Totara Sports Camp

On Monday 16 September, 32 very excited Somerville students, together with Mrs Pietersen, SIS Camp Specialist, Gary Carr, and parents Elfreda Gers and Gary Raffaelli, travelled to Matamata to compete in the Totara Sports Camp.

Totara Sports Camps involve up to 10 teams at a time, around 400 students from schools all around New Zealand, who compete during the week in over 30 different sports. This offers students the opportunity to try sports that they would not normally be involved in. These include: Basketball, Croquet, Netball, Petanque, Rugby, Soccer,  Softball, Tennis, Touch, Volleyball. We also have some one off events: Athletics, Cross Country, Frisbee Golf, Hole in one Golf, Kayaking, Swimming and Team Triathlon.

One of the highlights of camp is the after dinner night sports including Bowls, Caged Soccer, Chess, Darts, Draughts, Indoor Hockey and Indoor Soccer, as well as our own unique sports Cheer Night, Scramball, Spikeball and Wall Ball.

Some of our best performances came with a first place in Archery and Hole-in-one golf events and runners up in tennis, kayaking and mini-golf. 

We had to endure rain and freezing cold conditions, but it was a week of individual growth, developing resilience and stamina, life lessons, responsibility, self management, hard work, building relationships, health and fitness and improving skills on and off the field.

The highlight for us was the presentation of our school cheer. We had put in many hours learning the steps, developing the dances and working as a team to successfully present to the group of 400 other students. 

A huge thank you goes to our organiser, Mrs Pietersen, parent helpers and Gary, who helped make the camp such a success.