Tēnā koutou. Nau mai, haere mai; welcome to Term 4 at Cashmere High Library Te Whare Mātauranga. Our newsletter article this term is whakahari (to celebrate).

We’re very excited to celebrate our Cashmere High School Te Iringa O Kahukura Readers’ Cup Team for their incredible performance and subsequent 4th place in New Zealand at Nationals last term! Congratulations to: Lucy Phillips, Lucy M. Moore, Julia Walters, Vida Gerard, and Genavieve Graham (left to right).

We spent most of the Term 3 fundraising to help with flights and transfers, which, as you can probably imagine, were pretty expensive. The library staff and students organised: a bake sale, a Give-A-Little page, a fundraising pizza night and a craft/second hand book stall, and managed to raise all of the necessary funds. Amazing work for five year 9 students! Special thanks goes to Lucy Phillips as the creator of many of the earrings and scrunchies, as well as Lucy M. Moore for inviting her ASB SevenSharp Good As Gold award-winning grandmother (Lois) to knit childrens hats with donated wool. Further thanks to the Y12 team of supporters and trainers Josh Rayner, Maise Bowen, Ida Scott, Kate Cornfoot, Ruby Geddes (and others), all co-opted in to help on the journey.

The team travelled to Auckland for the National competition early on a Thursday morning, and arrived in time for some last-minute revision. We then got to squeeze into the dining hall (before the horde of 500 boys descended), and ate a hot lunch, boarding school style, with many book references made as we ate!

We were proud to represent Cashmere and the Aoraki region, and the competition was fierce, but fun. We were also lucky enough to have the author of one of the chosen books present (Tessa Duder CNZM OBE) which was very exciting for the students.

This is always a proud moment for the school, and we are very happy to continue providing reading and literacy support to our ākonga. A ‘hairy’ plane trip back (in which we all felt that the pilot’s warning of “a wee bit of turbulence” was a gross understatement!), signalled the end of a hugely successful and very fun day.

Term 4 sees our Y10 Battle of the Bibliophiles teams go up against 50+ other teams nationwide, in an attempt to hold onto our National Champion title from 2022! We’ll keep you posted …

Nāku, nā

Saskia Hill (CHS Library Manager)
Dylan Walker (Library Assistant)
Asher Jemison (Library Assistant)