SCHOOL LEADERSHIP CAMPDuring the holidays, all of the student leaders for 2025 were invited to go on an overnight camp at Huia Lodge. As well as going out and spending a night together at the camp doing various team building activities, one of which was a talent show that none of us will ever forget, we also took part in workshops at school before we left and after we came back. One of the things that was organised for us was a workshop on leadership from Board Chair, Meredith Kennett. Taking time out of her busy life (thank you again Meredith), she came in to give us all some meaningful and valuable ways to look at and think about leadership, as well as give us a starting point on what we value as a group of leaders, encouraged us to set some collective agreements, and gave us important insights on growing as a leader. One exercise she did was encouraging us to recognise and remember that everyone has different points of view, and that even if you’re seeing the same thing as someone else, because of where you stand (metaphorically and in this case physically) you can be seeing something completely different. To help us all see this in a way that was easy to understand, she had two people stand up on opposite sides of the room while she positioned herself in the middle, holding a multicoloured beach ball. Because of how she was standing, one person would see that the beach ball was yellow and white, while the other would see that it was red, white and blue. Using this method, Meredith encouraged us to remember that while we are often all looking at the same thing, the parts of us that we bring into our perspective change our standing and how we look at the world, and that we need to remember to have empathy to understand that. After the workshop with Meredith, Tome and Anna ran some team building activities in the gym to help us further connect and get to know the people that we’re going to be working with a lot over the next year, as well as encouraging us to practice important skills in leadership such as effective communication, participation, and encouragement. After all of our school-based activities, we got ready to go out to the lodge, with a stop to the Cornwallis wharf for lunch and a hike up to the Karamatura waterfall. Then after we finished the hike, we got ourselves settled at the lodge, where a whole new set of shenanigans were about to begin, in the form of a community talent show. Before we did the talent show we did a few other games and activities to be able to determine what is really important to us collectively, and to further build the connections with each other, such as Empire, when you have to keep track of information and work with your team as it grows to be the biggest “empire” to win. After all of these smaller activities, we finally get to the talent show. We were given two or so hours to figure out what we were going to do in our community groups, and then present them after dinner. Onekiritea did a dance with some fancy circus moves at the end, Taheretikiki did a Bollywood dance, Waiarohia showed off their dance and “singing” skills, resulting in roaring applause, and Tiriwa did a skit with some fantastic comedy and impressions, almost making even Chris laugh. Then, after swearing us to utmost secrecy, even the teachers put on a talent show. It was an evening with heaps of fun and was a really good chance for us to get to know each other better and have a shared experience to really connect over. The 2025 leadership camp was an experience we all value, and was an instrumental first step in what is going to be an incredibly fun and crazy year. Thank you so much to Tome, Ros, and all the Learning Community Leaders and Assistant Learning Community Leaders for taking the time to organise this camp to help us start this year swinging. By the 2025 Community Ambassadors, School Leaders and Kaiarahi.
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