The Riebeek hive is always buzzing with activities, with our girls participating and excelling in a wide range of fields. Among us, we have all kinds for busy bees from, archers, swimmers and gymnasts to orators, academics and even models; just to name a few. Riebeek girls leave a mark of excellence on everything they undertake, and this morning is about just that – celebrating our girls and all they have achieved.
Riebeek now offers tennis, swimming, hockey, netball and volleyball and while our girls participate whole-heartedly in these sports, their skills range beyond that too. We have our 2 resident archers, Megan Mac Gorman and Any Higgins. These ladies took part in the NASP Archery Competition held in Port Alfred, where Megan managed to shoot her personal best. They also went on to represent Riebeek College in the National Tournament Archery Competition in Rustenburg, North West, where they obtained pleasing results.
At Riebeek, we have no shortfall of swimmers. Mateenah Langford took part in the EP-B gala and received first place in freestyle, butterfly and breaststroke. A number of our girls also participated in the Sundays River Mile, most of which are juniors, and our 2 seniors Keely-Ann Maritz and Cameron Jackson. Our team swimmers, Mateenah Langford, Sarah Werth, Megan Clingen, Chaneal Labercencie.
The senior gala was a much awaited event for the girls, especially the matrics, who had the opportunity to be cheerleaders this year. Elizabeth House won the best dance, but Eleanor walked away triumphant that day, winning both the Best Spirit Award and winning the gala overall.
The hockey season was a good one, although we saw more draws and losses than wins. Octavia Johannes and Aphiwe Ngona finally received their First Team Hockey badges for commitment and contribution to the team. The new team tennis players, Ayandiswa Douw and Amee Exford also received their first team badges.
The clubs and committees are Riebeek are ever active and breed brilliant organisers, events coordinators and leaders. For example, Zeenat Lukie, our 2019 Head Girl, has been elected as the Uitenhage/Despatch Alpha Leo Club Media Representative.
Miss Riebeek’s theme was Confidence and Beauty.  The winners were: Miss Riebeek Junior Ayabulela Tom, Miss Riebeek Teen Tenique Boswell and Miss Riebeek Senior Lara Naidoo.
Raylene Borcher competed in the Figures Finesse International Modelling competition. She, along with 9 other finalists will be competing in Johannesburg and stand a chance of going to New York.
Shaakirah Mallick entered Miss Junior Teen Eastern Cape. She received the Miss Junior Personality award, Debutante award and Philanthropist award. She was also crowned Miss Teen Eastern Cape.
Sara-Leigh Thompson has participated in a number of gymnastics competitions, receiving a number of awards. She participated in a district Gymnastics Competition in Cape Town and received 1st place for free dance, 2nd place for the ball dance and her overall achievement was a gold medal.
Bilqees Vawda has performed extremely well this year. She participated in the EP Classic Mixed Martial Arts tournament and received gold for traditional karate kata, silver for traditional karate kumite, silver for MMA continuous fighting and silver for MMA points contact fighting. She may be little, but I’d be wary of her if I were you.
It is a well-known fact that Riebeek girls and speaking go hand in hand. Aziwe Booi, delivered an excellent speech at the High Schools’ Speaking Challenge hosted by SACEE at Alexander Road High School.
The Senior Choir participated in the ATKV – Applous Regional Competition and was awarded gold with an awesome 86%. Zezethu Mtirara, a senior choir member,  was chosen to represent Riebeek College in the ECYC on an international tour to Germany and the Czech Republic. She is 1 of 47 learners in the Eastern Cape who was given the opportunity to perform in this prestigious youth choir.
The Inter-house plays are always a highlight for the girls. This year, the award for best performance and for best lighting, stage effects and set arrangements went to Elton house for their re-enactment of Winnie. The award for teamwork went to Elizabeth for Sarafina.
This year we introduced the Spirit of the College. This is a system whereby grade 8 learners gain points for participating in a range of school-based activities. The point system also awards busy bee certificates and spirit badges as incentives for the Grade 8’s. To date, 6 girls have received their spirit badges, namely; Pholisa Madlavu, Sarah MacFarlance, Liqhawe Nogampula, Aphelele Toyis, Musa Daweti and Amahle Ntabeni.
Riebeek undoubtedly breeds excellence. For example, Heather Wilkinson from the class of 2017 was awarded the Youth Merit Award by the Rotary Club. And Jessica Schoeman, Chiara Rossi Falcon and Loren Campbell, all from the class of 2017, have been awarded the prestigious Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship at Nelson Mandela University.
Kiara Brink represented Riebeek in the district Map Work Quiz Competition held at Young Park Primary School. She attained second place and qualified to represent Riebeek further, in the Provincial Map Work Quiz. She received a certificate for Participation in the Eastern Cape Social Sciences Map Work Quiz Competition 2018 held at the South End Museum in Port Elizabeth.
A number of Grade 8’s entered the SACEE 2018 National 100-word Short Story Competition. The results were as follows: Megan Potgieter achieved a gold award and Jameelah Sirkhotte achieved silver. Special mention must be made of Rebecca Phelan, who achieved a bronze award, 3 silver awards and a gold award. We definitely have future novelists in our midst.
Our girls took part in a number of Olympiads, with the results being as follows:
Global Maths Literacy Olympiad:
Bronze awards were achieved by Natalie Petzer, Siphesihle Stuurman, Siphelele Mabombo and Siphosethu Malinga. Silver awards: Siphe Dikana and Gitaney van Staden. Gold: Sarah Werth, Ababalwe Tati and Drew Minter. Special mention must be made of Silindokuhle Daka who received a Top Achiever Award for coming in the Top 20.
Bio Science Olympiad:
Omhle Bissett achieved silver, while Noami de Booi, Jessica Crail, Lethabeleng Ntshiyane, Romesa Muhammad and Siphelele Mabombo achieved merit awards.
De Beers English Olympiad:
Merit certificates went to Omhle Bissett, Tarryn Barry, Chaneal Labercensie, Kyla van Deventer, Amila Thys and Amee Exford.
Bronze certificates to Azraa Rockman, Mpumelelo Mpshe, Teneal Rudman, Malakhiwe Hoffman and Aziwe Booi.
Silver was earned by Robyn Minnaar, Valentina Longari and Lerise Johnson and Sinovuyo Madlavu won a gold award, placing her in the top 250 candidates of 7000 National subscriptions.
Riebeek College came out top of the log at the Nelson Mandela Metropole SAFEFE Olympiad. Riebeek teams took first, second and third position.
The team that came third was Tiffany Cloete, Kristen Mannasse and Jadey van Willing.
Second was Meagan Roos, Christy Witter and Chante Potgieter.
The winning team was  Inganathi Konono, Kamvelihle Magobo, Candice Rossouw.
The Entrepreneurship Challenge run by the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation is open to all grades 8-12 learners in South Africa. More than 5000 learners compete and 3 of our girls performed particularly well. Teneal Rudman and Sara Gopal are among the top 30 and Jessica Craill is in the top 100. The top 5 learners of this challenge were invited to Cape Town to present their business pitch in person and Sara Gopal, in Grade 9, came in second place, winning R10 000. She travelled to Johannesburg to attend the Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge Awards Ceremony as a Top 20 student. At the ceremony, it was announced that Sara came second overall. Sara has been invited to visit San Francisco in April 2019 where she will tour various large corporations such as Apple, Facebook and Tesla, as well as meet with entrepreneurs from around the world. Sara is the youngest of the finalists.
If I were to try to mention all that the Riebeek girls are involved in, we would be here all day, but these were just a few highlights. Today is about the prize winners and acknowledging their hard work, but since it is also my very last opportunity to speak at this podium, I would like to take a moment to wish Zeenat and the prefect body of 2019 everything of the best for their tenure. It will be an uphill climb, ladies, but all the best things are.