Principal's Report

At the time of writing, we have just concluded our formal celebrations on the Feast of St Joseph of the 140th Anniversary of the foundation of St Joseph’s School in Glen Innes and we could not have asked for a better day! We were honoured to have Monsignor Wilkes concelebrate the Eucharist with Father Thaddeus and Father Gleeson, as well as four special guests from the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart - Sr Lyn Raftery RSJ, Sr Berenice Cornish RSJ, Sr Connie Cummings RSJ and Sr Marea Ross RSJ who travelled all the way from Sydney to join our celebrations. All of these Sisters had made active and busy contributions to our school from as far back as the 1960s. In speaking to the children after the Mass, Sr Lyn was effusive about her and her colleague's time in Glen Innes and they still mark this place as one of the best schools and communities that they have been able to offer their vocation. I offer public thanks to these sisters and their many colleagues who have served and loved our hundreds and thousands of Glen Innes children and families for decades and decades. As Monsignor Wilkes said, “the gift of Catholic education” given to us by the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart is precious and a gift worth being truly thankful to God. 

Afterwards, the Sisters wanted it formally conveyed to all current but particularly past families to thank them for decades of CARE for the Sisters of St Joseph by the Glen Innes Catholic community - “They owned us. They wrapped their arms around us. We were (mostly) young women starting out a long way from our own families and the genuine care and love that was offered to us by the Glen Innes families made it so much easier to teach and care for our beautiful St Joseph's children.” 

After the Mass, our children participated in old-fashioned games such as Sack Races, Elastics, Marbles, Quoits, Hopscotch, Hoop Races and Egg and Spoon races watched on by our guests and some of our families. Enormous thanks to Mr Withers for his hard work in planning and coordinating the games! We then managed to corral our lovely (did I say lively?) children into 3 separate human chains to represent the numeral 140 for a brilliant drone shot taken by the ever-reliable Brendan Watson that produced an iconic and historic photo. Thank you to everyone involved in commemorating this significant event in the life of our school.

A reminder for all families that BLACK school shoes are compulsory uniform footwear at St Joseph’s. Joggers are only to be worn with Sports uniform on Fridays, please. Similarly, the Tartan dress for girls must be worn for formal occasions like School Photos (Monday 25 March), whole school Masses and Presentation Day. Please contact the school or visit the friendly staff at Vinnies if you are having personal issues with acquiring the correct uniform items.

Enormous congratulations to Sal Floyd and the P&F team for delivering an outstanding Shamrocks and Shenanigans Ball at the Town Hall on Saturday night! The Hall itself looked like a fairy wonderland with lights, balloons and table decorations that would rival a 5-star restaurant. Beautiful food, incredible live music and 120 happy dancing, singing and chatting Glen Innes community members made for a wonderful fun night. Well done to the team and we look forward to publishing the $$$ raised in the coming weeks!

Thank you everyone for your generous donations of sweet prizes of chocolate eggs, rabbits, bunnies, bilbies, etc. for our Easter Hat Parade and Monster Raffle on Holy Thursday 28 March from 10:30 am. With less than 6 days remaining I trust the Easter Hat making is well in hand and families have managed to get some time off work to attend one of our great community events. See you there and join us for a Picnic Lunch on the lawn afterwards!

Until next time.

May God go with you.

Geoff McManus

Principal