Boarding News

We were delighted to go live with a new boarding section of the Marist College Ashgrove website this week. As well as providing key information about our boarding program, this updated website reveals much of the vibrancy and tone of boarding at our school. It has loads of great photos and some carefully chosen videos to help tell the story. This new website also links everyone to upcoming Marist events as well as showing where we will be on our regional visits. I hope you enjoy checking this out.

Last Tuesday night, the Year 12 boarders shared a special dinner with many key members of staff who have helped them on their journey as boarding students at Marist. The idea behind this function was to provide the boys an opportunity to express their thanks to the staff and it turned out to be a really nice occasion. A number of the boys had prepared a speech to acknowledge key staff and these were delivered with a good mix of humour and sincerity. This dinner was the first of a number of events for our Year 12s as they get closer to the end of their time at school. Thanks must go to Mrs Belinda Kerwin, Mr Casey, the Catering team and a number of Year 11 boarders who put in a massive effort to ensure the night was a great success.

A slight change of routine occurred on Sunday morning when all the boarders walked up to Mater Dei parish at West Ashgrove to be part of the Mass at 9:30am. The parishioners love having our young men join their community and it was especially good to hear our boys sing the Sub Tuum so proudly as the recessional hymn at this Mass. The beautiful morning tea provided is also a big hit with the boys! We are enjoying a bit of variety with our boarders’ Masses and look forward to our next visit to Mater Dei.

Year 11 Social

Last week was the Year 11 Social. The Boarding team hosted a pre-social gathering in the rose garden at Marist before the Year 11s and their partners went on to the venue at Victoria Park. It was lovely to have many parents and other family members join us for refreshments and to take some photos of their son all dressed up. Thanks to Mrs Kerwin and Ms Livingstone for their assistance in the organisation of this gathering.

Boarding Recreation

On Friday afternoon, the Year 12 boarders jumped on the bus and headed up to Caloundra for a twilight beach trip at Kings. The Term 4 twilight beach trip has become somewhat of a tradition for the seniors as a final rec activity together before externals begin. As always, the boys had a great time, and it was a nice distraction after a few weeks of masterclasses and study. Back at Marist, the basketball courts and weights room were open for an hour to round out a fairly quiet Friday evening.

On Saturday, we were lucky to be able to enter two boarding teams into the AIC Touch Football Competition down in Runcorn. We had a team in the Years 8/9 division and one in the Years 10/11 division on what was an extremely hot day reaching 34 degrees. The boys did a great job competing in tough groups, with the younger boys picking up a couple of impressive wins and the Year 10s battling against some well-organised Year 11 teams. We were then ready for a swim once we got back to Ashgrove in the early afternoon. Meanwhile, the La Valla and Montagne boys had spent the morning swimming and rock hopping at the beautiful Cedar Creek area. Thanks to Mr Lee and Mr A Graham for taking the boys out for the morning.

On Sunday morning, the La Valla and Montagne boys headed down to the Flats again to take part in the Ashgrove Junior Park Run, with many boys challenging themselves to beat last week's time. It’s a nice little community event for the boys to be part of, and despite the grumbles, they always feel good after an active start to their Sunday! A walk up to Mater Dei for morning mass took us through to midday when the Hermitage boys headed down to Southbank for a couple of hours at the markets. The final activity of the weekend was a couple of Oz Tag games down at a local competition in Bardon before heading back to Marist for a Sunday schnity and relaxed evening in the dorms.