Bay of Islands College again

Extra-curricular

School outdoor education camps were beginning to be part of the programme at that time. I was involved in much of this work. One year we held three five-day camps on end for Third Formers in December and I ran the first and third ones.  All were at McLeod’s Bay on Whangarei Harbour, where we did rock-climbing, canoeing, yachting, overnight camping, seashore biology, and generally learning to rub along together. 

For the two years when I owned a yacht sports afternoon each week meant taken a team of around eight youngsters for a sail and teaching them the rudiments. I was not the only yacht-owner on the staff who did this, and several of us regularly sailed back later in the afternoon after the kids had had a great sail around the Bay. 

For three years I was an officer of the Far North Region of the Post-Primary Teachers Association, and visited the very small branches at the Area Schools at Houhora, Panguru, Punaruku and Taipa. I also attended two or three PPTA conferences in Wellington in the August holidays. When the teachers’ pay was put onto computer operated by the Auckland Education Board, I was able to help several of my colleagues who had mistakes made in their pay. The Education Board were very efficient at fixing them. 

We were also pioneers in the setting up of Ethics Committees, which in those days were for settling disputes between members of the Association. I had to chair a committee that was called because two of the teachers at a neighbouring school were at loggerheads, had been for years, and we tried to sort out their differences. 

One of my closest colleagues was Roger Taylor, who came to work in the English Department after crewing on the replica of Endeavour which was wrecked off Parengarenga Harbour after sailing from North America. He had also taken part in the Trans-Tasman solo race from New Plymouth to Malooloobah in Queensland, sailing the smallest ever entrant, a 19-foot concrete-hulled midget.  He was rolled completely by a wave in mid-Tasman but survived without damage because of the simple design of his boat: a clean wooden deck with no superstructure at all, and the possibility to stay below in the hull and sail the boat without coming out. 

My other close workmate was Frank Jones, a gentle, phlegmatic, quiet, solid teacher, Deputy Principal, and a great colleague.