Dear Parents

The Matric Dance and fashion show have already come and gone. A big thank you to Mrs Pistorius, the Grade 12 class teachers and Dance Committee for all their hard work in preparing our hall for the occasion. It was truly a night to remember.

I am very pleased to report that we are about to start the process of short listing and interviewing the candidates for the vacant Principal’s post. We will keep you updated on the progress in this regard.

F BIGGS
ACTING PRINCIPAL
 

This is a reminder to all of the ongoing collection of stationery, school clothes, school books and toiletries to help the learners at twenty of the most disadvantaged schools in Port Elizabeth (as identified by the Department of Education).
This week, we are encouraging Collegiate families to donate reading books and computers (complete or parts), printers, keyboards, monitors and other computer items to help set up a library and computer room to provide educational services to a number of these schools. Girls can arrange with Miss van Rooyen for the collection of these items if they are too bulky or heavy to bring along to school.
Check the progress of this project on FACEBOOK "Justinspired 2011" or on the Justinspired website:
www.wix.com/justinspired/2011 or watch the "Say what you will" video on Youtube.

SOMETIMES WE FORGET HOW BIG SMALL CAN BE...
All small contributions most welcome!

Our Collegiate 1^st Team along with schools such as Stirling, Kloof, Crawford, Kingswood, Pearson, Alex, Woodridge and Cambridge were invited to participate in the annual Van Staden Cup Co-Ed Water Polo Tournament at Pearson from 4-6 February 2011.
Having acquired the services of a new coach, Mr Luke Crawford, Collegiate, happily, accepted the invitation.  Luke, has a long list of accomplishments, his most recent being the first coach from Eastern Province, ever, to lead a team to win the annual national, SA Schools Water Polo Tournament.
We started training our first team squad on the 3 January 2011 and spent every day working on skills and developing our players.  Our girls are to be commended for their hard work, dedication and sacrifices made for their school and this sport.
We found ourselves in a bit of a predicament in January, when we realised that the matric dance dates coincided with the Van Staden Cup Tournament.  Imagine, how nervous we were, when we counted 6 of our starting 7 players weren’t going to be able to play in this tournament.  We then selected younger players whom we had included in our training squad to represent Collegiate at the tournament.
These girls had never played together as a team before, so this tournament makes one realise that one does not have to be in the first team to be number one. 
The team members included:  Adrienne du Preez, Lize van Staden, Catherine Fish, Celine Gerard, Kelly van Jaarsveldt, Megan Momberg, Kim Daly, Katharine Chandler, Alex Ayerst, Lauren Billson and Kirsty Engelke.
We managed to display true Collegiate commitment and the results speak for themselves:

4 Feb 2011
Collegiate vs. Kloof 6-5 (won);
Collegiate vs. Crawford Lonehill 7-4 (won)

5 Feb 2011
Collegiate vs. Pearson 5-1 (won);
Collegiate vs. Cambridge 14 -0 (won);
Collegiate vs. Alex 10-2 (won);
Collegiate vs. Crawford 4-3 (won);
Collegiate vs. Kloof 5-4 (won);
Collegiate vs. Crawford in the final 7-6 (won)

Best Goalie of the Tournament: Celine Gerard
Best Attacker of the Tournament: Lize van Staden

Collegiate were the overall tournament winners, the first tournament victory for Collegiate Water Polo.
Thank you to all the parents for their continuous support shown and a special thank you to those parents who spent the day boiling in the sun with us, and then being drenched in the rain later that evening to watch the exciting final.
A special thank you to Mr. Troy Momberg for kindly fetching his gazebo for us to use.  Without this we would certainly have suffered from serious sun damage or even sunstroke!

Next Issue 25 February

Even the welcome rain on Saturday evening could not dampen the spirit of our matriculants at their dance. Between Friday 2.05pm and Saturday 7pm the girls transformed from scholars to beautifully dressed, elegant young ladies.
Despite sore feet and very little sleep the previous night the Grade Twelves reported back at school for the traditional clean up session after their dance on Sunday morning.
On Monday evening the girls had another opportunity to show off their dresses at the annual Matric Dance Fashion Show, a very popular event on the social calendar of the Girls of the College. This year red proved to be a popular choice of many of the gorgeous dresses.
The Class of 2011 have had a hectic yet exciting start to their year. We would like to wish them well for the rest of the year.

The following items have been found:
- Pair of black lace-up school shoes;
- White girdle
- Grey Gryphon Hockey stick bag;
- Collegiate swimming cap

We welcome Mrs Brummer as the new convener of flowers for the school and thank all the ‘flower moms’ for their hard work.

The 1st Debating Team and a Shadow Team debated against Woodridge and Westering respectively last week. Both teams won their debates with Abigail Butcher (D2) and Nosipho Nyembezi (D5) being named best speakers. Congratulations.

The following girls were selected to swim for Eastern Province against Free State, Border and South Western Districts in Bloemfontein on 22 January obtaining the following results:
Grade 12 - Syanne Graham (2 bronze)
Grade 11 - Mu’Minah Connelly (2 silver, 1 bronze)
Grade 10 - Michaela Barnes (1 gold, 2 silver)
Lauren Billson (1 gold, 1 bronze)
Genna Greevelink (2 gold)
Grade 9 - Kaleigh Graham(1 gold, 1 bronze)
Kirstyn Fourie (1 silver, 1 bronze)
Tammy van Wyk (1 silver, 1 bronze)
Grade 8 - Tarryn Els (2 silver, 1 bronze)
Megan van Wyk (1 gold, 2 silver)
The international gala was held on 29 and 30 January at the Newton Park pool. The criteria to participate at this gala was to have qualified for Senior Nationals, the highest ranked South African Swimming Championships. The gala included swimmers from the UK, Germany, Spain, Greece, Brazil as well as the top South African swimmers. The following swimmers qualified to swim at this prestigious gala:
Michaela Barnes, Kaleigh Graham, Genna Greevelink, Jessica Liss and Tammy van Wyk. Congratulations to all our swimmers.

Congratulations to all girls who excelled at Sports Day last Wednesday and well done to Queen Elizabeth House who took overall honours in the first Inter-House Competition of the year.

Forty five athletes competed in Port Elizabeth’s Zone 7 meeting on Monday afternoon. We are awaiting official results, but expect a substantial number of athletes to qualify for PE High Schools. The PE High Schools Athletics Meeting will take place on the 18th and 19th February at the NMMU.