Public Speaking

Amano Christian School held their third annual Inter-house Public Speaking Contest on the 22nd of June 2015. It was a black-tie event and most of the audience turned out very smartly dressed. There were nine speakers in total split up into three categories (age groups) the under-19s, under-16s and under-13s. The topics ranged from controversial issues such as ‘Is money ruining sport’ to ‘The Virgin Islands’. The quality of the speeches was very high; most presentations were well researched and the arguments were well developed. All the contestants displayed impressive confidence levels. The judges had a tough time judging the contest; but the final outcome of results was a fair evaluation of the contestant’s efforts and their actual presentations. Ethan Milner came first for the under-19s; very close behind him in points was Ben Ferguson in second place. For the under-16 category Tina Kaumba scooped the first place with her expressive gestures and convincing responses to questions put to her. Finally, for the under-13s Talitha Lund took first position, with her heart-felt presentation on the most significant event in her life this far. All in all, it was a lovely evening both informative and enjoyable.

Badminton

A second badminton tournament was hosted this term here at Amano on the 20^th of June. Two teams Amano and Mpelembe participated in three disciplines; singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Six boys and six girls were able to play. Everyone played well with Amano coming out first overall and many of the individual players winning all or most of their matches. It was a great morning in which we were able to compete with others as well as sharing skills with them. I just want to say thank you to all those who came and supported us as well as to those who organised the games.

[Caleb, Seth, Edwin, Natasha and Diana were all unbeaten in all formats. Joyce, Josiah, Shoshanna, Eunice, Ben, Daniel and Jackson all contributed well to a team win.]

Reported By: Caleb Ronald

Badminton

On the 16th of May a badminton tournament was held here at Amano. Three schools participated: Simba, Lechwe, and Amano. It was a doubles tournament so quite a few people got to play. The U13 team consisted of six players in pairs as did the secondary [U19] team. The primary teams did pretty well and came out second with one of the pairs coming out second in that age group. The secondary team did well as well, finishing second over all and one pair coming out first over all. It was an excellent afternoon of competition that was only possible because of the hard work of many staff from Amano as well as the other participating schools. Thank you to everyone that played their best and supported wholeheartedly.

Report by:Caleb Ronald

3rd and 4th seeds Ben and Seth

Edwin serving

Diana serving

Shoshanna and Diana, U19 Gilrs doubles 3rd and 4th seed

Secondary Teams:
Team A: Caleb and B. Ferguson  (Amano A +4; Simba A +2; Lechwe A -2)
Team B: E. Dingwall and A. Chonde (Simba B +2; Lechwe B -2; Amano B -4)
Team C: J. Muteb and F. McCaffrey (Simba C +4; Amano C -2; Lechwe C -2)

Primary Teams:
Amano A: S. Ferguson and N. Grove (Simba A +6; Lechwe A +2; Amano A -2)
Amano B: R. McCaffrey and J. Kirk (Amano B +4; Simba B +0; Lechwe B -4)
Amano C: X. Zygtow and Yn. Carriaga (Amano C +2; Simba C -2; Lechwe C-6)

The Camping Trip

Saturday was quite an interesting day. The dorm parents had asked Mr Grove to organize a camping trip, as a dorm activity, for the senior boarders. In the afternoon, at around 3:30, we all gathered together to make "hobo stoves". The pair that made the best stove got a chocolate bar. We were given 45 minutes. After which we were packed into a trailer and taken to the campsite. Everybody was divided into three teams, and we had a competition among us on which team would collect the most firewood. The team names where Chris K, Team Breeze, and Sponyonyo.  Sponyonyo won that competition. We set up the zip line then rushed back to supper, which we gobbled down quickly, so we could get ready.

45 mins and still no clue

We dressed up in warm clothes, at least most of us did. Some of the boys turned up in shorts for the activities before bed. Assembling in the hall, with our bags and sleeping bags, the winner of the hobo stove competition was announced: Memory Samwata, the only single won the prize! We then piled into the trailer a second time and started off to the site. The boys had a couple of chants that we shouted out as we jostled along.

We had several activities through the night. A favourite was ‘Where’s Wally’. It’s a bit like tag with a torch. Everyone enjoyed it as we got to run wildly through the dark bush and chase people. Thankfully, there were no snakes or other creatures of that kind. There was only one injury, which turned out to be not too serious.

The good...

the bad...

and the ugly!

After the games, we had a brief devotion that was about Christ being our solid foundation, which was fitting as we were sleeping on a huge rock. He also talked about stars and how creation tells us there is a God. Most people were pretty tired by then. After a couple marshmallows we settled down to sleep at around 2:00. There were a few hyper girls (ahem Eunice) that did not want to sleep and were making noise. One word from Mr Grove shut them up quite quickly. It was cold but each group had a fire nearby. The boys had one, and the two groups of girls had one each.

Sleeping arrangements

When we woke up the boys, Seth and Caleb had revived our fires, which was kind of them. It was very cold and wet [dew]! We struggled to build our [cooking] fires and keep them burning inside the can, because a constant supply of heat was needed to fry the sausages. They took forever! We had a delicious breakfast (everyone was ravenous) of sausages, bacon, bread, eggs, pancakes and a soft drink each. We started cooking at around 6:00 and we did not finish until 8:00. We now appreciate the job the cooking ladies do for us. We arrived at school at 9:00 and got ready for church quickly.

Hobo stove champ - Memory

Flambee breakfast

All in all it would be an experience worth repeating, although I don’t know if Mr Grove would like to. He got really frustrated and confused by the singing. We all enjoyed it and learnt a lot.

By Joyce Muteb and Lois McCaffery

U13 sport

On Friday 27^th March, an under 13's team went to Lechwe to play football. In the first game we played Simba. Joseph Kirk scored first to give Amano a 1-0 lead, but Simba equalised making it 1-1. Then Chebo Chakulya scored making it 2-1. So we won that game.

Our second game was against Lechwe. They scored 2 goals and Chebo scored to make it 2-1. Unfortunately we lost confidence and let in 2 more goals so we lost the match 4-1.

Overall we came second out of 3 teams.

Report by Joseph Kirk & Xavier Zytkow

On Friday 27^th March an U13 girls’ team played netball and football matches. We lost the first netball match against Lechwe 2-10 (most of their players were much taller than us!). In our second match we beat Simba 5-4.

Following netball the girls played two games of football. In our first game, we drew with Lechwe 0-0. In our match against Simba we had so much possession but just couldn't score. A Simba player got the ball following a throw in and scored. Soon after the referee blew his whistle so we lost 1-0.

Primary Interhouse Arts afternoon

How do you play a classical piece with no instruments and no trained musicians?!
You create an ‘Air Orchestra’!
Following the fun of last year’s arts afternoon, we organised a musical competition between the 3 houses again. This year the group performance song was our school song ‘Wisdom Seekers’; the children had been learning it in their music lessons. Following that each house performed to Saint-Saëns Carnival of the animals Fossils music. Before the performance, the children listened to the music, identified the instruments, were organised into sections and practised!
Each house performed in front of our judges Mrs Towse and Miss Lydia. Children were scored on their musical diction when singing; organisation and interpretation of the music; were the instruments recognisable? and the house’s enthusiasm and enjoyment.
Musenga and Luano were joint winners with Kasompe in third place.

Reported by Mrs Kirk

Mrs Towse and Miss Lydia

Football Nationals U19

On Friday the 20th of March the U-19 boys football team traveled down to Lusaka to play in the ISAZ finals. It was a competition that consisted of the four best teams from Copperbelt (including Amano) competing against the four best teams from Lusaka. They split us up into two groups, and in our group we had Lake Road, Chengelo and American International School of Lusaka (AISL). The top two from each group would go on to the semi-finals to then compete for the trophy.
Our first game was against Lake Road, who we hadn't played in a long time and so didn't know what to expect, but that didn't effect our performance and we ended up winning that game 5-1, with James getting a hat-rick as well as Seth and Edwin getting a goal each. This was all due to the hard work we put in as well as the fact that we played really well as a team. Our next game was against Chengelo (who we had previously beaten 3-0 in qualifying), we knew this wasn't going to be an easy game as they changed their formation completely and where really tight on our top two as well as playing with a sweeper. We managed to score in that game but unfortunately it was disallowed because of a handball. We drew that game 0-0, which meant in order to come in the top two we simply couldn't lose our last game against AISL. We went into that game considerably confident but we gave away an early goal. This more or less threw our structure out of the window as we scrambled to try and get a goal that never came. So overall we came third in our group which meant we weren't able to qualify for the semi-finals but, all in all, I think it was an amazing experience for most of us, we played our hardest and that’s the most important thing even though it wasn't enough.

James was the Man of the Match for me seeing he scored a hat trick.

By Edwin Dingwall