Owen Short

In my role as a Gap Tutor I was involved in all aspects of school life at a co-educational boarding school for Years 4-8. I lived and worked in the boarding house and was involved in pastoral care and boarding activities. I worked in the classroom with students and teachers, was heavily involved in the outdoor education programme, taught and assisted with PE lessons and clubs, coached sports teams, and performed general admin work and odd jobs. It was a life-changing job and it taught me so much about myself and others, I particularly got a lot out of the pastoral care and coaching which influenced my choice of study. I gained a lot of experience, and it furthered my passion for helping and working with people.

Towards the end of my working full-time at Waihi, the school started to develop plans to expand the outdoor education programme, improving the experience within the school curriculum and also to expand it to holiday programmes, for both Waihi students and those from other schools. I have been involved in planning that aspect, and in planning and running multiple 3-day holiday programmes (some overnight, some 8am-5pm) since the 2022/23 summer holidays and in each school holidays since. This job requires a huge amount of passion, knowledge, risk management, and awareness as we try to enable children of various age and experience levels in the outdoors to push their boundaries and adventure outdoors, as well as learn about themselves and key survival skills.

Since 2023 I have coached Year 7/8 hockey at St. Margaret's College, taking one training session and one game per week. Initially I coached the B team and now I coach the A team, including in interschool fixtures.. This job requires a lot of passion, communication skills (both with the students and school contacts, as a contractor rather than a full-time school employee) and obviously the knowledge base to coach hockey. I have greatly enjoyed my time in this role.

Over the past two summers I have worked as part of the Front of House team at the South Canterbury Ale House, which operates the Speight's Ale House and Street Food Kitchen restaurants, with most of my time spent in the former. This was a dynamic job which saw me working behind the bar, performing table service, attending the front desk, as well as various manual tasks around opening and closing the restaurant and bar, setting up the restaurant for events and bookings, handling and moving of stock, and more as the job required. This job required communication skills - both with other members of the team and with customers - organisational skills, being proactive and self-driven at times when all hands were on deck, and attention to detail responsibility (particularly around opening and closing the restaurant), and lots of energy over busy summer seasons of various events!

As part of my degree I am currently working as an intern for the Mainland Tactix, a netball team participating in the ANZ Premiership, the highest tier of netball competition in New Zealand. I work under the team's Performance Analyst and am responsible for filming home games for the Tactix and Mainland Netball (the development team), attending review and scout sessions, coding games from around the Premiership, and working on other projects for the team. This role has required working in a team environment in a high-performance context, being responsible for my own work and travel and following instructions in a flexible schedule. This role is giving me a new level of experience both in the context of my degree and also the elite level of execution and expectations of this kind of outfit.

While at high school I had a weekend and holiday job working in a café in Orari. This involved working in a team, and communication and organisational skills. I worked on front of house, serving and clearing tables, doing dishes, making smoothies and milkshakes and occasionally helping cook. I also helped maintain the mini-golf course.