Today’s reading comes from 1 Peter Chapter 4, Verses 10-11 

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord." 

This is the word of the Lord (thanks be to God) 

Rectors speaks   

Thank you, Hugo for that poignant bible reading about service.  

Today you will have noticed that a number of staff have joined us on the stage, many of whom would not normally attend assembly. I’ve asked them to join us today because we are going to acknowledge their long service to Lindisfarne College, each of them over 20 years of service to our school.  

20 years is a long time and no one knows that better than you because it’s more than a lifetime for all of you boys. If you spend 20 years of your life working for one organisation, then you’ve in all likelihood made a huge contribution to that place. And so that’s why we’ve asked these eight members of staff to join us on stage today so that we mark their 20+ years by saying thank you. And I say 20+ because a number of staff who are being acknowledged today have been with us for a lot longer than 20 years. 

And our staff today come from all areas of the College. Cleaning staff, catering staff, our Laundry team, the library, teachers, staff from IT and the marketing department. They remind us that Lindisfarne College is made up of great people who are doing many different things in our College that make it a wonderful place to learn and to work. 

Service is big at Lindisfarne. It’s one of our Character flags and we talk about it a lot because we want to inspire you to serve too. When you think about it, anyone who has chosen to work at Lindisfarne College has chosen a life of service because we all serve you. That’s not something for you to be arrogant about or to feel entitled by. When others serve you, your response should be to show gratitude and then you should pay it forward by serving others. If we all, staff and students, commit to a life of service, then this becomes the best place in the world to work. 

I think I’ve shared with you before a quote from Albert Einstein that says “Only a life lived in the service of others is worth living.” He’s one of the smartest human beings to have ever lived, and he worked out that service is the key to a successful and fulfilling life. 

The people on stage today have served you in so many ways. They’ve: 

• Taught you  

• Coached you 

• Managed and transported you 

• Encouraged and supported you. 

• Cleaned your desks and the carpet and vinyl you walk on. 

• They’ve cleaned our bathrooms 

• They’ve fixed your computers and reset your passwords for the fourth time 

• They’ve inspired you to read and helped you research and put books back in the right place so you can find them the next time. 

• They have washed and ironed the very clothes your wear, the sheets on your bed, the blankets that keep you warm at night. 

• They’ve served you food in the dining room. Literally they have put food onto your plate that sustains you for the rest of the day or night.  

• I hope they’ve told you off when they needed to because that’s service too. Helping you to make the right choices and being the best versions of yourself. 

Mrs Lamond joins us on stage today, our former Head of Social Science who has recently moved on from the College. Today we had a staff morning tea to farewell Mrs Lamond, and you can see how important long service is to our school, that we’ve invited Mrs Lamond to join us at today’s assembly to receive the congratulations of the College on her 23 years of service as she moves onto new challenges in her life.  

So today these wonderful people will receive a special Lindisfarne honours tie or scarf to symbolise their 20 years of service to the College. As a traditional school, we believe it’s very important to acknowledge service. We don’t take these people for granted and we take opportunities like today, to say thank you. Remember we celebrate our 70th birthday this year and I reflect on the fact that these people who have served our school for so long have played their part in those 70 years.  

Yesterday Mr Howlett and I had our weekly meeting with the prefects and we asked for their service at the 70th Celebration weekend. They will be there taking old boys on tours and serving food just like they are serving now standing around the outside of the room, or delivering a bible reading or updating you on the latest sports or cultural news. And we’ll be asking others to provide service on that weekend too, so heed the call when you hear it.  

I see in the daily news that our service prefect Thomas Turner is calling for help with women’s refuge gardening this weekend. As well as being a College Prefect, Thomas is the boarding prefect for Year 7/8 boarders and if that’s not a life of service then I don’t know what is, so again, sign up with Thomas and go and display some service alongside your mates for a good cause.  

I think that for most of you this will be the first time you’ve seen us acknowledging long serving staff members in an assembly, but over your time at the College, you will see us do it from time to time and the reason we choose to present them with their honours at an assembly is so that you can be a special part of the service, because after all, ultimately it’s in service of you the boys of Lindisfarne, that we all choose to work in this wonderful College. 

It's now my pleasure to ask Deputy Rector Mr Howlett forward to read out today’s long service recipients: 

• Mr Rob Hay – Community Relations and Events Manager – 20 years’ service 

• Mrs Beverley Harrison Head Librarian – 21 ½ years’ service 

• Mr Dave Rennie Head of Technology - 22 ½ years’ service 

• Mr Kevin Whelan, IT Manager – 22 ½ years’ service 

• Ms Della Lamond Head of Social Sciences Faculty over 23 years’ service 

• Mrs Moana Williams from the Catering team - 24 ½ years’ service 

• Mrs Gayle Sampson College Librarian - 26 ½ years’ service 

• Mrs Maxine Van Der Meer from our Laundry Department - 28 ½ years’ service 

• Mrs Margaret Knight from our Cleaning Department – 30 years’ service 
   

HAKA performed by students. 

Rector speaks. 

Congratulations once again to all those staff and thank you boys. 
 

We’re now going to have a musical item by the saxophone quartet. That’s Callum Wallace, Joseph Oesthuizen, James Reid and Harry McNmamara. 

Performance – Saxaphone Quartet 

Thank you boys for that outstanding performance, please be seated.  

I’ll now ask Antoni Milewski to come forward to present his Cultural report. 

Cultural Report from Antoni Milewski 

Painting of the Tech Box
During the holidays, year 12 student Sam Young painted the auditorium tech box with the help of his father. Sam planned and carried out the work over the first week of the holidays, and now the tech box looks fantastic. Congratulations, Sam, on your work, and thank you for your huge contribution to the area of tech! 

House Music
The House Music competition will start on Monday of week 4 with the full house choirs and ensemble choirs taking place during the normal Chapel time.  The full house choirs will sing standing from their designated area in the hall. After this the ensemble choirs will come on the stage to perform.    

Salsa Dance Project
Today at 3.30pm Salsa Dance lessons start in the auditorium for those boys who have now registered. This is a great opportunity to learn how develop some basic dance steps from a professional dance tutor. This promises to be a lot of fun, so move out of your comfort zone and give dancing a go. Students from Iona College will be joining us for these lessons. 

Orphan’s Club Concert
On Tuesday evening 25 of our musicians performed an 80-minute concert at the Orphan’s Club, Hastings. Well done to the symphonic band and Jazz band for performing together with soloists that included Eddie Harvey (euphonium), Isaac Chou (xylophone), and the saxophone quartet of Callum Wallace, Josef Oosthuizen, James Reid and Harry Mcnamara. 

Jazz Band at the Winter Deco Variety Concert Last Saturday our jazz band performed to a large audience at the Napier Municipal theatre for the Winter Art Deco Festival Variety Concert. The band performed at 20-minute set of pieces alongside well-known New Zealand performers such at the NZ Navy Band. Well done to all boys involved. NZ  

National Concert Band Festival

Next Friday the Symphonic travels to Auckland to perform at the NZ Concert Band Association National Festival. Five boys will be performing solos, as well as the saxophone quartet, and symphonic band. We wish the boys all the best for this.  

Rector speaks 

Thank you, Antoni. It’s great to see how busy life has been in the cultural cornerstone. 

I’ve really enjoyed getting around the houses these past few weeks listening to you all singing your full house choir songs. I had the pleasure of hearing Aidan House yesterday and they are sounding very good, so just a warning to the other houses you’ll need to be on your mettle to outdo them.  

Now this is the first assembly for many of our staff on stage and I always tell them how great you are at singing, so please don’t let me down in singing the hymn Shine, Jesus Shine.  

School Song – Shine, Jesus, Shine 

Rector speaks 

Thank you, school. 

It’s now time for another very special part of our assembly and I’m going to invite Matua Pomare forward to announce two highly prestigious awards. 

Matua Pomare speaks on topic of Manu Korero Regionals and presents taonga to: 

• Te Awarangi Puketapu-Pene 

• Heremia McGarvey 

Rector speaks

Thank you, Matua Pomare and congratulations Te Awarangi, and Heremia. 

I’ll now ask Jack Blyth forward to present the weekly sports report. 

Sports Report from Jack Blyth 

Good afternoon, I am pleased to be able to read today’s sports news. 

Swimming
Last week the NZ Secondary School Swimming Champs were held in Wellington.  There were many fine performances from our six swimmers who participated with all of them gaining at least two personal best performance over the 4 days of competition or in Liam McEntee’s case gaining a PB in all of his individual events.  Sam Skidmore was the stand-out performer gaining 7 PB’s in his 8 events as well as 5 top 10 placings in the 14 year old boys age group.  In the 13 year old boys 50m butterfly, Monte Douglas was 10th overall. 

Football
Only two teams played last week due to the rain and cancellations.  Both our 1st and 2nd XI won their games. The 1st XI played HNHS 1st and won 18-0. Our 2nd XI played Karamu with a close match winning 4-3. 

Rathkeale winter sports exchange
Under brilliant blue skies Lindisfarne enjoyed a successful winter sports exchange against Rathkeale College. 

There were 9 matches played with 200 participants from each school. 

In the Junior fixtures 

Junior A Basketball won 99 – 33 

Junior A Football won 4-1  

Colts hockey won 3-1 

U15 rugby ran out winners 50-10 

In the Senior Fixtures 

Senior A Basketball 

Our senior basketball was just as dominant as the juniors, winning 90 - 44. Although Rathkeale rallied as best they could our boys had too much drive and accuracy with their shooting and dominated throughout meaning Rathkeale were always chasing the game. 

1st Xl Hockey 

An exciting match and going into the final quarter Lindisfarne were trailing 5-3 with the game slipping away. But as this team has done on many occasions before they fought back with belief they were still in the contest and scored twice in the final quarter to draw level and finish with a 5 all draw. This was another key game in their build-up to the Rankin Cup National tournament in August. 

1st XV Rugby

Throughout the game this was a tight encounter with Lindisfarne leading 10 nil, then 17-10 to being 24 all with 15 minutes remaining. Some strong play by the forwards and good finishing close to the line saw us score two excellent tries to seal the game 39-24. This win secured the team 8th place in the CNI competition with the completion of the round-robin. We now play St Peters post round-robin in the playoffs with the prize being 5th place if we can win these final two games. 

2nd XV Rugby

Another strong display from our 2nd XV adding another impressive win to their resume this year in beating Rathkeale 39 -7. Each game the boys have impressed as a team with both forwards and backs putting in strong performances. 

1st Xl Football

Playing the team currently ranked 2nd in the premiere Wellington boys competition this was always going to be a big test for our boys with Rathkeale going into the game favourites. We started well to lead 2 nil early. Rathkeale came back and drew level 2 all. In the second half, Lindisfarne had a golden 10 minutes scoring 4 goals and leading 6-2 with 25 minutes to go. Both teams attacked and the score remained 6-2 and a fantastic win for our boys. The team now waits anxiously for the draw and seedings for nationals due out by the end of next week. 

Overall  This was an excellent exchange and a fantastic day for Lindisfarne. Thank you to all the players, supporters, coaches, managers, referees, parents and friends, marketing, kitchen staff, ground staff and cleaning staff who made this day possible.  

Can we have the captains of the 1st teams in basketball, hockey, football and rugby come forward to collect the trophies on behalf of the school. 

Rector speaks 

Thanks very much Jack and congratulations to everyone who has been acknowledged today. Once again we thank our long serving staff for the outstanding service they have shown our College and for joining us at today’s assembly.  

I wish you all a safe and enjoyable weekend. I’ll now ask Reverend Dunnett to close our assembly in prayer. 

Article added: Friday 28 July 2023