I am delighted to introduce our Summer 2018 Program Assistant: Oliver Van Soest.
Oliver is a rising junior at Casco Bay High School in Portland. He has spent two summers working at Waynflete's summer programs. He is a member of the Model UN at his high school, and studies fencing at the Portland Fencing Center. Last summer, he spent four week in Tokyo, studying the language and culture of Japan.
In 2015, Oliver organized a middle school climate change awareness march to City Hall in Portland. As a member of his high school's Environmental Awareness Team, he helped organize a symposium in conjunction with USM, to educate the public on the dangers of ocean acidification.
In his spare time, Oliver takes art courses at MECA and exercises his considerable talents in the arts. He is a young artist to watch--and clearly a civic leader in the making. I have watched Oliver grow into an amazing young man over the last six years, and he and I are both delighted to see him step into the role of Program Assistant.
Oliver is a veteran Dragon's Eye detective, one of the Maine Founders who joined in 2012 when Dragon's Eye first opened in the state. He is well-known among our team members as the one who summons Cernunnos, the Celtic god of the Wild Hunt. Cernunnos walks a path of extreme chaos, so the results of asking for help are always surprising.
Here's a link to some of Cernunnos' actions during "The Well of Destiny" and "The Golden Cage." This summer, Oliver will lead the detectives in the investigation into what happened when Cernunnos took the baby Koschei the Deathless into the Celtic underworld.
