By Andy Callow

Below you will read Andy Callow's speech that he presented at the Year 12 Valedictory Dinner last week. It was a fun and emotional night for all, with lots of laughter, (a very interesting suit on Nick Crawley's behalf) and a celebration of the journey the Year 12s have undertaken. We are wishing them all the best over the next few weeks as they sit their exams, and journey into the unknown.

Gough Whitlam’s recent death has led to much analysis of a long life lived in the public eye. Such events often give us pause, and we sometimes wonder what would be said by others about the life we have lived, and the choices we had made.

In the book of your life, tonight marks the end of a chapter. For most of you that chapter makes cheerful reading. Your contributions to BHCS have been rich in relationships and memories. You have lived life well to date, and have enormous potential.

For most of you there would be a heady mix of nervousness and excitement as you turn the pages of the next few months and years.

The Old Book says: “The seeds you sow become the harvest you will reap”

Another way to put it is to Invest Wisely.

Marcus Padley, author of a share market newsletter, wrote in the Age recently about a conversation with his 18 year old daughter while they were driving together.

"Dad, should I be investing in anything yet?"

"There are a lot of investments you can make in your life, and you have some choices to make even now, so let's start at the beginning.

The best long-term investment you will ever make, and possibly the lowest risk investment, is in yourself. While everyone in the share market talks about return on equity, the return on equity of time invested in yourself, your education, your thinking processes, is light years ahead of anything else.

You should also know that the most limiting factor on your brain's development is that its input devices, the eyes and ears, are terribly slow. So while you can download a terabyte of information to a hard drive in seconds, to transfer the same amount of information into the brain via the eyes and ears would take years.

You don't have a USB port in your skull. You need to think about that. With such a slow transfer mechanism, you have to train your eyes and ears to download as efficiently as possible and be selective about what you bother downloading.

On that basis, the best investment is almost certainly in other people's wisdom. Sure, you can probably muddle through life relying on friends, family and Facebook for your values and ideas, but you will learn the most from the most skilled thinkers and one of the most incredible gifts in the world is that literature allows you to do that, to converse with 'the finest minds of past centuries'.

The other tremendous investment is in the people in front of you. Every person that crosses your path could end up being your best friend for life, the maid of honour at your wedding; sharing your highest highs, helping you in your lowest lows, sobbing at your funeral or you at theirs.

So take the chance, stick your hand out and say 'hello', catch their name, remember it and keep using it. Invest in people. There is no luggage rack on a hearse."

"But what about shares and property and all that stuff?" asked his daughter

"Funny," I said.

"My best investments have had nothing to do with money, and one of the best is sitting right next to me".

I wonder how clearly you understand the depth of your parents love for you, or how proud your teachers are of you. So many of you have made BHCS a better school, so many of you have been such positive members of our community.

You have given generously of yourselves, and in return, you have received back rich growth in your personal development and maturity.

You will be missed greatly, but there is a whole new adventure ahead of you.

We wish you every blessing, and urge you on to live your life well.

Invest wisely, in things that will live on long after you.

May God bless you, and keep you, make His face to shine upon you, and give you His peace.

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