews in Wellington.

The Girdlers’ Scholarship is a highly prestigious award regarded as the undergraduate or high school equivalent of a Rhodes Scholarship. Only one is awarded annually to New Zealand.

As a Girdlers’ Scholar Emma will be fully funded to study for a three to four year undergraduate degree at Cambridge University. Emma plans to study Music at Cambridge and hopes to make a career in conducting, teaching music and performance.

The Girdlers’ Scholarship is administered by the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee and funded by the Girdlers’ Company, a British organisation, which has origins in livery, but now focuses on charitable causes and property ownership.

Emma is the 44th Girdlers’ Scholar from New Zealand and the first from Columba College. Her success is richly deserved and has been such a joy to hear about. We wish her all the very best for her studies at Cambridge University which will begin this September.

	Examples... Susan Stevely-Cole (left), founder and director of Bear Park Early Childhood Centres, and Miranda Caird (nee Stringer), founder and chief executive of Roost Ltd, and (inset) Amanda Ellis, lead gender specialist with the World Bank Gender Action Plan, the three women inducted into the inaugural Business Hall of Fame at Columba College. Photo: Linda Robertson - Otago Daily Times

A Business Hall of Fame has been inaugurated at Columba College, the only South Island school of eight throughout the country to introduce an annual Business Hall of Fame award.

The eight-school pilot programme is overseen by Enterprise New Zealand, and funded by Trade and Enterprise New Zealand.

The Columba Old Girls' Association hosted last night's launch in the school's main assembly hall.

The inaugural laureates were Miranda Caird, Amanda Ellis and Sue Stevely-Cole.

One to three a year will be inducted in the future.

Columba head of commerce Suzanne Bishop said the school wanted to raise awareness of the role of business in New Zealand and celebrate the success of former pupils, chosen for their exceptional contributions to community through enterprise, leadership and promotion of business.

Mrs Caird, who is Roost chief executive, founded the Mortgage Advantage Company after 15 years in retail banking, expanding it into the Mortgage Choice New Zealand franchise. She has won the 2001 Her Business, New Zealand Business Woman of the Year award.

Mortgage Choice was rebranded Roost, and expanded into insurance, before Mrs Caird sold the 32-franchise operation to AMP earlier this year.

Ms Ellis joined the New Zealand diplomatic service, and worked as an economist for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and United Nations, and in management of international aid programmes to Asian countries. In the private sector, she worked for Westpac women in business unit, including educational and mentoring programmes.

Ms Stevely-Cole, formerly a primary school teacher, founded the first Bear Park Childhood Centre in Auckland in 1986 and expanded it into a further four before designing a franchise for the centres.

She remains owner-operator of three of 10 centres around Auckland catering for 900 children and has become the New Zealand representative for Italian-based organisation Reggio Children, plus foundation Committee member of the Early Childhood Council.

by Simon Hartley - Otago Daily Times 15th November, 2007

Click here to read more about the Columba College Business Hall of Fame.

Directed by Janice Devereux

The play will be performed in the Caroline Freeman Theatre in Girton on Wednesday, 19th September and Thursday, 20th September at 7.30pm.

The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women, is a contemporary American courtroom drama in two Acts by feminist actress, director and playwright, Carolyn Gage. The main story of the play centres on the character of the supposed Grand Duchess of Russia, Anastasia, whose contemporary traitorous acquaintances are put on trial for concealing her identity.

During the Bolshevik Revolution, the family of Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra were killed at Ekaterinburg by a Bolshevik secret police firing squad. At the time it was widely believed that Anastasia somehow survived the execution and reappeared years later in Eastern Europe. Anastasia Manahan (usually known as Anna Anderson, c. 1900-84) claimed to be the Grand Duchess, Anastasia, and in 1938 she initiated a suit in the German courts to claim the Romanov inheritance.

The Anastasia Trials revolves around the conspiracy trial of the five Russian women who betrayed Anastasia by refusing to help establish her identity. The format is a play-within-a play, where a radical feminist theatre company is created to perform a courtroom drama. The play opens as members of the Emma Goldman Theatre Brigade are about to put into practice their innovative "lottery system" aimed at ensuring equal opportunity for all the actors. They each draw from a hat the role they will play for the evening's performance, an arrangement that puts the sisterhood to the test as some of the women secretly trade characters in order to get a better part.

Despite the seriousness of the important topic of victimization, The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women is often humorous. The Portland Phoenix newspaper (Boston, Massachusetts) describes it thus: "The play is simply a mirror of life itself; part comedy, part tragedy, part success, part failure, part righteousness, part discovery of new truths."

Tickets on sale in the School Office (03 467 5188).

Adults $8.00, Students $5.00, Family of four or five $20.00

Columba College has decided to go "green" with the purchase of some bright blue wheelie bins for the collection and recycling of its waste paper. Bins have been placed in each teaching block and the School Office for student and staff use, and are emptied each week for a collection by Envirowaste. It's about waste minimisation; reducing waste has several benefits: saves resources, increases the life of landfills, reduces waste costs, and eliminates air emissions from incinerators.

This initiative was started by Mr Adrian Cartwright, Head of the Visual Arts Department. "We don't actually throw out much paper from this Department, as each piece has the potential to have great Art made on it," was his response when asked why he started promoting more environmentally- friendly disposal of paper. "It's the photocopier's fault - it's too easy to duplicate something, and as teachers, we have a responsibility to lead by example: use the paper, but dispose of it responsibly...it doesn't have to end up as landfill when it can so easily be processed for recycling."

The initiative has received enthusiastic support from the whole school community, and a mufti day will be held before the end of Term II to raise money to cover the cost of the bins.

Students are encouraged to make use of the bins, but are advised to make sure they have completed that test BEFORE disposing of those revision notes! Most teachers will have a separate bin or container in their classroom especially for paper, which will be emptied into the blue bins during the week. Please ask the teachers. (And if they haven't, then why not?!) Come the end of the year, and the Great Locker Clear Out, Mr Cartwright is expecting students and staff to be in the habit of disposing of their paper responsibly, and for the bins to be overflowing - let's hope so!

The Dunedin City Council website has further information on its recycling programme and the environmentally responsible disposal of waste. See http://www.cityofdunedin.com/city/?page=Rubbish,Recycling

Adrian Cartwright
HOD Visual Arts

By Karen Arnold and Leigh Van Der Stoep - Sunday Star Times - Sunday, 22 July 2007

	Handy Hints: Young Dunedin authors, left to right, Melanie Hey, Rachel Turner, Natasha Sharp, Karolina Wojtowicz and Abigail Grover. Photograph: Martin Hunter/Sunday Star-Times

	10 top hints 1. To stop a nose-bleed, tie a rubber band around the top joint of your index finger on the same side of your body as the bleed. 2. To easily clean up a spilled egg, sprinkle salt on the spill and leave for 10 minutes. It will become firm and easy to remove 3. For icy outdoor steps in freezing temperatures, add dishwashing liquid to warn water. Pour over the steps and they will not refreeze 4. If you burn your tongue, place sugar on the spot and let it dissolve, or try applying toothpaste to the burn 5. If you get a paper cut, apply chapstick or a thin layer of glue 6. To sharpen scissors, cut through several layers of aluminium foil or rub on the edge of a glass bottle or jar 7. To remove annoying clothing lint, add half a cup of vinegar to the laundry in the rinse cycle 8. Remove stains from wallpaper by rubbing stale bread over them. Otherwise a pencil eraser works well 9. To unscrew a broken light bulb without injuring yourself, turn the light off at the wall, cut a raw potato in half and gently press the sliced side into the broken bulb. The bulb can then be easily unscrewed. 10. To refresh stale bread, brush it all over with milk and bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes. It will be crispy and delicious.

Everyone hates a paper cut. Just as annoying can be shrinking your favourite jumper or spilling raw egg on the kitchen floor.

Now, thanks to a group of entrepreneurial Dunedin students, there is a book providing handy - and sometimes surprising - homegrown solutions to life's little irritations.

To relieve a throbbing paper cut simply apply a thin layer of chapstick or glue, advises student Natasha Sharp.

Salt on spilled egg hardens it, making it easy to remove. And just five easy steps should leave that jumper looking good as new, almost.

Pinnacle Productions - a dozen Columba College Year 13 girls and their teacher -tomorrow will launch The Complete Book of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know But Were Too Afraid to Ask.

"Basically it is a collection of hints from older generations about things that today's students lack the knowledge of. It includes instructions on everything from sewing a hem to fixing a fuse," Sharp said.

The girls got the idea when they arrived at boarding school and found they had to solve household dilemmas without their parents' help.

"There are lots of things that people did not know what or how to do," Sharp said.

The book includes more than 300 handy household hints and recipes the girls collected, "mostly from grandparents, parents and some we just googled".

Sharp's group hopes the book will become a New Zealand domestic must-have - earning a place on the shelf next to the Edmonds cook book.

The 80-page book is divided into topics including cleaning and household, health and beauty, and car and DIY. It will be sold for about $19.95.

It has already won recognition at the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise awards, a national competition for high school students.

And the girls hope to represent Otago in the awards' finals in September.

	Dr Cree showing Katie Whitefield how to handle a tuatara.

	Ava Atkinson-Barclay holding an Otago skink.

The Year 10 Science Club was privileged to have the opportunity to visit the University of Otago's Zoology Department and meet Dr Alison Cree, a leading scientific researcher on reptile reproduction. The students learnt about New Zealand's unique reptiles and the reproductive strategies utilised by them to survive in our diverse environment. The girls also got to handle endangered reptiles such as the tuatara, Otago skink and Otago gecko. This was a very special experience as some of these species are not found on the mainland and cannot be viewed by the average person! They also had the chance to take the temperatures of these reptiles using state-of-the-art technology - an infra red thermometer. The girls really enjoyed the experience.

Praneeta Sharma - Science Club Co-ordinator