The Radford College oval was transformed into a predominantly dry regatta on Tuesday as the school celebrated completing its 2015 Reading Challenge.
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Junior school head Paul Southwell sets the annual challenge for the students to read a combined total of 1 million minutes, putting himself in the firing line if they achieve it.
A former Wallaby centre, Mr Southwell has thrown his dignity to the wind in the name of encouraging literacy many times before.
Over the past 12 years he has sat on the school roof dressed as a hippo (eating cake), immersed himself in a bath of jelly, walked two hours across Canberra dressed at the Gruffalo, been slimed, dunked and, horror of all horrors, been forced to wear an All Blacks jumper for a week.
This year, with a theme inspired by children's book Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen, the Radford students and their families built land boats and dressed as characters from the books, and then tackled an obstacle course on the oval.
Then water obstacles were added to increase the difficulty level, and Mr Southwell and Radford College principal Fiona Godfrey took to the course in their own "boats".
True to the story, Mrs Godfrey managed to sink the boat containing Mr Southwell and his team.
Next week is National Youth Week, and local Rachael Stevens is heading to Queensland to fly the flag for the ACT in the National Youth Awards.
The only Canberra finalist, Rachael has survived anorexia and child abuse, written a book, and has shared her story with hundreds of girls across Canberra.
She will be flown to Brisbane on April 16, and will be interviewed during the day before the presentation dinner at night.
"I'm a little bit nervous. I guess the strange part of it for me is all the things that have disqualified me in my life for doing anything are now some of the best things – hey're like gifts in my life. Being sick I felt like that disqualified me from doing anything that had meaning," she said.
"I've met the other applicants and they have amazing stories so it's probably a very hard thing to judge."
The author and artist said her nomination in the youth courage category was fitting.
"I really want to establish this organisation called 'encourage'. It's my dream to encourage young people and to stir courage in them so it would be completely fitting."
No matter the outcome on the night, the 23-year-old said she already feels like a winner.
"To be really honest I was surprised I lived past my 20th birthday. I remember getting sat down by a psychiatrist who said 'we would be surprised to see you make it past then'," she said.
"I thought just being well would be the biggest victory but being able to help other people is so rewarding."
As the weather gradually changes, Mother Nature has granted Canberra some beautiful sunsets, like this one snapped by Alex Petkovic of Bruce.
Alex's photo is one of the entrants in The Canberra Times' autumn photo competition, and amateur photographers still have lots of time to enter their pics with the competition open until May 31.
Competition entrants' photos have the chance of being published in The Canberra Times newspaper or on canberratimes.com.au.
Send a maximum of three photos to photocomp@canberratimes.com.au as attached JPEG files and include your name, address, phone number, photo title, a description of the photo and the date it was taken.
Photos must be at least 150 kilobytes to a maximum of one megabyte. Winners will take home a share of the $1000 prize.
- Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Easter.
- Don't forget daylight saving ends this weekend, with clocks going back an hour at 3am on Sunday morning. For those of you who get confused, this means an extra hour of sleep Saturday night, but the nights will get darker a lot faster. We can only hope it doesn't interrupt the Easter Bunny's delivery schedule.
- The Old Canberra Inn has new owners and is relaunching with the Rockabilly Relaunch. Live music from The Fuelers, The King Hits, Bad Luck Kitty and The Groove Kings. Plus retro markets in the beer garden with clothing, jewellery, accessories, homewares, limited edition posters, signage and men's grooming products. Free range pork belly rolls fresh off the spit and free popcorn. Saturday, April 11, 11am until late. The Old Canberra Inn, 195 Mouat Street Lyneham.
