Sports Dinner 15th March 2014

Sports Dinner Blurb Profiles

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR PARENTS. Exeat date change - November 2014.

Please be aware that we are moving the November exeat from 21^st – 23^rd November to 28^th - 30^th November.

Thank you.

A Night In The West End

Just before half term, Shiplake College (including a number of boys from Orchard House) teamed up with Queen Anne's School to put on 'A Night In The West End'.  The video below contains highlights of the concert and congratulations must go to Orchard Year 12 boys Ruaridh Sheppard, Reiss Simpson and Charles Marsden.

Seb Newman's rowing success

Thames Valley Trial Head by shiplakecollegemedia

Orchard students take leading roles in Young Enterprise group.

Shiplake College's Young Enterprise group began in September 2013 as a way of allowing students the opportunity to work as a business where they can brainstorm ideas, create a product and sell it to the public.  A number of Orchard Year 12 students are part of the group and each one has a specific responsibility to fulfill:

Harry Wiggins - Finance Director

Will Janes – Product development

Adib Wain – Human Resources

George Lawley - Secretary

Harry Chapples - Marketing

The group's first product was the Lumijar, which went on sale just before Christmas and the group had some success with sales figures.

Finance Director Harry Wiggins has this to say on the future of the group:

"We are looking to create a new product later in the year; hopefully around March.  We are not sure what it will be yet but we are looking for something that will generate some profit for all of us as we are all investors.

The ideal profit would be in the £150 – £200 range. We still have some Lumijars to sell and there are plans to visit trade fairs in March in Stratford and North Oxford."

YE members including Harry Chapples, Will Janes and George Lawley get to grips with another tricky business decision.

George, Harry and Harry Wiggins show off the Lumijars with Harry Marsden.

Bugsy Malone

Last week saw Shiplake's production of 'Bugsy Malone' take the stage.  The show featured a number of Orchard pupils taking part in roles as well as ensuring everything went smoothly behind the scenes:

Ruaridh Sheppard, Meaghan Barron-Cutts, Angus Meldrum, Seb Rivett, Oliver Riley, George Cowley and Aaron Khalfa.

If you missed the performance, below is a video of the chase scene featuring Ruaridh Sheppard among others, and the video was produced by Mr Milburn of Orchard House.

GB Nantes 2013

Shiplake have always been known to punch above their weight and this year was no exception on a national scale.

Henry Cawthorne (Skipwith) and Max Hearnden (Orchard) were lucky enough to be invited to the GB junior rowing team’s winter training camp in Nantes, France from the 15-22 December. This would be Max’s second time in France and a first for Henry. 

The invite was in no part due to the hard work throughout the autumn term and high placing, 35 and 29 respectively, at the early ID trial in Boston (Lincolnshire). That particular trial is in single sculls rather than sweep boats so Max (and Henry) were being compared to those who scull all year round. Therefore they had to develop both disciplines at school to a high degree. Despite all the time they spent in singles however they would be given the chance to prove himself in coxless fours and pairs all the time in France.

Having left early for Nantes on the morning of December 15 along with around 40 coaches and Athletes from around the UK and after a 12 hour coach journey they arrived and settled in to their new home for the week.

During their time there they boated from the University of Nantes’ boat club on the river L'Erdre and used a collection of GB boats and blades provided by the funding from the Lottery through UK Sport.

Each day was split up into two training sessions each lasting about 2-3 hours on the water achieving between 15-40 kilometres per session. Midway through the week they ran to and from the boat club for both sessions and did a 30min ergometer test on the Wednesday morning.

This is unfortunately where Max’s rowing camp turned into a physiotherapy and rehabilitation camp when he injured a disk in his back, meaning that he would be out of training for the next 4 weeks.

The week ended with the infamous Nantes quiz and final weekly reviews from the coaches.

Both boys met some really experienced coaches and rowers who train equally as hard as we do and we are looking forward to meeting up at regattas and the rest of the trailing process.

Max and Henry learnt a lot over the week about making boats go fast in new combinations and they were also given different targets to work on concerning our technique from all the coaches there.

The camp has given the boys an advantage which will help them when it comes to the final trailing process and seat racing with other rowers from around the country later this year. Here both Henry and Max will be aiming to represent GB at either the Coupe de la Jeunesse or the Junior World Championships later this summer.

We hope that the training and motivation that was gleaned from this camp will also further their success as a boat club this year into the regatta season. Good luck!