South Otago Netball Centre Umpire Qualifications

Congratulations Jade Gutsell and Yui Nakajima for becoming white shirt netball umpires last weekend. It's great to have quality netball umpires at our school.

Yui Nakajima - I have been training as an umpire for two years and have just recently obtained my white shirt. Jade and I got our shirts on the 19th of June 2021. Now we are proper umpires and are able to umpire without supervision. I encourage every umpire to try your hardest and keep pushing yourself. 

Jade Gutsell  -  I have umpired for 3 years before getting my white shirt. I umpired in Dunedin at a rep tournament, and almost every Saturday, umpiring is really fun and a great experience, I meet heaps of new people and my netball has improved way more knowing the rules of the game and getting to watch other teams play. I think everyone should give umpiring a go. To all the girls with green shirts, keep going, you will get there. 

Well done to all the other umpires who recently achieved their white shirt, you use it wisely. Green shirt umpires (training with supervision) keep looking forward and good luck to you guys. Hopefully, you will achieve your white shirts soon. 

Under 14 Rugby

Blake Affleck, Jethro Melville and Tafaitoa Tyrell

This year we have been playing rugby for South Otago High School. Our season started in early March with six weeks of pre-season training followed by practices twice a week in Balclutha. The early season games we played were good, winning our first three before suffering two losses. 

We travel a lot. Our closest away game is in Dunedin and our furthest away games are in Oamaru and Queenstown, so we spend a lot of time on buses travelling to games which is fun.

The South Otago boys have been very welcoming and our team also has players from Lawrence Area School and Tokomairiro High School. 

Next weekend we are playing a home game in Owaka at 12.45 which will be awesome. Tomorrow we are playing in Oamaru so we have to leave Balclutha at 8.30 am on the bus and won’t get back until around 6.30 so it's a long day but the bus trips are good fun. 

Parents, if you have any photos of extracurricular activities your child is involved in, let Tania know by emailing them to [email protected] with a small caption included and we will do our best to include them where possible in the weekly newsletters.