Letter+Writing+Replies

**Read our letter replies from NZ Male Role Models** 

For the last four weeks of Term 1 we did a writing unit on letter writing in the Boys Class. First we learnt how to write a high quality letter. Then we each chose some male rolemodels that we would like to write to. We brainstormed male rolemodels and then brainstormed what we would like to tell them about ourselves and what we would like to find out from them. Each boy chose 2 of their brainstormed male role models and began writing their letters! Every boy published, enveloped, stamped and addressed at least one letter and some of the fast finishers managed to publish 2. Mr McBride posted the letters (and emailed those which we couldn't find street addresses for) at the start of the first week of the school holidays. We received our first reply on the Friday of the school holidays and have been receiving letters at random as the year has gone on! They are pasted below and as we receive each reply it will be added to this page!

Also below is the video we have made to send to each role model that writes back to thank them for their reply.

media type="youtube" key="89LAh8XI5Ts" height="344" width="425"

** //Dear Josh// //Many thanks for your recent letter which I thought was very well written. It was full of interesting information about// //yourself.
 * 1st reply: Blyth Tait - Josh Whittaker

You asked how I got started with my riding. Well it was when my family shifted to a small farm in Whangarei when I was 10 years old. My parents bought a pony for me and my two sisters to share. I always enjoyed it but got really keen once I joined the pony club. There were lots of other kids there and I really liked the competition side of riding, whether it was games, show jumping or eventing. (I was never very keen on dressage!!) I quickly decided that I wanted to make a career of riding and always dreamed of going to the Olympics.

Of course it took a lot of hard work and sacrifice to get to the Games but I never gave up on my dreams and now feel very proud to have achieved my goals of winning medals for New Zealand.//

//I still have Ready Teddy here at my farm in Karaka. He is now 22 years old and is enjoying his retirement in the paddock

Good luck with your riding. If you are keen then you should keep going and you to might represent New Zealand one day. Just work hard, play fair and enjoy your sport//

//Best wishes

Blyth Tait//

**2nd reply: Jerome Ropati - Josh Katene** //Dear Joshua,//

//Thank you for your letter and for supporting me and my team the Vodafone Warriors. I am glad that you enjoy watching us play and that you too play rugby league. I think it's neat that you wear the same number jersey as me - number four. Just// //to answer some of your questions://

//1. If I didn't play for the Warriors I would have liked to have played for the Brisbane Bronco////s. This is because they are a great team with some great players. I also have family who live in Brisbane.

2. Tips for being a good centre is really to train hard in doing the basics well. That means working on your defense, passing, fend and sidestep. The more you practise these the better you will become.

3. If I wasn't a league player I would have liked to have been a civil engineer. These are the people who help design and construct roads, bridges, dams and buildings.

I wish you and your team the Halswell Hornets all the best for your season, and hopefully we will see you play for the Warriors one day. Remember to give your best in everything you do - whether it's at home, at school or on the rugby league field. If you do that then that is something you can truly be proud of.

Hopefully one day myself and the team can come down to Christchurch to visit you and your school. Thank you once again for your support.

Kind regards,

Jerome Ropati from the Vodafone Warriors//

//Dear Cameron
 * 3rd reply: Conrad Smith - Cameron Mulvey **[[image:smith_conrad_d.jpg align="right"]]

Thank you very much for your letter and its very flattering for you to think of me as a role model.

I like the sound of your "boys only class". I also went to a co-ed primary school but I remember I couldn't wait to start at my intermediate where it was all-boys!

Like you I also like reading, it is especially useful to me because we spend a lot of time travelling between rugby games, and reading is a great way to pass time on airplanes and at airports. My favourite book now is probably Captain Correlli's Mandolin, but my favourite book at school was one called "The Machine Gunners"....I reckon you should get Mr McBride to make your class read it.

As for your other questions, my favourite sport when I was little was pretty much anything. I played soccer and cricket when I was young, but always loved playing rugby with my brothers, and I usually enjoyed every sport I got involved in, including running, tennis, volleyball, basketball, softball, golf and hockey.

I can't really remember any role models I had when growing up. I know I loved watching John Kirwan and Micheal Jones play rugby, and I was lucky to have a really close family so I always looked up to my Dad and especially my oldest brother Nathan, who could do everything better than me but was always keen to help me out.

I hope that answers your questions and I hope you are still allowed to support the Hurricanes down in Crusader country!

Thanks again, Conrad Smith//


 * 4th reply: Nesian Mystik - Jack Allatt **[[image:http://www.nesian-mystik.com/images.php?oid=665 align="right"]]

//Hi Jack!

Sorry this has taken a while for us to get back to you, but weve been really busy.

First of all, my name is Heath and I am the DJ in the group.Thanks heaps for emailing us, it really means a lot to us that people are out there listening to our music.

Your class sounds pretty sweet, man wish we had a bball hoop for our rubbish, let alone a boxing bag in our school days.

Amongst all of us there are a whole lot of role models and inspirations....

I know that all of us grew up loving Bob Marleys music. Its really melodic and always has a message. He has a song called " Natural Mystic ", and thats actually where half of our name came from.

Another inspiration is Michael Jordan. Other than being an amazing player, he worked really hard to get there. As a child he would always be the last to get picked when him and his friends would play, basically because he wasnt good. So he worked at it until he eventually became great. On top of that most of us loved playing basketball, and still try to play sometimes lol.

There are so many more, that I cant fit all on one page, even people who arent famous, that just inspire us to keep working, keep an open mind, and just try to be good to people.

As for starting the band, the boys ( Junior, Awa, Donald, and David) first competed in the 1999 (10 years ago yikes!) smokefree rockquest as the Tropical Penguins. They didnt end up getting anywhere. The next year in 2000, I joined and we decided to give the rockquest another run, this time as Nesian Mystik. We ended up coming 3rd in the overall, and went on to record our songs. Feleti joined at the end of 2000, and thats been us ever since.

As for favorite things to do, I can say all of us love music! Love making it, listening to it, performing it. Sports wise, we love BBall, League, Rugby, Touch, Grid Iron, Volleyball, Tennis, Lawn Bowls.... We like a whole lot of sports, maybe except for swimming, none of us are really too good at that. Video games is a big one, driving games and sports games. We also love watching movies, and just kidding around hangin with our mates, and family.

Well I hope I answered your questions Jack, make sure U give a shout out to your class and your teacher for us, if were ever around your way hopefully we can drop in.

All the best,

Heath and the Nesians!//

**5th reply: Tim Bateman - Anaru Streeter** //

Hi there Anaru!

Thanks alot for the letter mate it was a pleasant surprise opening my locker after training this morning and reading your extremely well written letter(A+ if it was up to me!)

What a great idea... writing to role models, I am really stoked that you chose me!// //It feels a bit strange to be honest that someone out there might look up to me in some way... well I hope I don't let you down!

Thats great to hear you play rugby too mate, sport is such a precious thing, it teaches you alot about yourself, others and life in general. You mentioned that you are having lots of fun too, thats just awesome.

Right, your questions. Well, when it come to friends in the crusaders I am pretty lucky because all of the guys get along really well, thats probably why the team has been so successful over the years. I hang out mostly with colin slade, hamish gard and steve brett and get along really well with casey laulala too. Wyatt Crockett is a great guy but not the best room mate when we are on tour because he snores the house down! Don't tell anyone that though!

I do like playing in the midfield, I probably prefer second five-eight (number 12) because you seem to be more involved in the game than at centre.

We train for probably about 20hours a week, it's pretty cool really, we get to play rugby all day! We also get to travel to some really cool places and have a lot of fun along the way.

Sorry for the late reply but I only recieved your letter today as we have been in south africa for the last month. I hope everything goes really well for you Anaru and thanks again for your letter.

Take care,

Tim Bateman//

**6th reply: Martin Guptill - Sam Lawson**

 //Dear Sam,

Sorry it has taken so long for me to reply to your letter. I've been really busy with my build up to the T20 World Cup. We arrived in London this morning (about 11am England time, which is about 10pm NZ time). I spent the first three weeks of my build up training indoors at Eden Park, while also doing weights work & fitness work outside of that.

Last week I spent in Brisbane, Australia with Neil Broom, Brendan Diamanti and Nathan McCullum training outdoors on grass wickets. This turned out to be a vital step in our preparation! Was so good to be training outside in good weather! I think we had temperatures in the mid twenties all week!

To answer your questions, when I was growing up, I looked up to Chris Cairns. Back then i was an all rounder!! Then when I got a little bit older, I started looking up to Nathan Astle. When I was at the NZ Cricket Academy in 2005, I got to play with Nathan and Chris when they filled in to make up our numbers. I got to bat with Nathan which was just awsome.

My favourite cricket bat is the Kookaburra Kahuna. I currently have 6 bats over here with me for the world Cup!

Outside of cricket, I like to watch league. I am a huge warriors fan! I will also occasionally watch a game of rugby.

Yours sincerely//

Martin Guptill

**7th reply: Dom Harvey - Josh Hales**

//Hi Josh!

Thanks heaps for the letter mate! I'm glad you listen to The Edge and like the show we put on. I will gladly answer your questions

WHAT'S IT LIKE WORKING WITH YOUR WIFE? It is great. I sure would not reccommend it to everyone. When we started we had no idea if we could do it or not but we agreed to give it a shot and it has worked out well. Sometimes you get a bit sick of each other (but not often). She is an incredibly person and must be very tolerant (because I am not the easiest person to work with at times!)

WHAT'S MIKE LIKE IN PERSON? Mike is one of my best friends and one of the nicest, most genuine people I know. Mike is the sort of guy that you can call at 2 in the morning if you need someone to talk to and he will drop whatever he is doing to give a mate a hand. I have worked with him for the past 4 years and I can probably count on 1 hand the amount of blow-outs we have had.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK? I love reading and own thousands of books (I even have shelves built at home to store them in- sort of like a little library. I cannot pin point 1 absolute favourite for you but 1 book I have read recently and loved was "Ultra marathon man" by Dean Karnazes. This guy runs in races that are 200km long! He often trains by running right through the night. He takes his cellphone and credit card and orders pizza's on the go which he rolls up and eats as he runs.

Cheers Josh. I hope this helps. Nice work on the letter writing and thanks for picking me as a male role model. I have been called many things before but never a role model!

Have a great life dude!

Dom Harvey The Edge Morning Madhouse//


 * 8th reply: Mr Walker - Kusal Ekanayake** [[image:chriswalkerpic.jpg width="177" height="238" align="right"]]

//Hello Kusal,

Great to hear from you!

I am so pleased to hear that you are having a great time in the "boys class". I have heard lots of fantastic things about it.

At the moment I am in the United Arab Emirates in a town called Al Ain which is about 1 1/2 hours drive (that is, when you drive to the speed limit of around 130km - which is really fun!) from Dubai. I am working here in 3 schools as an I.C.T Advisor. My job is to work with their teachers and give them lots of new ideas and ways to teach their children using computers.

It is amazing living here in the Middle East. At the moment the temperatures are about 45 degrees every day and even at night it will not get less that 25 degrees! Now that is hot!!!!!

I have not ridden a camel yet but I definitely intend to before I finish my contract here on July 2nd.

When I finish here I am flying back to New Zealand for a months holiday. I hope that I can pop in and visit you all at some stage over that time!

After that I am going to be flying out to India in the first week of August. I am volunteering in an orphanage for children who have Aids in Pondicherry which is on the SE coast of India. I am going to be helping out in the orphanage and teaching the children there English. It will be a really new and exciting experience and I can't wait to start!

Say hello to all the boys for me. I hope to see you all in the not to distant future!

Keep working hard and enjoying school!!!!!

Mr Walker :-)//

 **9th reply: Andy Ellis - Michael Loveridge **

//Hi Michael

Thanks very much for your awesome letter. I am very honored that you chose me as your role model and am more than happy to answer your questions.

I really love playing for my city. I grew up in Christchurch and use to go to all of the Canterbury games when I was young so am proud to now be a crusader!

I feel awesome when I score a try. All of the crowd is screaming because they are so happy and my team mates all pat me on the back.

I think the toughest team we have played this year were the Blue Bulls in South Africa. They have a really big forward pack that run really hard. Also the crowd over in South Africa really gets behind them.

Our team works really well together. We all respect each other and value each others opinions. We are also very good mates which makes hanging out all the time great fun.

Yes I do love to read books and also magazines. We are always traveling with rugby so it’s a great way to fill in time while sitting on planes for ages!!! My favourite book is the Da Vinci Code and I love all sports magazines.

I was very proud to make the All Blacks. It was like all my dreams came true and all of my friends and family were so happy!!

I love almost all sports. When I’m not playing rugby then I’m usually playing Cricket, golf, soccer, squash, indoor netball and any other sport you can think of. I also love going fishing.

Thanks again for your letter Michael. I have put in my training beenie and singlet.

Cheers mate

Andy Ellis //**

10th reply: Dan George - Michael Nieper ** //Nieper!

My long lost mate from OSCAR! It's good to hear from you and an honour to be classed as a male role model. Your class sounds awesome and I bet Mr McBride has the ship sailing pretty smoothly with you boys onboard. I've seen your class and it looks mean as! My class is pretty sweet, I've chucked up heaps of movie posters and sports shirts over the walls so it's looking pretty sharp.

It's great to hear you guys are into your reading, my class is too. I haven't read Twilight but I saw the movie. You should read a book called City of Ember, I can't remember who the author is but it's a good one and it has an equally good sequel.

I don't really have any super fast kids in my class but there is one boy in Year 6 who is the seventh fastest for his age in New Zealand. I reckon he'd give you a good run for your money!

Anyway, I better go mate, I've been in Samoa on holiday for the last week and my flight back home is just about to leave.

All the best Nieper, thanks for writing.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel George.// 11th reply: Brad Thorn - Cameron Cleave **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center; display: block;">

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> //Brad Thorn rang Oaklands school on the last Wednesday of Term 2 and said he received a letter from Cameron earlier in the term and has been meaning to find some time to come in and meet the class. He asked when would be a good time for a visit and i told him he could name the time and we would be make it avaliable! His quote was "I've got to drop the kids at kindy tomorrow at 9am and I have All Black scrum training at 10:30, how about 9:15?". We locked in the time and Brad turned up the next day with his AB's jersey from the last game to show us and talked to us about his life. He was our first male role model to reply in person to a letter and it was a fantastic way to finish the term! Below are some pictures of the morning.//

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center; display: block;">

<span style="display: block; text-align: left; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">