18 May 2009

Kiwiana Challenge: IPC vs. UCOL Friendly Competition

Universal College of Learning (UCOL) Students Visited IPC to Share Food and Friendship

By Shirley Ghozalli and Moira Blake.

The students from UCOL competing with IPC students in the Kiwiana Challenge	A team from IPC	The Fashion Show featuring NZ-themed outfits made of newspapers
The winning Fashion Show team with its mixture of UCOL and IPC students	Asuka Senoo, wearing the winning Maori style outfit	Moira Blake presenting the Kiwiana Trophy to a representative from UCOL

The Universal College of Learning (UCOL) is one of several tertiary education institutions in Palmerston North. Last year, in order to create an opportunity for students from UCOL and IPC to meet one another the "Kiwiana Challenge" was created. This is an IPC vs. UCOL competition in which students from the two colleges compete for a trophy in the form of a wooden Kiwi beautifully carved by UCOL. Last year at UCOL, IPC won the first "Kiwiana Challenge" - a quiz, for which a team of 3 students from each institution answered questions about various things to do with New Zealand culture.

This year, it was IPC's turn to host the visit, and on 12th May a group of 45 UCOL students and tutors, from various countries, came to IPC. They joined IPC students of various nationalities in the dining hall to have dinner together. Afterwards, the participants packed the Senior Common Room for the competition. This year, the "Kiwiana Challenge" took the form of New Zealand-themed games, with each college having 6 teams. All the students were in a team and racing against their own teams to win points for their college. The first game was "Pictionary". In this game, a card with the name of something 'Kiwi' written on it was given to one member of each team. That person had to draw a picture and the rest of the team had to guess the original word. After several rounds of Pictionary, for the next game each team was given a lump of playdough. This time, team members had to guess what the word was from what their team member was creating out of the playdough. Next was "charades" where one person had to act out something "Kiwi" for his or her team. The "Kiwiana" items in these games included such things as rugby goalposts, a Kiwi, and bungy jumping. The last part of the competition was a quiz, in which the teams raced to answer 10 questions correctly. The questions included "What is the name of the tallest mountain in New Zealand?", "What is the population of NZ?", and "What is the name of the person on the 5 dollar note?"

After that came an activity to mix all the students together. Each student collected a piece of a jigsaw puzzle (again of something "Kiwi") and find the people with the other parts of the same puzzle. Once found, these people, a mixture of IPC and UCOL students, then formed a new group for the last activity of the evening. For this most interesting activity, each team had 15 minutes to make an outfit from newspaper and selotape, and be ready to explain why it was a suitable outfit for wearing in New Zealand. After quick brainstorming and with much laughter, each team chose a model and skilfully created their outfit. Maori traditional clothes and rugby uniforms were some of their design sources, as was the need for UV filter hats and umbrellas.

In the Fashion Show that followed, all the outfits were modelled on the stage and another person from each group explained the reasons for each part of the outfit. The winning design was chosen by a panel of judges including students and staff from both IPC and UCOL. This outfit was a Maori style skirt, complete with Poi-poi. Asuka Senoo (a new IPC student from Japan), who was the model for that team, performed a Maori dance on the stage and received a round of applause. "I didn't know how to dance (the Maori dance) but everyone taught me how to move. Before I had a chance to think what I was doing, the song had started so I had no choice but to dance. I couldn't stop laughing from the start till the end. I enjoyed it very much."

After the Fashion Show, came the presentation of the Kiwiana trophy. Although IPC students did their best to keep the trophy here, UCOL eventually won the competition by a narrow margin. Nevertheless, the competition gave all the students a chance to learn more about New Zealand, to make new friends and, the most important thing, to have fun. "It was a blast! Especially the Fashion Show. It was ridiculously funny," commented Amanda Rizka Putri Utari (a 2008 IPC student from Indonesia).

At the end of the evening, Moira Blake, one of the IPC staff members who organized the event, told the crowd, "You are likely to meet again in town. It would be great to be able to greet each other when you do - even if you can't remember names at first!"

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