Director of Mission
“fa'amalo”
Congratulations to Ms Sanita Lole our Cultural Liason Officer on the safe birth of their beautiful new born son. We wish you all the best on your maternity leave and will see you again later in 2019.
Reconciliation
On Tuesday the 9th (Week 11) all students were invited for a moment of reflection and the opportunity of Reconciliation. Every Student in the college witnessed the rite and took a moment to reflect in the Chapel. The day consisted of 5 Priests including Fr Grace, Fr Christian and Fr Schipp. The Mercy Sisters, Sr Theresa and Sr Tricia also assisted on the day by talking to students and helping them with their reflections. Sue Hone our College Pastoral Worker who is also our future Cultural Liason officer next term whilst Ms Lole is on Maternity leave, assisted throughout the whole day managing over 650 students doing reconciliation.
Term 1 Reflection
Yr 11 students in SiCT course studied what it is to be a human being in their first term of the new course. In their recent assessment, they had to do a reflection after studying philosophical views of Aristotle and interviewing family members on the topic. Some of their words were quite profound and in their honesty offered beautiful insights into the mind of our Marian youth. They wrote:
“Happiness is dependent on yourself rather than others. There are a lot of ways to become a better human being, some being, helping others out when in need. Respecting others and yourself.”
Alyssa Agresta
“Being a human being is living our life to the best of our ability. Taking every opportunity that comes our way whether it be as small as picking up rubbish on the ground or to something big like raising money for a good cause. By doing these things over and over again they become habit like Aristotle said ‘excellence is not an act, but a habit’.”
LIviana Railo
This term created an abundance of happiness throughout the Marian Community. We have been building upon the successful year of 2018 and trying to create habits of service and compassion. There has been a plethora of beautiful Marian moments demonstrating these qualities throughout the term and I simply wanted to highlight some of these in this concluding newsletter for Term 1.
We started the term with staff identifying their goals within the Mission and Vision of the school and how they can make an impact through the five elements of stewardship, care, learning, faith and service. We aimed to hold ‘purpose’ in everything we did and because of this ‘purpose’ by staff our initiatives were highly successful.
Yr 11’s started their very own ‘Legacy Assistance Program’ where they have been donating their time and energy every week to assist with small chores around the Legacy homes across the road from our school. A response to the call of assistance. This is going strong and hopefully will feature as a ‘habit’ here at Marian for year to come as the feedback has been overwhelming.
The Plenary Council submission was also completed with staff contributing in an afterschool twighlight session of listening and dialogue. The submission consisted of 158 Responses, one of which was our new College Mural expressing different aspects of our faith, 153 under the age of 20 and 4 above. This did not include personal submissions made after listening and dialogues sessions operated at the school for students and staff. The responses were made up of 68 females and 91 males. The culmination of over 12 months worth of work.
Our water bottle recycling program finally took off! With newly made collection bins from our maintenance staff the students are now actively using the recycling bins and the staff at the Griffith Carevan who collect the bottles from the school and receive the donations were extremely grateful and had to empty the bins twice this term. This also saw the purchase of new bulk collection point bins.
The MCC Aboriginal Reconciliation Plan has also commenced after attending a workshop run by Peter O’Beirne and Mark Crouch with our Aboriginal Community and School Support Officer, Lorelei Wray. In consultation with the CEDWW, Kelly Humphrey assisted in creating a three year strategy for Aboriginal Education at MCC. It is extremely exciting and this will be launched officially in NAIDOC week later in the year.
The Community Action Team was on fire and certainly held purpose this term. They responded to the call of assistance from the community to aid the town of louth. Louth was in severe drought and desperately needed water. The team raised money through hard work and a bake sale to purchase over 1000 litres that was delivered to the town on their behalf.
To top it all off was the work and charity of students and staff through Project Compassion. Project Compassion was the main fundraising initiative for the term and each homeroom was issued a challenge to raise funds and reach the target of $2700 (the amount reached in 2018). Once again the Community Action Team responded and launched the campaign with a pancake sale. It was wrapped up on the last day of term with a ‘Doughnuts for donations’ sale and sausage sizzle. We are still gathering all of the collections but we are confident that we have reached our goal and blown away by the charity of the community. Special thanks goes to Nicole Forrest in the College office who assists with the running of the initiative, Sue Hone and the CAT team and special mention to David and Julie Murray who donated the doughnuts from Griffith Donut King.
Homerooms who collected over $100 were entered into the Homeroom Compassion Hall of Fame. This is displayed in the centre of our College. It was great to see so many beautiful stories rise from this project like homeroom teachers such as Mr Summerville and Ms Polimeni who matched their students donations dollar for dollar. New staff like Mr Parmenter and Mr Abou-Nasr who in their first year made the ‘Hall of Fame’ and are real contenders for highest donation. Students donating all of their LENT money and asking to remain anonymous.
There has been beautiful acts of charity, kindness and compassion. Marian is a community that cares and acts with purpose around helping others. It is about a holistic approach to education through faith and care. It has only been one term and it has been an impressive one. Term 2 will tackle the issue of homelessness through our iCARE Kits and see many of these above initiatives continue to grow.
Remember it is important to encourage all to be a part of this community that cares and truly live the Marian way. Feel free to enquire on how your child can contribute next term.
Have a great and safe holiday and enjoy the break. Looking forward to next term and thanks to all those who made this one so magical.
See you soon.
Heath Neville
Director of Mission
Marian Catholic College