Wintec News

Wintec Students Rise to the Challenge

Posted On: Friday, 14 August 2009

Wintec Sport and Exercise Science designed and coordinated a Waikato secondary school event on Hamilton’s Lake Rotoroa this week.

Nearly 2000 school students took up the challenge which was part of the nationwide Get 2 Go Challenge, run by the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre (OPC) and Sparc. In Hamilton twenty-seven teams of eight students from schools as far away as Coromandel, battled it out in several different outdoor pursuit challenges. Wintec School of Sport & Exercise Science diploma students ran the event on Hamilton’s Lake Rotoroa where kayakers took each other on. At the same time while mountain bikers pushed their limits at Pukete Farm Park and orienteering teams competed at Hamilton Gardens.

When Wintec was approached in Feburary 09, Jim Patchett, Outdoor Adventure Tutor, School of Sport and Exercise Science, presented students from the school’s Adventure Leadership and the Event Practicum courses with the challenge of coming up with a series of events on the water, for more than 220 students to participate in throughout the day.

They rose to the challenge. The Wintec Students developed the event format, designing detail around which schools could compete. Incorporated in the detail were aspects of teamwork, leadership and FUN using an adventure activity. As well as the preparation of the venue, equipment, logistics and leadership on the day.

The Waikato was the most popular region for the event with 27 teams comprising more than 220 participants. Event manager Darren Ashmore said the Waikato leg of the challenge had become their biggest event.

It is the fourth year the challenge has been held and was set up to encourage teenagers’ participation in outdoor pursuit activities.

“We will need to expand soon because so many (Waikato) secondary schools want to put more than one team in the challenge. It’s really great,” Darren said.

The winning team, a blended team from St Pauls and Waikato Dio will go on to the Get 2 Go grand final challenge to be held on Great Barrier Island during the last week of term four.