Not to be outdone, Seb and Harun played with Bays United U18 Silver Soccer team

With APs and finals around the corner, our Bolton Penguins are getting down to business with their studies during prep.

During our house meeting, we gave out a handful of Bolton pins for those who best exemplify the Bolton values inside and outside of the house. Ian, Inaki, Christian and Bradley were all given theirs for their work in the SMUS Art Show a few weeks back and Cesar was awarded the Bolton pin for “sweeping the sheds” – something that is preached during every meeting. Well done Penguins!

Rockin’ and Rollin’ Down South! Interview from our Musical Virtuoso about their trip to Cuba

Hayes and Peter were part of the School’s band trip down to Cuba over spring break! Peter, the guitarist, and Hayes, saxophone extraordinaire, were two of 42 students who took part in the trip.

What were your first impressions of Cuba?

Hayes: Super hot! The beautiful weather just hits you as you come off the plane!

Peter: The culture was very unique! It was odd at first not to see some of the daily items you would see everywhere in Canada.

How many schools did you visit?

Peter: We visited two schools!

Hayes: And one community centre!

Peter: We would play for about 35 minutes or 5 songs and then watch them

How were they?

Hayes: They were great – super gifted! They didn’t even need to look at their sheets of music

Any favourite moments?

Peter: Loved the beaches and lounging by the ocean!

Hayes: I really liked seeing the streets and all the retro cars!

Final question – Would you travel with Mr. Fryer again??

Peter: Oh ya would do it again!

Hayes: I guess.

With the end of the term and an extended spring break upon us, the Bolton Penguins show how well-rounded we can be!

Max was feeling like a homecooked meal so he made himself some spaghetti; while Hanson and Darren made and sold their specialty grilled cheese sandwiches for their business class!

Declan and the Grade 9 basketball team placed 5th in the province at the provincial championships! They even had the energy to cheer on the Senior Girls basketball team in the finals of their provincials.

Always giving a helping hand, Savo, along with Martin, Nokia, and Seb, helped the senior rugby team to a few wins over the week! Savo was also the most recent recipient of the Bolton Pin!

The rest of the week flew by as it was the end of term four. This meant a lot of studying, tests and some much needed rest over the weekend. This Monday is the beginning of term five and Friday marks the beginning of spring break. Students will be heading all over the world! Many going straight home or visiting family nearby and some are going on a music trip to Cuba. We wish everyone a safe, positive, and relaxing break! We will see you back in April.

This week was full of studying and test preparation for some and the mountain for others!

Luckily Teigan was one of those who escaped the exams and enjoyed the fresh powder on Mount Washington!

Last week, some of our very own Bolton Penguins, Josh and Leupold, came to Mr. Bell’s Grade 3 class to talk about their Lunar New Year celebrations from across the world. The third graders were so excited to have boarding students in the class!

Nokia is the VERY deserving recipient of the Bolton Pin! He has exemplified what Bolton stands for – Brotherhood, Honour, Service – and has done so for 6 years (must be a record!)

We have been VERY lucky with the weather lately! So lucky, in fact, that the Grade 9s decided to explore other regions of our province on their Out Trips!

Cesar and Inaki enjoying some camping! While others explored Kelowna and the Pacific Ocean!

Christian explored the West coast with the help of a trusty Grade 12 – Harun!

Speaking of Harun! He played an important role in the senior soccer team – Just look!

Soccer was clearly on our mind with the upcoming house games coming up! The penguins set up a fifa tournament in the foyer!

House Games!!

And as we do every week, we ended the weekend with a house meeting! We had a few things to celebrate during the meeting – a birthday and the first Bolton pin being awarded!

With a new year upon us we are so excited to welcome all of the new and returning students into Bolton House!

Some of our Grade 12s – Jeremy, Joshua, Sebastian, Michael, Nokia, Ernest, Harun and Justin – helping make the house look all festive before our new boarders arrive!

Once everyone arrived it was time for some name games!

Returning students from Bolton and the neighbouring house Timmis got together to teach our boarding routines!

Finished off the day with a great soccer game

Ya for beach day!

Looking sharp for the first day of school!

Hi everyone! My name is Mr. Bell and I am very excited to be entering my fourth year in the Bolton House and seventh year as a House Parent with SMUS!

I was born and raised in Victoria and grew up just minutes from the St. Michaels campus. I teach grade 3 at the SMUS Jr. School down in Oak Bay and have coached basketball and volleyball at the SMUS for the past six years. I also love to play lacrosse and explore the island in my spare time! I am looking forward to an exciting and successful year in Bolton House!

We are at the final weekend of the school year with only a handful of days remaining. This week had the start of goodbyes and many events for the grads and those who will be returning. We want to thank everyone in Bolton House for a wonderful year, hope everyone has a great summer and returns fresh in the Fall.

Everything has been winding down including many sports that are coming to their conclusion.

Krissh and Dylan went with the tennis team to Vancouver for the provincial championship. SMUS had a challenging tournament, but finished with a bronze!

The rowing team headed to St. Catherines, Ontario for nationals. Malik was there representing Bolton House and won two national championships!

We had a meeting on Monday night to say goodbye to two from Bolton, Adam who has served us well as our head of house over this year, and Eric who were both given Bolton mugs as a gift for joining us over the recent years.

Monday also saw Mr. Turner host all the athletes who had played in a provincial tournament in terms 2 or 3 for a pizza lunch. It was great to see so many Bolton boys in the mix, what a year!

If pizza wasn’t enough, Monday was also the annual ice cream day started by Mr. Symons back in 1931! Read about the history of this fun event here https://www.smus.ca/news/the-history-of-ice-cream-day.

It was also Spirit week at the Senior School with Keep the Beat, fun activities and great outfits on display.

Tuesday night was the Athletics Banquet featuring all the senior teams from the year. Congrats to all the athletes on a fantastic year of athletics and sportsmanship.

The Grade 12 rugby players were also presented with an Alumni jersey as a final wrap up to the season. It was great having them sacrifice so much time and energy to support the program, especially Louis who started back in grade 8!

This Saturday we celebrated the annual tradition of setting up a giant slip n’ slide down the hill in front of the Wenman Pavilion. There was a little apprehension at first, but nearly the entire house took a chance to experience the big slide.

Also, there were volleyball nets and spikeball set up to have fun on the field. The weather finally cooperated for everyone to enjoy the day outside.

Later that night we had a BBQ and everyone got an ice cream from an ice cream truck which was a big hit. Jason especially enjoyed his as you can see below.

As people began cleaning their rooms it was amazing the things that were found. Kenneth found himself stuck in the office when the face masks came out and like the good sport he is he agreed to try it out.

Amid all the celebrations and packing, there were still academic courses taking place with many final exams and projects. Here is some proof!

The final weekend wrapped up with the Bolton House farewell speeches and the final Boarding Chapel. This year we say goodbye to Malte and Noah heading back to Germany, Jeronimo going home to Mexico and Kaz heading back to the USA. We have 14 grads heading off to schools all over North America and we wish them all our very best. We know that they are destined for great things and look forward to hearing of their exploits and to hopefully seeing them again on campus when they come back to visit.

Congratulations to Malik for winning the Robert Common Award for Honour…

Leo for winning the Rob Cameron Award for Brotherhood…

and to Chris for winning the Chuck and Wendy Shergold Award for Strength.

A special thank you to all the houseparents and Bolton boys and their families for making my last 11 years in Bolton such a delight. I will dearly miss the community and people who make this such a special place. I’m glad to know that my desire to “sweep the sheds” has resonated so well! Thank you.

Before saying goodbye and thank you to all the parents, grandparents, siblings, guardians, aunts, uncles and anyone else who helped make this year such a great success for every Bolton boy, we leave you with this remarkable musical performance by Marcus during chapel. Wow.

We wish all the Bolton boys and their families a safe and happy summer wherever they might be. To those graduating best of luck in your next adventures and to those returning next year we look forward to welcoming you back to Bolton in September for another year of learning and fun. Goodbye for now.

This week at SMUS is a sports-heavy one, with several teams off to various locations to compete in provincial championships. Bolton was well-represented at several of these tournaments, including rugby!

Elsewhere on campus, students from an Entrepreneurship class got their business minds in action (and blenders too!) to set up a juice stand in front of the lecture theatre.

On Saturday afternoon, several Bolton juniors had the opportunity to visit an age-old Victoria tradition, the Oak Bay Tea Party! Lots of fair games were played, tons of junk food was eaten, and rumours have it that Kenneth did a fair bit of screaming on the rides..!

Introducing our new head of Bolton house for the 2022 – 2023 year, Joshua Kim!

Back in May the grade 11 students who were interested in running for leadership in Bolton house had the opportunity to give speeches to sway the votes of the house. Josh Kim was the winning candidate! Here is a quick interview with Josh:

Why did you want to be the Bolton Head of House?

I joined SMUS in gr 9 and was quite nervous. There were so many upper classmate Bolton brothers that helped me when I was younger. I wanted to repay them, by giving back to my new brothers and being supportive.

What makes you House of House material?

I have a strong work ethic and good time management. I believe I will get things started easily.

What are you most looking forward to about being the head of Bolton House?

Organizing annual downtown trips at the beginning of the year and getting to know my new Bolton brothers.

What is one unique fact about yourself that the other Bolton people might not know?

Everyone know I love music, but my favourite music genre is RnB like Frank Ocean and Weeknd.

Thank you, Josh and congratulations on your new role!

The week concluded with the beginning of packing up rooms and getting ready to leave for the summer. There is much to do over these final weeks of the year, a lot of excitement and goodbyes!

With the lead going into the final house games, Bolton fought hard and came out victorious!