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collections will carry on as usual. Please peruse
the weekly blog for specific reminders regarding
upcoming projects.
The Interact Committee members for
2015-2016 are extremely focused on making
outreach a beneficial part of College life and
aim to encourage as many students as possible
to get involved. This drive resulted in a record-
breaking 93 students attending our first Interact
meeting of the quarter, thus requiring us to
move our meetings to a bigger venue for the
rest of the year. With a team this strong we can
expect some great ideas being implemented.
We will kick start our year by taking the
learners on our Interact Camp at Wortelgat
from 19 – 21 February. This will be a platform
for the learners to share their community
outreach ideas as well as build friendships
with each other. Some of our major projects for
the rest of the year include the One-2-One fun
day for the mentally disabled, the Santa Shoe
box collections, our visits to the Fallen Angels
Animal Shelter, our annualn August Awareness
month and a few combined projects with
Blouberg Rotary (Our Interact Charter Club).
We hope to continue creating awareness for
those less privileged than us and to bless them
in our true Parklands spirit of generosity.
Shaun Oberholzer
We have had a fantastic start to the Summer
Quarter on the sporting front with learners
enthusiastically signing up for the various
sporting codes on offer. The College boasts a
wide range of summer sports such as Cricket,
Water Polo, Swimming, Tennis, Softball and
Cross Country. We are excited about the level
of commitment we have witnessed from the
start of the season, which bodes well for the
development and future achievements in Sport
here at the College.
Cricket
Laura Wolvaardt
has been part of the
SA u/19 women’s
cricket team for
many years. She
has also captained
the u/19 WP team to
victory. Last year she
was invited to play
for the South African
Ladies Senior Cricket
team. However,
this year she
has finally
been selected
by Cricket
South Africa
to become a
Protea player,
representing
South Africa at the highest level in an ODI
series against England. We are indeed very
proud of our super star.
All our teams have started the season off
well, but mention needs to be made of our u/15
Boys who beat Tableview by 9 wickets, with
Dumiso Maqeda taking 7 wickets for four runs.
The Cricketing Old Boys came back to school
and entertained us with two exciting matches
against the 1st XI and some of the school staff.
Chairman of the Board, Mr Barry Tilney, joined
in the festivities for lunch after he shared some
cricket stories with all of us. The Old Boys won
one match and the Parklands 1st XI won the
other. It was a most entertaining day.
Swimming
We are proudly building on our swimming
culture at the College. We started the season
with time trials to select our strongest swimmers
to represent Parklands at the inter-schools
galas. Our swimmers have excelled, with some
particularly good results from Luke Parker and
Luke and Lindi Cillie. We also had encouraging
swims from Olivia Bastick and Zander Venter.
We are delighted to have Jeffrey Crouse back in
the pool and look forward to more outstanding
performances from him. Parklands will be
hosting an Individual Gala in our pool on 4
February 2016 with 5 participating schools.
Water Polo
This is a growing sport with 107 learners
signing up this quarter. We had a very
successful clinic for the Ist team boys
and girls and many different drills and skills
were practised and acquired. We are all looking
forward to the Oakhill Chukka Festival in
Knysna where both our boys and girls teams
will be flying the Parklands College flag.
Softball
This great game is very popular amongst
the girls. Approximately 119 girls have signed
up which is the equivalent of 5 teams - all
competing in various leagues. The season
started on a high note with our first team
winning their opening game 8-3 against
Edgemead High and our second team were
narrowly defeated by The Settlers 12-11.
Softball is growing from strength to strength at
the College.
Tennis
A committed group of tennis players are
working hard towards making Parklands
College a strong tennis playing school. Both the
Boys’ and Girls’ first teams compete in the WP
Northern 1st league. With junior players like
Ryan Baines and Storm Elliott taking part in the
WP U15 trials, the future of tennis also looks
bright.
Cross Country
Our first trail run, the Spur Cape Summer
series, was held at Tygerberg Nature Reserve.
Ntando Brűmmer and Cayley Hefer - both
in Grade 8 - completed the 8km race in very
windy conditions. Well done to them for hitting
the ground running this year. The Big Bay
Parkrun was a great success with many of our
learners participating.
We invite all interested runners to join us on
our early morning runs along the boundaries of
the College.
Vision
Our vision for Sport at Parklands College is
to nurture and encourage the learners to realise
their passion and full potential by striving to
achieve their highest goals in their particular
sporting discipline. In this way we try to assist
and guide learners on their life long learning
journey, while upholding the Parklands College
values and ethos of good sportsmanship,
integrity and fair play.
Ian Melliar, Secondary Head of Sport
INTER-HOUSE SWIMMING GALA
On Friday 22 January we held our annual
Inter-House Gala. This was the first event this
year and the newly appointed House Captains
scrambled to get their swimmers organized and
their houses prepared for the war cries. And
what a job they did!
The war cries were original with interesting
new ideas related to their chosen theme for the
year. After much discussion, the judges felt
that Oxford had the best war cries for the day.
Harvard, Cambridge and Yale came second,
third and fourth respectively.
The swimming was superb on a perfect
summer’s afternoon with all four houses
gunning for top spot and 50 house points.
Whilst the seasoned swimmers showed their
form, there were some unexpected surprises
from some other learners who did their best
to upset the favourites. We hope to see them
participate as regular College squad swimmers
in the near future. The popular teachers’ race
was fiercely contested with Mr. Nock narrowly
taking first place. In the end, Cambridge House
was victorious in the races with some help from
the Cillie siblings. Harvard, Oxford and Yale
made up the minor places.
The gala was a brilliant introduction to
our Inter-House events for 2016. The spirit
displayed by the houses and the healthy rivalry
between the swimmers was heart warming.
I am convinced that this is the start of amazing
house events to follow.
T.
Pillay
sport