FROM THE HEADMASTER

January is over. We've been back in school for three weeks and have two parent-teacher meetings, the opera and Young Scientist competition behind us. Now we look forward to the fund-raising Chess marathon and the much postponed first round of the Senior Cup season. The Juniors, with a bye to the second round don't face opposition until February 12th.

Also in January there were meetings of the Board of Management, the Finance committee and the inaugural meeting of the Parents' Council, which certainly seems to have a busy programme for the coming year. Mary FitzGerald, mother of lain of Transition Year, was elected Chairperson and John McLaughlin, father of Kevin of 5th Year, was appointed Hon Secretary.

The most exciting development of January was undoubtedly the result of the Young Scientist competition. David M O'Doherty of Fifth Year brought great honour to himself and to the College by winning the title of Esat Young Scientist 2002. He also brought great joy and excitement to the boys when we declared a half-day in his honour. We wish him continued success as he develops his work for the European competition. In all the excitement of David's success we mustn't lose sight of the victory of Cian Hughes and David O'Reilly Healy in the Junior Physical Sciences section where their project won no less than four awards and prizes which will include a two week visit to the US as guests of the Analog Devices corporation.

Since I last wrote to you in December we have also had the honour of having two members of the Senior Cup team represent Ireland in the Schoolboy's international against the visiting Australians. Ross McCarron (the Captain of Rugby) and Kevin McLaughlin have been a credit to their school, their trainers and their country.

OUR DAY HAS COME!

The 2002 Esat Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition was arguably the best ever. Well at least from Gonzaga's point of view. The amazing victory of David M. O'Doherty (Sen 5S) along with Cian Hughes and David 0' Reilly-Healy meant the Gonzaga contingent certainly had something to shout about. David and Cian's project, "E-Wave guided wheelchair", a remote computer controlled wheelchair claimed four awards including the Analog Devices special technology award, the Esat Best Junior group in Chemistry, Physics and Mathematical section, the best Junior Technology award and the best Group in the Chemistry, Physics and Mathematical section. David's project "The distribution of primes and the underlying order of chaos", a previously unsolved maths problem, won him the Esat Young Scientist of the Year award. He will represent Ireland in the European Young Scientist Exhibition in Vienna. We all wish David the very best in Vienna and hope to see more participation next year. We thank all three for the half-day we got in celebration!

Eamonn Lannoye, S3A