The House celebrated its first ‘National NZ Boarding Week’ from 14th – 18th September with a variety of activities.

Our week was designed around all the things boarding can offer, and it was a fun, engaging, educational and interesting week for all involved!

Monday was ‘Movie Night’ which kicked off after our juniors had the day off school and seniors had conferencing.

We were originally planning on having an outdoor cinema, but mother nature had other plans and the wind picked up.

So- we got to work in our Hostel dining hall and moved all the tables and chairs out, set up a projector and big screen using a white bed sheet, and watched ‘Mamamia 2’.

The girls chilled out on cushions, duvets and each other, and all enjoyed popcorn and half time hot chocolate.

The next day was ‘Transport Tuesday’ where one of our resident hostel helpers Mick Geary came in to teach skills everyone should know when it comes to cars.

We practiced finding and popping the hood on different car models, then checking the oil and water. We talked about flat batteries, jump starting a car-and of course how to change a flat tyre.
Everyone split up into groups and worked on different cars and it was great to see all the girls have a go.

Tip of the night particularly for our senior girls was - it is YOUR responsibility to check that the car you’re driving is safe and ready to go.

Wednesday we celebrated everything ‘Worldwide’, and showed off the cultural diversity in our house.

Our Thai internationals performed a traditional dance, Stella our Kiribati Island girl spoke about her family traditions and history- followed by another lovely dance.

Our Japanese and Korean girls presented powerpoint slides on their home country facts- and we tried our hand at learning some words & phrases.

The hardest being 'Anata no namae wa nan desu ka' = What's your name

We also heard a popular Hong Kong pop song and some trumpet talent from our Chinese girls.

To finish the night, we had an international food tasting game, which included;

1. Nin gou- Chinese New Year cake- Hong Kong

2. Pocky sticks- Japan

3. Tamarind lollies- Thailand

4. Jajangmyeon - Korea

5. Mochi- Japan

6. Chicharon- Philippines

7. Garuda garlic roasted peanuts snack- Indonesia

Girls were put into teams and had to guess flavours and where the food came from. There were lots of laughs and a few napkins filled with ‘treats’ that some did not like!

Thursday was of course a ‘Throwback’ to past times in the hostel, and we invited 3 'old girls' who boarded in the 60's and 70's to talk about their time in a panel style after dinner and dessert.

Lyn Geary, Janette Francis and Janine Quigley spoke fondly of memories they have surrounding the friendships they gained at the time, but also rekindled later in life- due to their time in The House.

Our current hostel girls asked questions such as;
‘Did you ever sneak out' and, ‘what were consequences for bad behavior’. There was a moment of realisation that unfortunately technology these days with cameras and alarms make it hard to sneak out!

It was extremely interesting to hear that in the past, there were strict bath times which were rostered each day. Girls were allocated 15 minutes to shower/change, and if your time slot was 330pm, that was it.

We also learnt there was no going home on the weekends, and town leave was only allowed once a week. Funnily enough this was a covid rule we had at Level 3!

Our week ended with Whanau Friday, where we enjoyed afternoon tea on the lawn during the crazy pickup time (315pm-4pm). We were thrilled to support one of our boarding mums who owns a coffee van, so she supplied fantastic barista coffee to our teachers during the day, and came back for our parents in the afternoon, who had a drive ahead of them.

The feedback from our year Head and Deputy of House was that NZ Boarding week was fantastic and we should definitely do it again, so watch this space as we return bigger and better in 2021.