Notes from Assembly Monday 17 February 2025

Associate Headmaster and Head Prefect

Welcome and nod to stand

Karakia

Zane Bradley

Reading

Fred Oppenhuis - 'a book excerpt by Bernie Siegel'

Headmaster's Address

Mr Glen Denham

School Waiata

Tama Tū

Speakers

Reilly Blennerhassett - Arts and Culture

Clubs Day

Clubs Day is happening this Friday the 14th! This is your chance to explore all the different clubs and activities available at school. Each club will have a stall with information about what they do, when they meet, and how you can get involved. If you're a Year 9 or a new student, this is the perfect opportunity to find out what interests you and sign up for the clubs you'd like to join.

Music Groups

A reminder, most music groups begin this week. 

For these groups, just come along to the rehearsal and make yourself known to the staff member to sign up

• The Black & Gold Collective - all comers choir. Rehearsals begin today at lunchtime in the Theatre. 

• Concert Band - Rehearsals begin next  Monday after school in the theatre. Come along this Wednesday to collect music and sign up. If you are interested in auditioning for the principal seats (section leaders) please prepare a short excerpt to perform for the director, Mr Ashton, when collecting your music. The first full rehearsal will be the following week. 

• The Barbershop Chorus begins on Thursday lunchtime in F1. All welcome regardless of singing experience.  

• Drumline Ensemble - all drummers are welcome to join the Drumline which rehearses on Wednesday lunchtimes in the Recital Room next to the Theatre. Note the day change from previous notice. 

If you have any questions about any of these groups, please see Mr Boyle in the Music Office.

Musical Performance:

Max Horn and Oliver Livingstone
“Names That End with A”, written by Max Horn.

Carisma Faitala - Sports Report

Sailing

The Sailing team traveled to New Plymouth for the season opening Secondary Schools Training Regatta. Congratulations to the boys who took out the overall win after three days of the regatta. 

The team was Finn Holmes, Henry Langworthy, James Ishida, Nico Holmes, Jacob Williams, Vedant Madhusudhan and Ora Mead.

The WC team will travel to Taupō in March for the Central North Island Secondary Schools Regional and will attend the Nationals in New Plymouth in April.

Karate

During the last week of the summer holidays Chiaki Lin (yr 13) fought in the 2025 Kyokushin Karate New Zealand national tournament (NZKK). He placed 1st in the U18 non-contact division and 2nd in the full contact division.

This performance has seen him gain selection for the New Zealand Team to compete in the World Championships in Japan later in the year.

Powerlifting

Fletcher Soligo has once again been selected to represent New Zealand at the Asia African Pacific Powerlifting and Bench Press Championships. This year they will be held in Himeji, Japan on 5 - 13 July 2025.

Athletics

Fresh from winning Gold in the Senior 800m at the NZSS Champs in December, Joe Martin kept busy during the summer break. Just before Christmas he ran in the Night of 5's meeting in Auckland where he won the 800m in a time of 1:50.11 which is a new WC Senior record. 

In January he raced in the Mile at the Cooks Classic in Whanganui. Joe ran a very fast time of 4:05.05 and although there was no WC Mile record on the books it can be safe to assume that Joe's time is likely the fastest run by a WC student and therefore will stand as the WC Senior Mile record.

A few days after this, Joe placed 2nd at the Capital Classic at Newtown Park in a fast time of 1:50.26 running down young sensation Sam Ruthe (son of Old Boy Ben Ruthe) in the process.

Most recently Joe raced in the 1500m at the Sir Graeme Douglas International and placed 10th against some of Oceania's best runners. His time of 3:49.08 is a new WC Senior 1500m record. The previous record of 3:53.92 was set in 2006 by WC legend Terefe Ejigu.

With a few more races left in the season including McEvedy, Joe is definitely one to watch.

Wrestling

Finally I would like to present a Blue which was unable to be presented last year.

A Blue awarded to any student who has achieved at the highest level in their chosen activity and takes the form of a blazer pocket.

He will have been selected for New Zealand at the highest Secondary School level or been selected for a New Zealand team of this equivalent or above or won a national title or set a New Zealand record at the above level or won a Gold Medal at an Open Men’s competition. He must represent the school at this activity where possible and be a positive role model within the school.

Seb Hopkins is a prodigious talent in wrestling and his performances over the past 2 years actually qualify him for a blue in 2023 and 2024. We are delighted to present this now. Seb please come up on stage.

In 2023 as a year 11 he was NZ U17 92kg Champion at Olympic Freestyle, won Gold at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships and was the New Zealand U 20 Grecko Roman Champion. 

In 2024 he again won NZ U17 92kgs Champion, Olympic Freestyle and won silver in the U 20 division. He was selected for the NZ  U19 team to compete at the World Journeymen Tournament, USA where he finished 9th in what is seen as a World Championship. 

Community Report

Mentoring and Tutoring  - Jesse Rumball-Smith

Kia ora boys, I’m Jesse, one of the tutoring and mentoring prefects this year.

I just want to quickly talk to you about Scholarship tutorials, which are starting in Week 4. If you’re in Year 12 or 13, even if you’re not sure about actually sitting the Scholarship exam, you should still come along.

Here’s why—Scholarship is just next-level content that will deepen your understanding of your, and honestly, if you can handle Scholarship-level work, the regular NCEA stuff will feel a lot much easier. 

And if you do sit the exam, there’s money in it. Even just passing Scholarship gets you $500—that’s literally free money for doing well in your subjects. If you do really well across multiple subjects, you can get thousands in awards.

So, whether you’re aiming to push yourself, improve your grades, or cash in on that free $500, come along. Scholarship tutorials will run before and after school and at lunchtimes—check the daily notices for more info on which subjects are where, and follow wc.tutoring on Instagram.

Winter Project - Dominic Shepherd

Kia ora all,

Just want to take a moment to talk about the Winter Project. It’s an initiative run by students from Samuel Marsden that helps provide warm clothing and blankets to families in need across Wellington.

We’ve worked with them for a few years now, and this year we’re collecting jumpers, jackets, pants, polypros, blankets, beanies, scarves, gloves—basically anything warm and in good condition that could help someone get through winter.

If you have anything to donate, we’ve placed a Winter Project donation box in the (Finance Office - BOX LOCATION TBC ON MONDAY MORNING). The collection will run until early May, just in time for King’s Birthday, but if we fill the box quickly, we’ll organise pickups throughout the year.

This is an easy way to make a real impact, so if you’ve got any spare winter gear at home, bring it in and drop it off.

Vedant Madhusudhan - House Report

Kia ora Boys

Lots of buzz around the house system for the next few weeks so keep your ears open and your eyes on the notices. First off we have the house geo guesser happening this Friday, Lunchtime in the Library. Sign-ups are in the notices and it’s first come first serve so sign up as soon as possible if you want to participate. Houses will have teams of three consisting of a year 9, a year 10 or 11, and a senior. Even if you aren’t playing come along to support your housemates and you might earn some extra points.

Now for the more sporty boys in the audience -House Touch is happening next week on the turf. This year we are holding two tournaments, one for year 9s and 10s and an open tournament. Sign-ups will be in the notices and there will be an email going out in the next couple of days. The junior tournament will be on Wednesday and teams will be first come first serve so sign up ASAP! The open tournament will be held on the Friday and sign-ups will close next Wednesday to give your House Leaders time to decide the teams. Once again boys come along to support we’ll be awarding house points to you guys as well.

Now finally, as I’m sure you’re all waiting for, the house points update! While we haven’t run any events between the house assembly last week and this morning we have calculated the tally of house points awarded by the teachers. In case you didn’t realise boys your teachers can award you house points for exceptional work or demonstration of our school values. Now with those points taken into consideration, the tally has shifted around quite a lot. 

In fifth place, continuing their unexplainably consistent streak of coming last is 

Te Ranga A Hiwi with 395 points!

In fourth place, not three months after winning 2024’s Ashby Shield, is
Waitangi with 408 points!

Now these top three are incredibly close so we can hope for a good competition this year and in third place is 

Kaipapa with 488 points!

Next With the greatest comeback since the 2023 Quad,

Hauwai has pulled from dead last to second place with 492 points!

And that leaves, winning the absolute skin of their teeth:

Te Aketarewa in first place with 497 points!

Karakia

Zane Bradley

Associate Headmaster

Mr Phil Bergin

Closing messages for students.