Boarding News

Dear Boarding Parents,

Welcome back to Term 2, especially to those new to the school and new to our boarding community. I hope the Easter holiday break was wonderful for your family and that you’ve been able to spend some quality time with your sons. It was great to see the boarders return last week and to hear so many great stories of what they got up to over the holidays.

We welcome three new boarders to Marist Ashgrove this term along with their families. I have no doubt the Marist value of family spirit will come to the fore and help these new members of our community to settle in and develop strong friendships at the School.

There is a great deal for the boarders to look forward to in Term 2. Obviously, many are excited about the start of the rugby and football seasons, as well as a number who continue to train for cross country, athletics and swimming. We have another great term of recreation activities for our boarders which includes social opportunities with the girls’ boarding schools, plus a range of on-campus activities and excursions to many great events and places. We have the Boarding Family Day on Saturday 1st June where all families are invited to what will be a great social gathering here at the College. We also have a number of regional trips planned for this term where key staff members will be travelling to our regions to visit families and to promote Marist boarding.

I’m also pleased to let you know that we are launching two new community service activities for the boarders this term. This will be in addition to the ‘Boarder Blitz’ which we continue to offer on Mondays and Wednesdays. Firstly, we are commencing visits to St Vincent’s Aged Care facility in Mitchelton twice a week in the afternoons. The boarders will talk and interact with the residents of St Vincent’s and I’m sure they will build some wonderful connections as we keep going back over time. The other exciting project our boarders will be supporting is visits to Ronald McDonald House which is attached to the Mater Hospital and is a charitable accommodation facility for families of very sick children who are in hospital. Our boys and staff will be going in there on Sundays, preparing a meal and leaving it for the families so that they don’t have to worry about this when they get home from the hospital. I am sure that our boarders will learn so much from these experiences and it will help shape them as servant leaders of the future.

All parents and guardians are welcome to be part of the online Boarder Parent Network meeting on Wednesday 1st May starting at 5.00pm. This is a positive and constructive group that meets each term to support the College in providing the best experience for our boarders. Agenda items will be called for in the next couple of days and a link will also be sent out from Boarding Reception to allow all to be part of this meeting.

I hope your son has enjoyed his first week back at school for this term. Please make contact with his Boarding Leader or with me directly if we can assist in any way. I look forward to hopefully seeing many of you through the term.

Recreation Report – Mr Blair Whitlock

It was great to welcome all the boys back this week and hear many interesting stories from their holiday adventures! We are straight back into the swing of things with the busiest term of sport and recreation hitting the ground running. Recreation is always a little lighter in term two with so many boarders engrained in their Football & Rugby seasons, but everyone will be busy as always.

Friday kicked off with a cracking boarders arvo feast before heading out to Chermside to support our Open Hockey Team for their first game of the year. The hockey boys, including boarders Sami Rance and Hamish Adams, were played against Francis Douglas Memorial College, a New Zealand school from Taranaki in the North Island. It was a great game with the Kiwis coming out on top in front of some raucous support from our Hive. The boarders have done a fantastic job leading the Hive this year and we look forward to seeing their energy and enthusiasm throughout term two sport. An hour of dodgeball and basketball in the gym burnt any leftover energy before heading back to the dorms to watch some Friday night footy.

Saturday saw our final round of trial matches against St Laurence’s College before round one next weekend. The junior boys were at home with the Year 9-12s heading out to Runcorn for their games. It was a great day overall with most of the boarders getting a solid hit out. Later that evening we headed over to the Newmarket cinemas to watch the Godzilla x Kong movie. It wasn’t my cup of tea but the boys certainly enjoyed themselves!

The wet weather set in on Sunday with many boys opting for a sleep-in after a busy first week back at school. We loaded the school vehicles and headed down to Chermside for a couple of hours in the morning. By the time we got back to school, there was time for an hour in the weights room before getting ready for Sunday Mass.