THE VOICE
Robert Menzies College
Fourth Edition In this weeks edition... Block Wars
Election Results How to Play Chess Easter Festival
Editors Jennifer Good & Zoe Walters
Mar 2018
Contents Block Wars ....................................... Pg. 2 General Meeting Committee Election Results ............................................
Pg. 4
Ultimate Frisbee ..............................
Pg. 10
Earth Hour ......................................
Pg. 12
How to play Chess ........................... Pg. 6 World’s Greatest Shave .................... Easter Festival ................................. E Block Trivia ..................................
Introduction to the New College Counsellor ......................................
A Block Beach Day ........................... Humans of RMC ..............................
Calendar ......................................... Crossword ...................................... Wiretap ..........................................
Pg. 11 Pg. 14 Pg. 15 Pg. 16 Pg. 18 Pg. 19 Pg. 22 Pg. 23 Pg. 24
college activities are your life now Hey everyone! We hope you’ve been having a good few weeks. It’s definitely a busy time of the semester (if you’re not busy maybe check iLearn because this is peak first sem assessment time) and it goes quickly! There’s also a ton of college events coming up, we’ve been very busy making sure we attend them all! It’s been great to see everyone having lots of fun at the events and we’re sure this will continue throughout the semester. College events are always a good study break and good for stress relief so don’t forget to give yourself some time off!
Zoe & Jen
Block Wars
The scent of competition was thick in the air on Saturday morning as the residents of RMC emerged from their
blocks dressed to represent. With E block in black and
white, C block in yellow, D block in blue, B block in red and A block in green, it was clear everybody was ready to compete.
It was a busy morning with
balloon popping, cotton ball beard constructing, cake eating, tug
of war blisters and making lines
of clothes. The blocks competed to the best of their abilities and
although there’s only one winner, everyone made their RAs proud! Congrats to all the blocks and
all the residents who competed!
Particularly C Block who took home the trophy!
RMCSA GENERAL MEETING On Wednesday, all the residents came and gathered around hot chocolate and a few cookies for the General Meeting to elect committee members. These
were for Sports, Social, SVF, Cultural and CCM committees. We had a lot of
speeches that filled the room with laughter and assured us that all candidates would do a great job. Speaking in front of a full dining room is no easy feat
but everyone did an amazing job and you should all be proud of yourselves.
Congratulations to everyone that got a position, we are sure that you will do a
brilliant job. And thanks to Sophia for organising, running and promoting the GM!
Sports Committee You’ll see the sports committee getting everyone keen for
intercollege sports, the
next one is on the 8th of April and is Netball!
Cultural Committee
Look out for this committee on
International Night, they will be there
to organise it and make sure it all runs smoothly.
Social Committee
This committee’s main event is Ball but you’ll
CCM Committee
The Block captains work
with the RA’s to make great
block events and to keep up the block spirit. Stay tuned for your next block event!
also see them working hard for events like Harbour Cruise and Pub Crawls.
SVF Committee We’ve already seen this committee in
action at Earth Hour and what a great job they did! You’ll also see them
raising money at the Biggest Morning Tea.
How to Play Chess With exclusive advice from Andrew Holdsworth After a grueling 2 and a half years of competion, the offical score card between Andrew and Jonty stands at 74 games to Andrew and 31 games to Jonty with a total of 5 draws. This makes him the ideal man to give us some helpful pointers!
So this is how you set up a chess board - there’s a line of pawns in front of all the ‘slightly more useful’ pieces. The black queen will always start the match on a black square, and vice versa for the white queen. And in case you didn’t know - to win the game you have to capture the other player’s King piece.
The Pieces Pawns Rook
King
Queen Bishop
Knight
Check is a point in the game where a move has been made, which results in your King being captured on their next turn. When check happens, you have to move your King piece so that he is then out of harm when your opposition makes their move. Checkmate however, occurs when there is no move possible to get the King out of harm’s way; whichever way you move. This means the King he will be captured when your opposition makes their move, this means that the game is essentially over and that you have lost.
The Queen The Queen is probably the most powerful chess piece on the board. She can move in any straight line and for as many spaces as you need. This includes, diagonal lines, forwards, backwards for only one space, or for eight spaces! (Red lines). However, the Queen cannot move beyond a point if there is another piece in its way. In this occassion the queen would capture the piece in it’s way thus finishing your turn.
The Bishops The bishops are one of the more useful pieces on the board. They can move diagonally for as many or as little number of spaces as you please in both a forwards and backwards direction. The colour each of them starts the game on is the colour they must remain on for the game. This is indicated by the green lines. The bishops follow the same rule as the Queen, whereby if a piece is in it, is unable to move beyond it, and can instead choose to capture the piece or move to the space before it (indicated by the crossed out line).
The King The King on the other hand, is a very important piece, but doesn’t often come into play during the game because he can only move one space at a time, however he can move both backwards and forwards. (Blue lines)
The Castles The castles are very useful pieces in chess, they have the ability to move in straight lines for as many spaces as you choose. However, if a piece is blocking the way, the castle cannot move beyond but instead may capture the piece and move further next move.
The Knights The Knights have a different method of moving around the board. They can only move in a L-shape. The knights also have the ability to jump over other pieces and are the only pieces on the board that cannot be obstructed by other pieces in play. The knights also have the ability to move forwards and backwards.
The Pawns
The pawns can be valuable if used correctly. From their starting position, they can either move one or two spaces forward. However, once moved from their starting square they can only be moved one square at a time. When choosing to capture another piece the pawns can only attack in a diagonal line moving one square forward. Furthermore, pawns are the only pieces on the board that cannot be moved backwards. Once they reach the opposite end of the board, they can be replaced by another piece of your choice - whether this is a piece already on the board, or one that’s already been captured by the other player. I.e. if your queen is still on the board and one of your pawns reaches the end of the board, you can replace the pawn with another Queen and therefore have two Queens in play.
Some helpful advice from Andrew! Hey guys! Here are a few of the tips that have helped me over the years playing chess! Hopefully they can help you guys too! - Develop major pieces to protect the developing pawns in the middle of the board. - Try to control the centre of the board. - To control the centre of the board, use the pawns to attack and the knights and bishops to support the pawns. - General rule of thumb would be to try and castle fairly early in the game to protect the king. - Know the obscure rules like ‘en passent’ and rules involving catling on both sides of the King. - Develop the queen later in the game to use her powerful figure to your advantage to simplify the board. - Use bishops and knights to pin and fork pieces to your advantage respectfully. - Castling is when the king moves two places to the right or the left and the castle moves over the king to go to the spot next to the King, oppposite the corner it came from. It is the only move in the game where you can move two pieces during the one turn. It can only be done when the king and castle have not yet been moved in the game.
Ultimate Frisbee in the Sweltering Heat!
With a top of 40 degrees over the weekend, the RMC ultimate frisbee teams and their supportive sideline cheerleaders trekked out to the fields (in air-conditioned cars). Aside from a few minor injuries, our impressive players managed to survive the heat with the help of icy poles and an esky of ice. Although we didn’t win all our games, under Tim’s impressive coaching our girls team put up some great competition during their game and our boys team won against the Village. Well done to everyone who attended and to those players that battled the heat to represent RMC.
World’s Greatest Shave
Julian, Raman, Mark, Toby, Andrew, Mitch and Pat all worked to raise the money and got a range of colours and cuts for the cause!
Bonus Wiretap! Kyah *during Toby’s head shave*: “he’s going to look like a noodle!”
Over the past few weeks a group of RMC boys began raising money for the World’s Greatest Shave. What they didn’t expect was to get over 50 donations totalling over $2,200. Thanks to the immense support of all of the donations the boys coloured and shaved their heads reminding us all how important it is to support these organisations and make a little sacrific to help all those in need.
Earth Hour
An important event each year, Earth Hour is organised by the SVF committee and reminds us about the importance of minimising the electricity we use everyday and doing the most we can to conserve the environment in any little way we can! It was a lovely night, with food, music, pyjamas and company! Although Earth Hour is only from 8:30 - 9:30 PM, everyone continued enjoying the event until much later in the night!
CLIMATE CHANGE CONSERVE WATER
REDUCE WASTE
SAVE ENERGY
TRAVEL GREEN
CLEAN ENERGY
START SMALL
arth
Easter Festival! Who doesn’t love an Easter egg hunt and egg decorating?! With most people going home for the Easter long weekend, RMC RAs organised a week-early Easter Festival to spoil us with chocolate eggs as the Easter season approached! Working both as a study break and a study snack, the event was enjoyed by all the residents who searched for the eggs and attempted to work out Jonty’s anagrams.
For anyone curious, here are Jonty’s anagrams for the location of some eggs around college during the hunt: Yenfron St Ruradcececo Nitmend Shanacee Softal Dennar Wlab Fott Dertassre simence
Don’t forget that for anyone interested, the Trinity Chapel will be holding special services for Easter, one on Good Friday at 6:30PM and two on Easter Sunday at 10:00AM and 5:30PM.
Having Easter egg hunt withdrawals? We’ve hidden 11 Easter eggs throughout this issue for you to find and don’t pretend you didn’t love doing these as a kid!
E Block Trivia and Ubar Pizza Night Showing a clear love for trivia, E block attended a second trivia based event this week! However, this time it was at Ubar and was combined with pizza and a few drinks with friends. A huge number of E block residents came out and enjoyed the night, clearly hungry for some great pizza, good company and challenging trivia. Although it took a little while to get into it, the teams smashed the general knowledge category with one group even getting 10/10.
An Introduction to our New RMC Councellor Meredith Wagstaff Living on campus whilst studying at University brings so many wonderful opportunities and can present some daunting challenges at the same time. Having lived on campus myself as Uni student, I understand first hand many of the issues that might influence your sense of wellbeing, the effectiveness of your studies, relationships and overall experience at RMC. I spent several years at the Women’s College whilst studying Arts Law at Sydney University, and after a wonderful career in law, retrained and now work with young adults to enhance their personal and academic
effectiveness. Topics that regularly come up include stress and anxiety, depression, procrastination and motivation, relationship concerns, identity issues, traumatic experiences, grief, homesickness, sleep, substance abuse, porn etc‌ As the new RMC Counsellor, I want to help you get the most out of College life.
I am available on Tuesdays from 10am6pm for confidential drop-in chats or appointments and will be running some talks during semester on popular topics. You can contact me by email: Meredith. wagstaff@rmc.edu. nsw.au.
IS A SAFE ZONE FOR ALL LGBTQI+
We are all ALLIES Â For more info visit the ALLY Network at MQ
A Block Beach Day
A block headed out to the beach with high hopes that it wouldn’t rain and lucky for them it was a beautiful day. With the long trek out to Manly Beach, they were rewarded with the beautiful view of the beach. The day was spent lounging around in the sun and swimming in the cool water. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the nice break away from studying.
Update on the puzzle: The puzzle has been completed after many long nights trying to work out where the pieces go, who knew there were so many different shades of pink in ice-creams! A block was rewarded with a variety of flavours of ice-cream for all of their hard work.
Humans of RMC
Sydney is a mixture of all of them put together especially since the weather is so bipolar!
What do you study? And what is your favourite part of your degree? I am a Business Communication
Major with a Minor in Film & Media
Human #5 Darian Adriano
What is your favourite memory of RMC so far? This question is really hard for me
Productions. My favorite part
about my major and my minor is that it’s what I love!
I love communicating and getting
to know people, and I love movies, editing, and vlogging. So it’s a perfect combination.
to answer because RMC has given
What other event would you like
remember them or not is another
year? And what has been your
me so many memories... whether I question. From meeting the execs to Scav Hunt, my time at RMC has
to see happen at college this favourite event so far?
been a great experience.
FRIENDSGIVING!!!!!! I LOVE IT!!! IT’S
Where are you from? Does it
KEEN FOR IT!!!!!!!!!! Actually.... let’s
differ a lot to Sydney/ Australia? I was born in Woodlands, Texas...
GOING TO HAPPEN!!! I’M SUPPER
call it MATESGIVING! Yes.. this is happening.
moved to Alpharetta, Georgia....
My favorite even was the Harbor
moved to Phoenix, Arizona... and
really hydrated. S/O to Tom.
moved to Dallas, Texas... then
now I live in Weston, Florida, but
go to school in Tempe, Arizona. I KNOW IT’S CRAZY!
Cruise because I stayed..um...
What’s an interesting fact about you? That’s easy! I vlogg ( S&D Videos)... I have a dog named Almond. And... I AM VERY SINGLE.
Darian’s message to society: Don’t be afraid to be who
you are because who you are is better than
Human #6 Daniel Williams
who you are not.
What is your favourite memory of RMC so far? O Week would be the easy answer; there
was just so much packed into one week. But to pick one thing, I’ve gotta say the
Pub Crawl: it was an amazing night. I got to talk to so many different people that I hadn’t met before, and it really allowed
To Check out Darians vlog check out his youtube - S&D Videos!
me to get to properly know so many of the
people here at RMC that I talk to daily. Plus when the Breaking Free remix came on for
the High School Musical night at Side Bar... I’m so glad there aren’t any videos of that. Where are you from? Does it differ a lot to Sydney / Australia? I’m from Boambee, which is about 10
minutes from Coffs Harbour. Although Coffs definitely isn’t ‘small’, it’s got
nothing on Sydney; this city is massive.
But I do like the fact that almost anything
you could need is within the Holy Trinity of
RMC, the uni, and the Mac Centre. It makes
reminder.
more manageable. I’ve never really been a
My creativity for making up new events
bit outside of the bustle is perfect; but if
another Scav Hunt now that I know most of
everything feel a little smaller and a little huge fan of large city centres, so being a things ever need to be spiced up a little, the public transport is right there.
What do you study? And what is your favourite part of your degree?
is basically zero, but I would love to do
the people around college, and how their personalities are. Having a second go of those challenges with good friends now would be awesome.
What’s an interesting fact about you? I’m doing a double degree studying
Law and International Studies. I love the
I was born on Halloween in Hammersmith,
French, but the absolute highlight would
were working there at the time. Also, if
language that I’m studying, which is
have to be my INTS101 unit, which is
called Asia in the Global Context. I enjoy going to lectures so much because the
convenor makes all the content so easy
which is an area of London, as my parents I had been born a girl, my parents had
already decided that my name would have been Katherine.
to follow, and the topics are all studying
cultures in lesser known parts of the world, which is great to find out about. I try not to be too late to these classes!
What other event would you like to see happen at college this year? And what has been your favourite event so far? The C block games night, Block Wars, and the Intercollege sports events (which I
get far too into) are all up there, but the
Scav Hunt night wins out for me. Shoutout to Kate for shaving my head and waxing
Don’t forget! If you want to be a Human
haven’t checked in a while, I think that
of the editors and we’ll happily send you
that cross into my chest, and although I that particular wax strip is still stuck to
the table under the tree in the centre of the courtyard, which is always a great
of RMC all you have to do is contact one
the questions and feature you in our next issue!
Monday
26 The Voice Edition 4 RMC Forum
28
Wednesday
29
Thursday
30 Good Friday
Friday
31
Saturday
MARCH 2018
Tuesday
27
Saturday
Sunday
Sunday
7
8 Intercollege Sports (Netball) 15
Friday
APRIL 2018 6
14
22
Thursday
5 International Night
13
21
29
Wednesday
4
12
20
28
Tuesday
11
19
27
Monday
10
18
26
1 Easter Sunday
9 The Voice Edition 5 17
25 ANZAC DAY
3
16 Mid-Semester Break
24
2 Easter Monday
23
30 MQ Uni Classes Resume
THE VOICE CROSSWORD
#1
So here it is. The first Voice Crossword! Across
Down
4. RMC rabbits
1. B block colour
7. Busters’ dog
2. RMC’s logo
8. Year RMC opened
3. Sixth RMC Master
11. Number of RA’s
5. RMC’s fortnightly mag
12. Andersons’ dog
6. The Dean’s favourite author
13. RMC cat
9. Number of student exec
14. E block colours
...members
15. Maintenance manager
10. C block colour
18. Church attached to RMC
16. First RMC Master
19. Years in a row we’ve won
17. Winners of Block Wars
....dance-off 20. D block colour 21. A block colour
Mark: *talking about D Block captaincy* “Justice is milkshakes motherf***er”
Tom: “What kind of guys do you like?” Lauren C: “ 1. Not a dick. 2. Has a dick.”
Sarah T: “The pizza has so much powder stuff on it?” Julian: “Ummm...the flour...?”
Matt: *referring to fairy bread* “It’s going to be furry by the time I’m done with it”
Jake B: “Are you a three legged moose?” Lydia: “These are just some sad people who have to wash their butt rag.”
Darian: “Mozzies keep biting me but I’m kinda into it.”
THE Wiretap Sarah H: “One time I got a cold on the first day of summer...I should be getting a warm not a cold!”
*Jarrod, Tami and Emily squished on a S3 two person lounge* Jarrod: “Gotta love these three seater lounges”
Darian: “I was expecting everyone in Australia to look like a version of Chris Hemsworth, but it’s not like that...” Zoe W: “What are you talking about? Clearly I look like him!”
Jeremy A: “Now I actually have to start studying... I’m going to watch this exorcism video first, it seems interesting.”
Cindy: “Karl and Jackie-O. Ohhh wait, Karl is on Sunrise.”
Annonymous: “Just need to get a stick and stab you”
Mar 16 - MaR 26 Michael: “Trust me, life isn’t like GTA. You can’t just use your prostitutes and then shoot them. I’ve tried it myself and it didn’t work.”
Sam D: “Put your mouth on it Ramen.”
Tyla: “Try before you buy” Mark to Emily *exasperated*: “Do you wanna just play with my jelly?”
Jack H: “Do you want to just do a three-way?” Mark and Samuel: “Yeah sweet!”
Darian talking to Jack H: “We can work with just one nipple.”
Tyla: “So how many quarters are we playing?”
Jake B: “I’d love to be a snuggie.”
Dean: “Darian’s got this cake eating contest, he’s American. Oi Darian, just pretend there’s oil under the cake!”
Hannah: “how much milk do you want?” Tyla: “I trust you.” Hannah: “wtf no, why would you say that.”
Raman quoting Julian: “Take off your pants and get in.”
Hannah: “I lowkey have a fetish for colouring in”
Jen: “I want to impeach someone in government...it’ll be fun”
Cindy: “Operation take my bra off”
Share your voice! Are you a creative soul and want to contribute to The Voice?
Send through your work as a message to our Facebook page or submit it annonymously to one of the editors! Any contributions are
accepted - drawings, poems, stories, articles etc. And don’t forget any to send in any funny submissions to the Wiretap.
If you want to be featured in the Humans of RMC section, let us know and we will interview you!
Or feel free to talk to one of the editors Zoe Walters (A207) or
Jen Good (A203)