Four images from the last week of February

The Women's Hockey Team were treated to a memorable night for the seven seniors thanks to the support of their parents led by Carol Virtue. There was a pregame tribute including being serenaded by the Winchendon A Capella singers. After the game, the parents had set up a huge feast for the players, families and friends. Thanks to all of the parents for making this a memorable evening for a great group of seniors.
...and Men's Basketball will be heading to the playoffs this week. In this shot, Eric F. goes way up over his competitors, looking as if he has a couple of extra feet to clear the basket. Think Winchendon Green and winning thoughts for this Wednesday's opener against New Hampton.
...and, there have been many beautiful images of the campus this week. Unfortunately, they have all involved lots of the white stuff. I have heard of a 'rescue club', but it is going to take something special to play the sixth hole this week! The new driver that I received for Christmas remains tucked in the closet. Spring anyone?
Thanks to Elliot Harvey for all four of these great photos.

Have a good week.

Looking at the challenges through different lenses...

We constantly think about that key question that takes on some form of "What is the best possible education that we can provide students to prepare them for the this century and they challenges that they will face?" This morning math teacher Tom Patty shared a very brief video that helps us think about this issue and reminds us that there is fabulous potential within this next generation who are currently in high school and college. The video is less than 2 minutes long and well worth the effort. The video has been around, and while I had seen it previously, it is one of those things that I was very glad to be reminded of.

Click here to see the brief video.

This essay was put together by a 20 year old in response to a contest sponsored by AARP. Over the last 2 years, it has been viewed almost 12,000,000 times!

Valentines Day Carnations

Last week, the Winchendon tradition of students and faculty sending carnations to each other was not just extended but was enriched both as more than 700 carnations were delivered, raising over $1000 for our Haiti relief efforts, and a new twist was added as some of the luckiest recipients were serenaded by members of our A Cappella group.

Fireworks ring in Lunar Year a little early!

After a month of hard work, many victories and too much cold weather, it was time for a break, and just the opportunity came on Wednesday afternoon with the surprise announcement of a day off and Winter Carnival.

The festivities started off with great wins for Men's Varsity Ice Hockey and Basketball. The latter was especially exciting as it was an overtime win against a very impressive team from Brewster. Most of the School was on hand to cheer the guys on.People reloaded on a superb dinner thanks in part to Jack and Judy Leung as well as the efforts of our our own dining hall team. Everyone then headed out to the bonfire pit for some fun and dancing. Yes, there was live music under the gazebo to further enliven things.
But the surprises were just beginning as suddenly there were fireworks lighting the winter sky. Yes, due to the astute bartering by Mr. Magay and Mr. Delorme with our neighbors Atlas Fireworks up in Rindge NH, they got some skating at the rink and we were able to enjoy a great fireworks show to welcome the New Year. Ashley Abraham captured and shared the above video.

This was all followed by a night and day of fun and contests between dorm groups, and capped off by a wonderful dinner-dance fund raiser for Haiti (see last blog entry). So many worked to make this a great two days for all. Thanks to all of you.

Winchendon Rallies For Haiti

My last entry was on January 7th. One of the reasons that I have been remiss in writing is that we have been focusing a lot of energy in other areas. Unfortunately, one of those diversions has been the massive earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th. Since then our School has put a significant amount of time into trying to figure out how we can bring some relief to this devastated country.

Our size and culture allow us be flexible. In the first week, we developed a special one week program in which all students participated in a dialog about natural disasters. The English classes that week focused on reading, research, writing and discussion as to what causes different types of disasters, what both immediate and longer term impacts will be, and how we can respond to these situations. Classes provided a forum for helping us all process this natural disaster and others including the 2004 tsunami, the 2008 earthquake in China and the current drought in east Africa and what our role can be in these situations.

And then there are the relief efforts. By the 13th, the students had already started various fund raising efforts, and then they became more organized. At this point, almost every adviser group has submitted ideas on fund-raising initiatives, and several have already pressed into high gear. There are initiatives being worked on by small groups and larger ones as well. One of the latter occurred this past week where we he held a special dinner-dance in conjunction with our winter carnival in which $2,500 was raised towards relief efforts. Everyone had a good time for a good cause. Thanks to all that made the dinner and all of these other efforts successful.

Our near term goal is for the Winchendon School community to raise at least $10,000 in aid to help our southern neighbors. We are also investigating the possibility of sending a group of students and faculty to Haiti later this spring and have let several relief organizations know that we would welcome a couple of displaced Haitian students into the Winchendon School community. Perhaps most importantly, our students are seeing that they can have an important impact and are stepping up with their time, money and ideas as to how to help out. We don't lose site of the importance of core academic skills, but these are valuable lessons too. I am proud of how so many Winchendonians have rallied in many different ways. Thank you to all of you.