Johnstone High v St Benedicts U16

Johnstone v St Benedict’s 21/9/15

The first game of the league season for the ever-keen squad saw a home tie and a ‘derby’ against St. Benedict’s at the sports hub.

First issue – deal with the kit clash.  Both teams in green meant a mad scramble to find an alternative.  The blue kit was unearthed, but the team are clearly facing  a sock crisis for the season.  An arrangement of green, blue, black and dark blue rugby socks was not ideal, but game on nevertheless.

The first 20 minutes saw the ball permanently in the St Benedict’s half of the field.  Some good individual play from Johnstone but work to be done on passing, movement and shooting meant that a series of early chances were missed.  Greg Steven hit the post and Daniel Smith put  a shot narrowly past, but both boys will feel that they should have scored.

However, a goal duly arrived and there was a bit of fortune in it, with the ball more or less bouncing off Steven Buchanan into the net.

A somewhat lucky goal but richly deserved on the balance of play.

Shortly afterwards Irwin Gray had  his first touch of the ball to take a bye kick.  His next touch was to lift the ball from the back of the net as St Benedict’s scored with their first direct shot at goal.

1-1 at half time didn’t tell the full story of what was a generally dominant performance from Johnstone.

Unfortunately, by this stage Steven Buchanan had been taken off and gone to hospital with a broken shoulder bone.  As ever, Steven made no great fuss of this bad injury and hopefully he’ll be fully recovered as soon as possible.

Into the 2nd half and Lewis Banaghan soon made it 2-1.

A better performance from St Benedicts this half and they managed to equalise again for 2-2.

However, the Johnstone boys kept battling and substitute Finlay Ross made it 3-2, with a swift follow up from Daniel Smith meaning the final score was 4 -2 in favour of Johnstone High.

A broken collar bone and a sprained ankle for Greg Steven in a game that was played in a very fair spirit provided the down side to a good opening to the season.

Next up is Glennifer away on Tuesday 29th.

See the league table here.

Early World Challenge Fund Raisers

There’s only 643 days until departure to Tanzania (which is actually a long time so don’t worry).

Fund raising initiatives are happening.

Paige had a Candle Party and she hoped to make a £100 profit from it.  She made £500!  Absolutely brilliant.  Paige would really like to thank everyone who helped her out and came along to support her.

candle party

Bradley organised a 7 a side football tournament in school for S1 and S2 pupils.  Not an easy thing to organise something like this with so many people involved, but he pulled it off with some solid support from friends.

Everyone involved had a great time and the event raised £87.

Good job.

football

 

Team Tanzania is Here

The 2 week window for applications for World Challenge has drawn to a close (with a couple of people still looking to apply – don’t worry, it will happen) and the team for Tanzania is all but set.

Team Nepal started with 16 challengers and 12 travelled.  Team Borneo started with 21 and 17 travelled.

Team Tanzania starts with a whopping 39 challengers, and hopefully there will be no mishaps along the way seeing all 39 travel to Southern Tanzania in June of 2017.

A first challenger meeting has taken place with a whistle stop tour of how the program will work.  Much of the next number of months will involve the challengers getting to know each other well (which may take some time with 39 of them), and getting started with fund raising opportunities.

Fund Raising Initiatives

Already a team have taken part in a Caribbean Day celebration in Lochwinnoch with a “Sure Shot Striker Challenge” and a home baking stall.

IMG_1170

One challenger has a Candle Party this coming weekend and next week a 7 a side football tournament will take place in the school, instigated and organised by another one of the challengers.

Each of the challengers left the first meeting aiming to bolster the 5050 club where the funds raised are split equally (50-50, gettit?) between the team fundraising pot and the prize fund for the monthly winner.

Last month’s winner received a modest £42.  Can the team ensure that their hard work and keen bargaining skills mean that next months winner receives a mighty £200?

5050 Winners

We shall see.

 

World Challenge Applications

Application Deadline

The deadline date for World Challenge applications for the Southern Tanzania trip is fast approaching.

Monday 14th September is the date.  For anyone who is still considering joining up on the expedition team and have concerns that they will not meet this data for completion of the application, then get in touch with Mr McGivern in the school, and we will ensure that a place os reserved if required.

27 pupils signed up so far (with 2 more online applications being processed at this very minute) with another few still likely to come in.

Without doubt this is going to be the biggest World Challenge expedition that the school has run so far.  And the best?  We’ll do everything that we can to make sure that this is the case.

 

Challenger Meeting

There will be lunchtime meetings every Tuesday in Computing room IT4 for those challengers signing up.

The first meeting will be this coming Tuesday (September 15th) at 1.20 pm.  Bring your lunch, and let’s get Team Tanzania started!

 

World Challenge 3 – Destination Southern Tanzania

The 3rd Johnstone High School World Challenge expedition has been launched at S4 and S5 assemblies and then to interested parents at the Information Evening held in the school on 31st August.

Potential challengers and their parents/guardians now have 2 weeks to decide whether to take the plunge and sign up.

Applications should be completed either online using the designated code provided on the night or by completing a paper application form.

Entry deadline day is September 14th.  Paper forms should be handed to Mr McGivern in the Computing and Business Education department where forms (and the code for online entry) can also be collected if required.

It’s going to be awesome!

Here’s a video of one of the 2 teams who spent 3 weeks in Borneo this summer:

A newsletter of the team’s experiences will be produced shortly and published on the blog.