A Silver Sabre for the Newington Fencing Team

On 2 August 2014 the Newington Fencing Team ‘lunged’ and ‘parried’ to a second place at the National Schools Fencing championships at Yeronga State High School in Brisbane.

Captain Alex Mei (12/ME), Jayce Carrano (12/MA), Adam Chew (11/MO) and Felix Shannon (11/PR) were placed second overall after suffering their only loss to Sydney Grammar in a fiercely contested first round, and then went on to defeat Brisbane State High School B, Brisbane State High School A and Brisbane Grammar School respectively in the later rounds.

Coach Simon Jin was pleased with not only the results but also the attitude, conduct and spirit of our men in black and white. A big congratulations to all the boys on these great achievements!

Below is an email sent by Mr Edward Summers, Sports Administrator of the PDHPE Department. Ed accompanied the Fencing boys and their coach to Queensland for the championships and gave a rave review of the Fencing boys’ performance on every level during the tournament.

Subject: Australian Fencing Schools Championships

Hello all,

Currently sitting on the plane back from Brisbane with the Newington Fencing Team. While my experience with Fencing is limited to posting on SPACES– it was a pleasure spending the weekend supporting coach Simon Jin and the boys through the Championships. The boys finished second overall which is an incredible result in a National Competition.

Coach Simon Jin is a hard task master – but the boys are competing at a very high level and deal with the pressure of the situation well. Captain Alex Mei is a standout in the team with his leadership and high skill level. He is supported by Adam Chew and Jayce Carrano – who also Fence at a very high level and are not phased by competing on the national stage. A special mention should be made of the fourth member of the team Felix Shannon who is responsible for the equipment of the team. He was only given a very small role in the actual fencing part of the competition, but said “whatever works for the team, I am happy with” – an admirable attitude.

The boys were complimented by staff at their accommodation for how well they represented the school, as well as tournament organisers and referees for how well they conducted themselves over the weekend.

Apologies for the hastily thrown together email – I will provide a more detailed report when I get back into the office.

Regards,
Edward Summers

Masterclass with Dr Mike Fansler

Our program of visiting conductors continued last week as the Symphonic Winds welcomed Dr Mike Fansler to rehearse with them. Dr Mike Fansler is one of America’s leading band educators and is the Director of Bands at the University of Western Illinois. He is also a member of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association – an invitation only group of the world’s best conductors and composers.

Dr Fansler’s visit builds upon the work of other visiting Professors this year including – Dr Tim Reynish (Royal Northern College of Music), Dr Stephen Peterson (Ithaca College) and Dr Steven Capaldo (University of Wollongong). The boys are very fortunate to have access to these international artists and both staff and students benefit from the expertise shared during rehearsals. Dr Fansler conducted a staple of the band repertoire this morning – Dedicatory Overture by Clifton Williams. He particularly focussed on phrasing and developing a clear transparent sound. I was very impressed with the boys concentration and willingness to implement Dr Fansler’s strategies immediately.

Dr Luke Gilmour
Director of Bands

Two Views of the Ovals Become One

Sometimes in Archives work, answering an enquiry enables us to make previously unknown connections between materials in our Archives collection.

Recently the heritage planner who works with the College’s architects asked me for information and photographs relating to the early history of our three ovals. One photograph that I could identify quickly — because I catalogued and digitised it last year — is a view from the Founders Building tower showing a rugby match in progress on what is now the Buchanan Oval. The image is undated but appears to be from some time before the First World War.

Searching through some uncatalogued photographic prints in the hope of finding more archival images for this enquiry, I came across a similar view of what is now the Old Boys Oval. This, and the prints’ identical size and format, suggested that they were related. Pencilled annotations on the back of both prints confirmed this. It seems almost certain that the two photographs were taken at the same time.

Placed side by side, these images provide an almost-panoramic view of the eastern side of the College grounds, and of the suburbs beyond, at this period.

Mr David Roberts
College Archivist

City2Surf 2014

No doubt, it has been an awesome last couple of months for those who ran in the City2Surf on Sunday…

A huge congratulations to everyone who completed the gruelling 14 km track. Out of the Newington team, David Charlton (9/MA) was placed 473, Nicholas Bertino (11/FL) came in at number 1,621 and John Triantafilis (7/MA) at 2,207. These top three runners placed us 8th in the Athletic Team Club Category with Newington being the largest Athletics Team entered by far! What an amazing result to achieve knowing that there were over 85,000 entrants in the race this year.

This year our community got behind the Humpty Dumpty foundation with a special City2Surf breakfast guest starring Ex-Wallaby player and Old Newingtonian Phil Kearns. Despite the early morning rain, there was a great turnout of over a 100 runners who received their official Newington College bibs. A special thanks goes to the 121 registered boys who raised in excess of $20,500 for Humpty Dumpty.

Congratulations and see you at the starting line next year!

Sustainability Committee Update

Over the past four years, the Sustainability Committee has grown from just three Year 9 students to over fifty active members across all year groups. The uniting feature among this diverse range of students is a passion for improving the world around us, with a belief that change is possible with the right amount of determination and motivation.

As the inaugural Captain of Sustainability, I’d like to take this opportunity to inform the Newington Community on the current state of the Committee, as well as reflect on the successes of the committee over the past four years.

The central philosophy of the committee is focused on student-led initiatives, with a belief in the development of skills that will be carried off the campus and into the broader community after graduation. Therefore, we seek to instil students with the abilities they would normally be able to develop through leadership opportunities similar to those the school offers to senior students, except the committee is original in the way that it offers these opportunities to all students.

After three years of steady growth from 2011 to 2013, the committee took a big step at the start of the year in becoming a formal co-curricular activity at Newington. With this came the development of a senior leadership team composed of Year 11 and 12 students – the Executive Committee. This team, combined with Ms Randell and myself has overseen huge successes throughout the year, as well as the consolidation of our previous efforts.

It’s natural for one to think that a small group of students at a huge school at Newington wouldn’t be able to do much – but this is far from the truth. We’ve seen the installation of solar panels, water refill stations and recycling bins on College grounds. These changes will have drastic implications for the school’s carbon footprint and energy expenditure in the future, as well as decreasing plastic waste and encouraging recycling practices at school and home.

The committee has also been successful in establishing itself within the Newington calendar, through two key events. Firstly, the committee established Clean-Up Australia Day at the school, with 150 to 200 students participating every year. Motivated students have taken to the street on the first Sunday of every March over the past four years to clean the streets around Stanmore, as part of a national effort to keep Australia beautiful. We’ve also established a name for ourselves at Back to Newington Day, running a successful stall last year. We will build upon this success and run another stall this year, focusing on educating the Newington community on sustainable practices at home. We have also expanded into the digital community, with a Spaces page and a blog, enabling students to have their say on issues that are important to them.

A recent highlight within the committee was at the end of Term 2, whereby myself, Keegan Roberts (12 ME), Roger Li (9 FL) and Ashan Karunagaran (11 KL) along with Ms. Randell were able to take a day-trip to Taronga Zoo to see Dr. Jane Goodall speak. We spent the morning in groups with staff and students from many other schools, whereby we engaged with various activities aimed at developing sustainability programs around the school. In the afternoon we attended a speech by Dr. Goodall, who encouraged students of all ages to be more conscious about their activities, as to root-out the ignorance that leads to unsustainable practices in adult life.

Naturally, we could not have achieved any of this without the wise guidance provided by Ms Randell, who leaves us this year to become Head of English at Macquarie Anglican Grammar School in Dubbo. Needless to say, without her support the Committee would have never got off the ground and grown to the extent is has. Her ability to instil a need for action on matters that everyone needs to be more actively engaged in has led to many successes for the Committee, on and off school grounds. Everyone in the committee wishes her the best of luck for the future.

Overall, despite our Year 12 leaders and Ms Randell leaving, we all have faith in the knowledge that the Committee will continue to grow and be successful in the future, under the leadership and guidance of 2015’s Captain (who will be announced next week), the newly installed Executive Committee and Mr Parkin.

Finally, I’d like to encourage anyone – staff, student or parent – who’s interested in making long-lasting and effective change within the school or broader community to get into contact with the committee, by sending an email to sustainability@newington.nsw.edu.au.

Connor McNamara (12/MO)
Captain of the Sustainability Committee

Sport Report

Cross Country

Three Newington Cross Country runners placed second at the NSW Cross Country Championships held in July at Eastern Creek, qualifying them for the National Championships

Callum Lowe-Griffiths (10/PR) –  U15
Matthew Dyster (8/FL) – U13
Angus Beer (7/ME) – U12
Bili Robertson (4/CO) – who is in year 4 at Wyvern came 3rd.

Snowsports

Victor Magiros (11/ME) featured in the amazing picture above, came 5th at Perisher at the Burton Australian Junior Series Snowboard Halfpipe Competition.

Victor has been training at Perisher all season with the Winter Sports Club and also trains with his Sister Stephanie Magiros who recently returned from the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics where she competed in Snowboard Halfpipe and made it through into the semi-finals.

Summer Sport Choices

All boys should have selected a summer sport for Season 2014/15. Any boy who has not selected a sport needs to email Mr Dickens as a matter of priority and advise him of his choice. Those boys carrying injuries from Winter Sport that may prevent them from doing Summer sport or a part of it in Term 4 are also to contact Mr Dickens.

Summer Sport will commence first week back in Term 4. Training schedules will be placed on the appropriate SPACES page shortly.

HSC and IB Boys shine at And Finally …

The connotations of ‘And Finally’ are many. Everyone in close proximity to an HSC Body of Work will utter these words at some point. Students can rightly say “…and finally people can see what I have done”. Parents can secretly breathe a sigh of relief “…and finally there are no more late nights and trips to find obscure materials”! For teachers “and finally” means an extra push to the end, the finishing touches complete.

But ultimately “and finally” is for the audience. It is you, who completes the artmaking process: your responses and engagement with the artworks reveal their relevance and significance in the world.

 Art communicates beyond explanation and words. An HSC Body of Work is more than an exam, it is a different enterprise altogether. The artworks on display are about these students and their ideas, and what it is they want the world to know.

from catalogue notes, And Finally …

The biggest crowd Concordia Gallery has seen, with over 300 guests, attended the Opening Night event of And Finally … an exhibition of Year 12 IB and HSC Visual Arts and Industrial Design works. Dr Kerry Thomas, Associate Professor of the School of Education at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales said she was overwhelmed and shocked by the quality of work on display. With over thirty years experience in schools and at the Board of Studies, Dr Thomas was particularly impressed with the complex messages and meaning each work across all four exhibition rooms conveyed.

Artist and lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney Todd McMillan opened the exhibition and observed that the quality on display at And Finally … was on par with professionals.

I thank all staff who were involved in helping each boy develop his works, and urge those who have not come and seen the exhibition to make sure they do before the closing day on Saturday 30 August.

Ms Hannah Chapman
Concordia Gallery Curator

Legacy Junior Public Speaking Awards

Recently we were lucky enough to compete in the local final of the Legacy Junior Public Speaking Award, a national competition for 12 to 14 year olds. This was a great opportunity for us to gain experience, develop our skills and gain confidence in speaking to large audiences.

We had to deliver two speeches. The first was a five minute prepared speech. Kieran challenged the media stereotypes of the Australian forces and Alexander discussed the importance of taking in perspective to prevent us from making quick judgments. The second part of the competition was an impromptu speech in which we had five minutes to prepare a two minute speech on the topic of “Off limits.” Kieran talked about things that should be off limits online and Alexander discussed how many things we consider off limits were practiced in history under terrible dictatorships.

As well as developing our public speaking skills it was also a great opportunity to meet with a lot of boys and girls from many other schools.

Overall, we felt like that we both had a really good experience and we encourage other boys to take part in these sorts of competitions in the future. We would both like to thank Mr Del Villar for helping us prepare and practice our speeches.

Kieran Corcoran (7/FL) and Alexander Humphreys (8/JN)

Money, Morality and Motivation

So “money makes the world go round” they say! Money certainly is a nice thing to have, if you can get it. Comfortable house, reliable car, and the ability to afford an education, holidays, and nice food – but what is it that motivates us to make changes in society, or in the world at large – changes that enhance our lives, that enhance our safety, our rights, our relationships within our families and in life generally?

Just the other day, in traffic, I was listening to ABC Radio and dear Richard Glover was interviewing some Government Minister (sorry I missed his name) about the new funding that is going to be available to couples prior to their marriage. Glover pursued the Minister “but surely this isn’t the job of government? Why are you offering money for couples to have pre-marriage counselling?”

I was staggered to hear the answer – it went something like this, “well investment now is investment in the future. This will help to guarantee that marriages will last longer and there will be less break-ups. This will ultimately save us money. The cost of relationship break-ups is huge and so we will end up saving money through this new policy.” Are you kidding me? At that point I needed to remind myself that I was driving and in heavy traffic – but really??

Now don’t get me wrong, I think it is imperative for couples who are about to make the ultimate commitment, to seek out good marriage preparation, but what about the human cost of broken relationships – the kids that suffer so much, and the adults? Often there is a terrible emotional and psychological cost. The implication here is that if break-ups didn’t cost us so much money there would be no need to offer the money for the courses. One has to ask what is it that is motivating policy making these days, just financial factors? For example are we jettisoning people as quickly as possible from hospitals to save money, instead of saving lives?

Globally does the free world consider intervention in Northern Iraq to stand against the evil religious fanatics because ultimately it will save the world money and protect oil supplies and therefore keep prices down? Surely to goodness there are other motivating factors in doing things to bring about change? What about the intrinsic value of human life, the intrinsic worth of protecting innocent lives from crazed and evil gunmen.

Morality must never be determined by money. Morality is about doing what is right and loving and just. We need to remind our politicians of these things. Let me conclude with this

“For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows.” (1Timothy6:10)

Rev David N. Williams
College Chaplin

Courage on a Local Scale

“The quality of mind and spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger or pain without fear.”

This is the dictionary definition of courage and the word courage is often used alongside ‘fortitude’ and ‘resilience’.

In a recent school assembly I spoke of courage and aimed to define it and apply it. For many students, courage can be a distant concept reserved for heroes in movies or gallant soldiers of old that gave their lives for others. We read about the odd act of bravery in the newspaper or watch it on the news but does it really matter to us?

I mentioned Nelson Mandela at the assembly as someone that showed great courage. He epitomised courage, fortitude and resilience. In his augural speech after 27 years of incarceration he said, “…we are born to maintain the glory of what is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.” I am sure he is speaking of courage. It is within us all and by showing it, we allow others to do the same.

Is this possible in a school? I firmly believe it is. If we are to produce young men with good character, then courage must be highlighted and praised on a local scale.

Some examples of courage at school are:

1. Speaking up when you know something is wrong. Do not sit on your hands. Do not watch bad things happen and stay quiet about it even if you know they are wrong. Evil prevails when good people do nothing.
2. Courage is being honest and genuine with your efforts. Doing your best takes courage. It reveals our true ability at a point in time and we may feel that this falls short of our peers in some cases. It exposes our weaknesses and we have to face up to what improvement is required.
3. Courage is being able to stand up for someone who is being bullied. Bullying is not rife at Newington but it does exist. Stop what is happening and if you can’t, ask someone who can. This courage will be greatly received by the victim and may change their whole sense of wellbeing.
4. Courage is also showing support for your school in competition, even if players or teams may not be performing well. To be a fair-weathered supporter and only support your school when winning, would not be helpful for our school on many levels.
5. Having courage is part of good character and at Newington College we are keen to promote this quality and include many other qualities that go to make up good character. We will be honouring up to five students in every year group at Speech Night that have shown good ‘character in action.’ They will receive a ‘College Merit Award’ which includes courage, service, effort and resilience.

There are many at Newington College that already show good courage. We must allow them to shine and by doing so, allow others to follow their example. By acting locally at our school, our boys will be better prepared for what they will inevitably face later in their lives.

 Mr Robert Meakin
Deputy Head of Stanmore (Students)

From the Head of Languages

Language Perfect World Championships

In Term Two, Year 7 and 8 Language classes were entered into the Language Perfect World Championships (300 000 competitors worldwide). Language Perfect is an online educational application that promotes the learning of many different languages. It offers a fun alternative in learning vocabulary and grammar. The application assists students in deepening their knowledge of the language they are studying and other languages in which they may have an interest.

Newington’s overall performance in the competition was outstanding:

• 39th overall globally out of 1152 schools (67th out of 1054 in 2013)
• 25th in Australia
• 8th in New South Wales (15th in 2013)
• 28th in the world in French
• 11th in the world in Greek
• 6th in the world in Maori

In total, the College received over 140 awards!

Credit – 73 awards Bronze – 42 awards

Silver (top 5 percent in the world) – 8 awards (4 in 2013)

• Clancy Barrett (7/JN)
• Ben Leung (7/KL)
• Rory Olsson (7/ME)
• Charlie Timpson (7/JN)
• James Triantafilis (7/MA)
• Jack Walker (7/KL)
• Andrew Xie (7/PR)

Gold – (top 2 percent in the world) 19 awards (6 in 2013)

• Angus Beer (7/ME)
• Myles Burke (7/KL)
• Sam Burkitt (7/FL)
• Joshua Cappello (7/LE)
• Nicholas Condon (7/FL)
• Mark Elwaw (7/JN)
• William Hobbins (7/MA)
• Finn Hoegh-Guldberg (7/MO)
• Joshua Hovilai (7/JN)
• Neil Khatri (7/PR)
• Jonathan Lee (7/FL)
• Nicholas Malakonakis (7/ME)
• Perry May (7/MO)
• Thomas Newham (7/MA)
• Miles Parhash (7/MA)
• Samuel Perivolaris (7/MO)
• Harry Rowland (7/FL)
• Christopher Spiropoulos (7/ME)
• Ricky Zheng (7/MO)

Special mention to Joshua Hovilai (7/JN) (5900 points) and Nicholas Condon (7/FL) (5693 points) who were the highest achievers in the competition. Both boys won Penny Skateboards for their efforts.

Perry May (7/MO) was also a lucky winner in the Language Perfect draw and received an iPod mini. Congratulations!!

Languages Poetry Evening

The Languages Poetry Finals Evening was held on Thursday 31 July in a number of venues around the school. It gave boys the opportunity to showcase their talent by reciting poetry in Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Spanish, and for the first time, Modern Greek. The students who achieved first place in each category were presented with an iTunes gift card on the evening.

Special mention should be given to Jack Alscher (8/FL) and Jack Crawford (9/KL) who were placed first in both French and Latin, an amazing achievement.

The same boys were presented at assembly on Wednesday August 13, with four students reciting their winning poems. The calibre of this year’s finalists was extraordinary and I would like to thank the Language Staff and parents for their support in this competition.

The aim of  learning a poem provides boys with a challenge, an extension task that takes them often into unfamiliar territory, but at the same time provides students with a real sense of achievement.

The winners of the 2014 Languages Poetry Competition are:

Year 7

• Chinese – Harry Janson (7/PR)
• French – Sam Boland (7/LE)
• Latin – Jonathan Lee (7/FL)

Year 8

• Chinese –  Jacob Lawler (8/ME)
• French – Jack Alscher (8/FL)
• Latin – Jack Alscher (8/FL)

Year 9

• French – Jack Crawford (9/KL)
• Japanese – Mitchell Loveridge (9/MA)
• Latin Jack – Crawford (9/KL)

Year 10

• French – Jeremi Campese (10/MA)
• Japanese – Liam Kelly (10/PR)
• Latin Eric – Sheng (10/ME)

Year 11

• French – Jean-Luc Gallo (11/MO)
• Italian – Fergus McKenna (11/JN)
• Japanese – Sean Park (11/ME)
• Latin – Saahil Parekh (11/MO)
• Modern Greek – James Gatsos (11/ME)
• Spanish – Daniel Evans (11/MA)

Mr Michael Bennett
Head of Languages

New Woodwork Display for Technology Centre

Throughout the cold winter months, two students have been dedicating their own time and efforts to help further fellow Newingtonian’s knowledge of Woodwork. With a clear educational brief set by Dr Mulford, these students have been working hard to design and manufacture an interesting, artistic and educational timber display to help develop students understanding and awareness of the materials around them.

The initial concept was developed around a similar display seen by Dr Mulford on a recent visit to The King’s  School Auckland. I would like to thank Pierce McConnell (12/MA) and James Lloyd (12/FL) for their continued efforts with this project, as they have dedicated their time to help develop a wonderful teaching resource and a focal point to the entrance of the magnificent Technology wing, whilst also working on their own Major works.

Year 12 Woodwork Showcase

Coinciding with the latest Concordia Gallery exhibition And Finally … Year 12 Woodwork boys also had the opportunity to showcase their major works in a professional gallery space. Unfortunately, due to HSC marking restrictions, these works were only shown for one night only and have now been packed away ready for marking. But you can still see the works and their smiling craftsmen. Enjoy!

Mr James Norman
Design and Technology Teacher

Back to Newington Day – 30 August 2014

Each year we gather on this day to celebrate what it means to have a united community, working together for the boys. It is an open invitation event – everyone is welcome back to Newington. Visitors on the day will include Old Boys, the Mothers of Old Newingtonians (MOONS), our GPS opposing teams— and their families (primarily The Scots College this year), our local Stanmore neighbours, prospective families and the public.

The important P&F initiatives culminate in the early morning construction of the stalls and activities which raise funds for co-curricular programs and equipment. Along side this, parents share their time, expertise, contacts and enthusiasm to make the day a success. We are very grateful to have such generosity of spirit from the very diverse group of volunteers, who build on previous years’ initiatives to make the day memorable and enjoyable.

Volunteer to help out on Back to Newington Day

Make sure you reserve Saturday 30 August, to be here in support of our community and to watch our Football, Rugby, Volleyball and Fencing boys play for the Black and White.

Everyone is welcome Back to Newington!