Blogs • The President 2008
Open Drama, Squash and Band
Posted by Tom Kuperus on Saturday, August 9, 2008
/ 1 Comments
Following our three events last week the Nevill Cup situation has deteriorated significantly, and the Cameron Shield remains delicately balanced.
Monday night featured the Open Drama contest held at Union Hall where we performed a piece titled "Murder at Club Fishnet". The Selwyn camp felt well prepared thanks to the work of our three coaches Lucy Smith, Kiri Aikman and Lloyd Burr, and were confident of a victory after the Knoxies asked for the event to be postponed less than a week before the scheduled date.
Due to venue bookings this wasn't possible and we went ahead, with both the Selwyn and Knox peices performed to a noteably high standard. Unfortunately the judges saw the event differently to the Selwyn camp and Knox was announced the winners, leaving those of us organising the Nevill Cup campaign worried about our overall position half-way through the competition.
The squash competition was held on the 31st of July, our girls team was successful 3 games to 2, but unfortunately the boys lost 1 game to four. One of our Senior Residents (SR - the equivalent of an RA) Will Costelo was the sole male victor, it's great to see the SRs getting into our Cam and Nev events. Throughout this year we have been working alongside our Knox equivalents to amend the constitutions for both the Cup and Shield and one of the more challenging discussions we've had was over what eligibility constraints we should have on competitors. The status quo states any permanent resident of a College who is a full time student may participate. Both the Knox College Students' Club Executive, and our own Selwyn College Students' Association Committee agreed that it would be beneficial to elaborate on this rule to prevent significantly older members of either College dominating events in the future, so the focus remains on the undergraduate students. In saying that we are adamant that our SRs should still be able to compete as they contribute on a student level in many other areas of College life, and the only real difference to the majority of students is an extra level of responsibility. The difficulty with this is Knox don't have an equivalent position to our SRs, meaning they may suffer a competitive disadvantage if we excluded their older welfare staff. At this stage the eligibility debate is ongoing as both the Executive and Committee consider just what role SRs, Subwardens, Submasters, tutors, etc should have in future Cameron Shield and Nevill Cup events.
Our final event for last week was the Nevill Cup band competition held at ReFuel. Again the Knox effort was deemed to be marginally superior to our own, although members of both Colleges mutually agreed the standard was exceptionally high and could have easily gone either way.
The Selwyn band performed an impressive original song, written by lead singer Sam Wevers (above). Keep an eye on that name, he is a particularly talented musician. That result leaves us in a rather tough position overall in the cup at 10-50 in Knox's favour. With both Big and Small Choir (traditionally strong events for Knox), Dance and Shakespeare to come we will do very well indeed to defend the Cup from here!
On Tuesday we held our annual ex residents gathering at The Gardens Tavern. These nights are aimed at alumni still studying in Dunedin (referred to as exies) and are extremely popular, attracting several hundred people. It's reassuring to see a good turn out at events like this and ex residents supporting at our Selwyn/Knox events indicating there is still a lot of interest in the College from those remaining in Dunedin. The Committee is interested in organising other exie events so any suggestions on what could be successful would be welcomed!
Otago University Students' Association (OUSA) elections are coming up between the 11th and 14th of August and two ex residents are running for positions. Lloyd Burr is running for General Rep, and Ed Darlow for President. Both are exeptionally affable men who have, and will continue to contribute unselfishly to the College and I'm sure the Selwyn Community will be getting right behind their campaigns. I personally offer both candidates my full support and wish them the best of luck.
Keep an eye out for updates on the Volleyball, Cross Country, ANZAC concert and a wrap up of the 2008 Selwyn Ballet.
Tom
Monday night featured the Open Drama contest held at Union Hall where we performed a piece titled "Murder at Club Fishnet". The Selwyn camp felt well prepared thanks to the work of our three coaches Lucy Smith, Kiri Aikman and Lloyd Burr, and were confident of a victory after the Knoxies asked for the event to be postponed less than a week before the scheduled date.
Due to venue bookings this wasn't possible and we went ahead, with both the Selwyn and Knox peices performed to a noteably high standard. Unfortunately the judges saw the event differently to the Selwyn camp and Knox was announced the winners, leaving those of us organising the Nevill Cup campaign worried about our overall position half-way through the competition.
The squash competition was held on the 31st of July, our girls team was successful 3 games to 2, but unfortunately the boys lost 1 game to four. One of our Senior Residents (SR - the equivalent of an RA) Will Costelo was the sole male victor, it's great to see the SRs getting into our Cam and Nev events. Throughout this year we have been working alongside our Knox equivalents to amend the constitutions for both the Cup and Shield and one of the more challenging discussions we've had was over what eligibility constraints we should have on competitors. The status quo states any permanent resident of a College who is a full time student may participate. Both the Knox College Students' Club Executive, and our own Selwyn College Students' Association Committee agreed that it would be beneficial to elaborate on this rule to prevent significantly older members of either College dominating events in the future, so the focus remains on the undergraduate students. In saying that we are adamant that our SRs should still be able to compete as they contribute on a student level in many other areas of College life, and the only real difference to the majority of students is an extra level of responsibility. The difficulty with this is Knox don't have an equivalent position to our SRs, meaning they may suffer a competitive disadvantage if we excluded their older welfare staff. At this stage the eligibility debate is ongoing as both the Executive and Committee consider just what role SRs, Subwardens, Submasters, tutors, etc should have in future Cameron Shield and Nevill Cup events.
Our final event for last week was the Nevill Cup band competition held at ReFuel. Again the Knox effort was deemed to be marginally superior to our own, although members of both Colleges mutually agreed the standard was exceptionally high and could have easily gone either way.
The Selwyn band performed an impressive original song, written by lead singer Sam Wevers (above). Keep an eye on that name, he is a particularly talented musician. That result leaves us in a rather tough position overall in the cup at 10-50 in Knox's favour. With both Big and Small Choir (traditionally strong events for Knox), Dance and Shakespeare to come we will do very well indeed to defend the Cup from here!
On Tuesday we held our annual ex residents gathering at The Gardens Tavern. These nights are aimed at alumni still studying in Dunedin (referred to as exies) and are extremely popular, attracting several hundred people. It's reassuring to see a good turn out at events like this and ex residents supporting at our Selwyn/Knox events indicating there is still a lot of interest in the College from those remaining in Dunedin. The Committee is interested in organising other exie events so any suggestions on what could be successful would be welcomed!
Otago University Students' Association (OUSA) elections are coming up between the 11th and 14th of August and two ex residents are running for positions. Lloyd Burr is running for General Rep, and Ed Darlow for President. Both are exeptionally affable men who have, and will continue to contribute unselfishly to the College and I'm sure the Selwyn Community will be getting right behind their campaigns. I personally offer both candidates my full support and wish them the best of luck.
Keep an eye out for updates on the Volleyball, Cross Country, ANZAC concert and a wrap up of the 2008 Selwyn Ballet.
Tom
Labels: College Life, Sports and Cultural
Welcome!
Posted by Tom Kuperus on Monday, July 28, 2008
/ 0 Comments
Welcome to our new site, I hope to use this blog to keep you updated on student activities within and around the College, feel free to let me know of anything you would like to know more about, or if you have any specific questions I would be more than happy to answer to the best of my knowledge!
Just for a quick update on where we are with The Cameron Shield and Nevill Cup, we're currently 5 points ahead in the sporting competition, and trailing 10-30 in the cultural equivalent. We're about to enter a very busy period with Open Drama, Squash, Band, Volley Ball, Cross Country and Billiards scheduled to happen over the next two weeks. Additionally we have the ANZAC concert this coming Sunday and the College House exchange in just under three weeks!
I'll keep you up to date with as much of the College activities as possible so keep an eye out if you want to know what's been happening.
Tom
Labels: College Life, Sports and Cultural