Our team shines in tournament

Eight students represented WFC in the annual basketball tournament hosted by Enfield College.

Leading up to the event we had held trials at Forest Road YMCA and were, to be perfectly honest, rather disappointed with the turn out. Fortunately, of those who did attend, we had a rich mix of talent and were reasonably confident of making a good showing of ourselves.

The format for the tournament meant that the nine Colleges present were pooled into three groups of three. The league phase was played over 1 period of 10mins, rolling clock.

Our first game was against B6 Brookhouse who play out of Hackney. The early exchanges were, as expected, fraught with turnovers and missed opportunities as both sides tried to settle. B6 were first to get into their rhythm and took up a 9-2 lead on 5mins.

However we didn’t panic and with some good accurate passing from Michael and Andrius and some excellent aggressive defence from Mamomi (“Golde”), we cut into the deficit and with 1min of the game left trailed by 15-12.

Iain then picked up the ball on halfway and we all felt assured that we could keep our hopes alive, even though time was running out. But as he made a desperate attempt to drive towards the basketball he was alleged to have fouled the opposition centre and we turned the ball over with only 15secs remaining on the clock.

Playing a full court press, all players dug in, to deny Brookhouse time and space. Under this pressure their number 10 misplaced an easy lay-up and Seb Pardo rebounded the ball deep in his own half. Dribbling up to just in side halfway and, with the clock showing 1sec, Seb released a shot which flew straight into the basket for three miraculous points………..UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!

After some celebration involving the majority of those present we went into 1min of overtime and managed to hold off Brookhouse, finally winning the game 17pts to 15pts. A very enjoyable and some would say memorable game.

Our second contest was against Carshalton College and it was clear from the “tip” that we had the upper hand on offence and defence. Michael used his physical attributes to dominate the boards and collect a nine point personal tally.

Javin, Malik and Jeffrey also had strong contributions and we ended the game victorious wining 17pts to 10pts.

Two from two and we were through to the semi finals against Sir George Monoux College.

The last four matches were scheduled for two 7min periods but as the tournament had overrun officials were forced to reduce game times down to a one period of eight minutes.

SGM had been the form side of the tournament showing fluid and well drilled patterns of play during their two qualifying games. We were not intimidated with what we had seen and started confidently matching scores early on. But as the game developed their experience showed and we ended up going down 20pts – 12pts.
A very promising start for WFC Basketball Team, well done lads.

The players:
Andrius and Iain (ESOL New Start), Javin and Malik (Intermediate Business + ICT), Jeffrey (Btec National Sports), Michael (Btec 1st Diploma Sport) and Captain Mamomi (Access to Buisness).

If you are interested in playing competitive basketball for the College please contact Mark Jarvis – Sports & Student Activities Manager: mjarvis@waltham.ac.uk
Tel: 020 8501 8173

International Women's Day

We celebrated International Women's Day this year with a number of events across the college.

First up, on Wednesday the films shown as part of our regular weekly Enrichment Activity were Nikita and Jackie Brown, keeping 'Women on Screen'.

Then when it came to Thursday, International Women's Day there were a whole host of activities to check out.

There were separate displays all around the college. Some in the corridors were put together by ESOL, Early Years, and Health and Social Care, and there was a multi-media presentation in the Library.

All were highlighting the life stories of famous women from history.

The Women's Royal Signals Squadron were invited to talk about careers in the military service, including the T. A. - they even pitched a tent up in room 318, and brought extremely heavy looking equipment along for us to try on!

Meanwhile, it was half-price day in the Hair and Beauty Salon.

This meant students were working hard to provide manicures and conditioning treatments.

Everybody proudly wore their International Women's Day ribbons.

(Here, in the picture you can see one of us re-attaching a toe that had accidentally fallen off a client's foot)

During the afternoon, the Mallinsons was the base for the displaying of all the entries into the 'WFC Woman of the Moment' competition.

This competition was the one where you could take a photo of a female student and nominate them by writing a paragraph or two on anything they've achieved.

(Hey, that's a bit like what this lovely Student Blog is all about as well, innit! Don't forget to use us to celebrate your achievements, too.)

The winner of the WFC Woman of the Moment competition will get a prize of a dinner for two, and will be announced soon.

On a serious note, the police came in to assist students with their enquiries.

This was all about personal safety, and a female police officer was accompanied by a female police support officer ready to give advice and guidance.

We learnt that most of our safety on the street and in public places is down to common sense - including not being pre-occupied when texting or talking, or listening to mp3s so we can see and hear who's around us and be 'streetwise'.