MBA Blog

MBA 34 have landed – it’s the end of the first week of Orientation here for the new crew and what a brilliant week it’s been!!

We started out with a traditional Maori welcome called the Mihi whakatau, I can’t say the singing was terribly impressive but it was a great way to meet everyone and welcome you to our home.

We’ve had visiting academic Julia Richardson here from York University in Toronto, Canada giving them a taste of life in the classroom but of course it’s not only academic here.

To live up to our adventurous reputation we packed the team up and headed out on the Taieri River for a day of rafting with Wild Earth.
Leaving the city amidst heavy rain and gray skies, it’s fair to say that the team looked cold and worried. But, true to Dunedin, by the time we’d hit the Taieri plains the weather was clearing.

The Taieri Challenge consists of four events and a raft race. I’m proud to say that my team (Yellow) won the events and it had nothing to do with the fact that I’d done the Challenge the year before with the 33ers…
I was very glad however, not to be hoisted up to retrieve the buoy this time (the memories from last year are still very vivid).

Everyone put in a brilliant effort and it was great to see Cindy overcome her fear of heights jumping off the rocks for her team!

Once the points had been tallied and the winners announced we had some free time to mess about on the river and cause some chaos.

I think I must have been gloating a little too much about Yellow team’s victory when the words “there are no rules now, anything goes and it’s on!” were whispered in my ear as we headed for our rafts.

The Taieri Challenge is certainly a highlight of the Orientation programme and there’s certainly no better way to get to know the Manager of the programme than tackle her into the water (according to Patty anyway)!

Welcome to New Zealand, welcome to Dunedin, welcome to the Otago MBA at the University of Otago and welcome to the team guys,

We’re going to have a brilliant time!!

Chris