Senior School News

Agriculture: "Out on the Farm"

It has been a busy start to term 4 for the Agriculture students. 

Years 7 and 8 Mandatory Technology; These classes have had success with their vegetables! They have grown rapidly with the recent rain and warmer weather. The students are harvesting on a regular basis. Year 8 have also been hard at work; handling the stock, sheep and cattle, in preparation for the GPS Cows Unit.

Year 9 have been learning about sheep production and have vaccinated and tail docked lambs and are learning to complete a range of husbandry activities. This includes tipping, mouthing, and drenching. They have also completed a renovation of the poultry coops. 

We recently welcomed Blue Australorps, which we purchased from a local breeder. The boys want to breed, sell, and exhibit these birds. Watch this space! 

Year 10 have been working with the calves, assisting with breaking them in. We have sold some of our original herd to make way for new cattle we purchased from the Flemington auction. We are excitedly awaiting their arrival. 

Year 11 have baled their silage from their Rye crop they put in and we are waiting to see the results. They have also been learning about farm products and completed a dairy taste testing. This included cow milk, goat milk and camel milk! Mr Paul Brooks also joined us for that lesson. 

Miss Hayley Mahoney

Agriculture Coordinator 

Book Week 2020 – Follow up

St Greg’s is still revelling in the afterglow of the Book Week festivities. What a fun week it was! Much mention was made of the author visits, and, for Senior students, the presentations by Tony Park. A subsequent writing competition was advertised, and boys were asked to consider the following;

My wild experience of meeting a curious mind.

Consider the statement above and use it as a stimulus for a piece of reflective writing about your experience of meeting Tony Park. 

We had a large number of entries and the quality was exceptional. Congratulations to all the entrants and thank you for your honest and insightful reflections. There can, however, only be a few winners. The following students wrote with passion and it was clear that they gained much from the experience of sitting down with Tony Park, not only to learn about him as an author, but to learn from his wisdom as a man who willingly shared his memories and life journeys.

Stage 4 winner: Matthew Fitzgerald

Stage 5 winner: Eden Grasso

Stage 6 joint winners: Lachlan McInerny and Luke Schofield

Their winning pieces are included below.

Mrs Lee Ursino

Years 7 & 8  (Stage 4) Academic Coordinator

Stage 4 winning submission by Matthew Fitzgerald

My experience of meeting a curious mind was everything I hoped for and much, much more. The mind of an author is one like no other containing thousands of stories inspired by thrilling adventures and picturesque sights. The way Tony Park displayed this was perfect, giving me the inspiration to write, write a bit more and never stop writing. His 18 novels are 18 adventures of blood, sweat, tears and flooding emotions inspired mainly by his trips to Africa. The stories he told of him and his wife visiting Africa for the first time in 1995 and many times since are truly fantastic and opened a whole new world to me. The landscapes and areas he described showed me why he would choose this fascinating but beautiful place to experience the wonderful journey of writing in. 

He also talked about school, which felt a little bit more relatable. You’d expect such a successful author to love his school life and enjoy his company at school. However, Tony Park talked about his dislike towards school and the tough times he had there. This to me emphasised that he had had experiences just like us, and reminded me that he was in our exact position when he was our age. He also talked about the adversity that he faced when people would take advantage of their ‘social rank’ and tease him. He described this as an extremely tough time in his life. However, he realised what these people would become and what potential he had, so he persevered and became one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met.

Stage 5 winning submission by Eden Grasso

‘My wild experience of meeting a curious mind’

On Wednesday the 21st of October, the Literature Circle groups of St. Greg’s were all presented with the unique and remarkable experience of meeting and conversing with the award-winning author, Tony Park. Meeting with Tony was not just special because he grew up in the local area, Campbelltown, but he himself attended the college from 1977-1983, achieving the title of Dux of his graduating class. Mr Park began the meeting by introducing the group to his life story, which began with a humble childhood living in Campbelltown, he then entered into a Journalism career at a Glebe newspaper after dropping out of University, becoming an Australian Army Reserve for 34 years, before being deployed to Afghanistan in 2002 as a Public Relations Officer. After this incredibly diverse adventure across the first 40 years of his life, Tony Park was finally able to pursue his life long of becoming an author, releasing his first novel ‘Far Horizon’ in 2004. Since then, he has stayed to the strict routine of releasing 1 novel every year. In the year 1995, Tony and his wife Nicola travelled to Africa on a holiday, but what was at first supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, sparked an addiction to the curious continent and its people. Since then, the couple has travelled to Africa every year, with every visit since 2004 lasting 6 months at a time. They split their year living in both Sydney, and South Africa, where he can remain close to both home, and the wildlife which Park draws so much inspiration from. It is clear how much Tony Park relies on the mystique of Africa as inspiration, as his 18 fiction titles have all been based there. 

Through these experiences in life, it is evident that the life of Tony Park has been the key factor in creating such a curious mind. It truly was a wild experience having the opportunity to pick the brain of a curious mind like Tony Park, and it was extremely valuable to see where such a successful author draws inspiration for his works. Through this rewarding experience, all of those who were involved have gained a personal insight into the ups and downs of general life as an author, and how through perseverance, hard work, and remaining true to your dreams and aspirations, you may truly achieve what you seek to do.

Stage 6 winning submission by Lachlan McInerney

When I think about the concept of a ‘curious mind’ I immediately think of a person that ponders the question “What if?”  This is quite a common question that plagues the human mind and I think as humans we are all inherently curious.  What separates a curiosity that lays dormant and one that flourishes, is the leap someone can take to discover the “What if?” rather than just speculate on it. 

On Wednesday, the 21st October I met a man that had taken that leap and allowed his curiosity to take him on a life journey of success and honest satisfaction, that man was Tony Park.

To hear from Park about his unoriginal, boring ‘everyman’ childhood and upbringing, living and going to school at the same place I do, not ever being recognised as a prodigy or gifted mind, made his story ever more wild to me.  Although Park had had a job as a journalist and knew writing was something he had always wanted to do, his defiance against all potential obstacles like money, failure and commitment, to quit his job and spend six months writing a book was quite inspiring.  It was this risk, this leap of faith and utter reckless stupidity by any other thirty-year-old man’s standards, that cemented in my perception of Tony Park, that he was indeed a curious mind.

We also saw his curiosity littered through other parts of his story.  His spontaneous trip to Africa with his wife, or the resilience to write yet another book after the first was a failure.  

Through his visit I saw an example of the powers of working with our curious minds, embracing something we all have, using our inherent need for something more, to want to discover what each of us are truly capable of. Tony’s visit let us all have a tase of what the product of this embrace looks like.  Tony uses his curiosity in his writing, he uses his books to water the seed of “what if” that lies in his mind.  His stories spread awareness of political issues in Africa and entertain the idea of human capabilities through characters such as Tanya, the single mother mercenary. 

If there was one thing I learnt from Tony Park’s visit, it was that this wild experience made me question what we all would be capable of if we decided to give in to our dormant curiosity.

Stage 6 winning submission by Luke Schofield

On the 21st of October, award-winning author Tony Park attended St Gregory’s College as part of National Book Week.  Throughout his presentation he addressed many aspects about his life, inspirations, writing process and shared various memories, all encapsulating the deeper meanings and reasonings behind the books he has written.

Park first spoke of life and key events which have influenced his writing.  He was an academic throughout high school, achieving dux of his year, and sought to write stories from an early age.  He and his wife travelled to Africa and spent some time there.  This was where Park found inspiration for his first published book.  I was curious to what inspired him so much in Africa, to base most of his published works in this continent.  He said he fell in love with it; the people, the wildness of it, the culture, and the animals.  Here Park would write many stories, often basing them on events he had witnessed or heard of from local Africans. 

 For example, one story that resonated with me, was the forcible removal of Africans from their homes in Zimbabwe, and the oppression that later followed. It captured my curiosity so much, I sought the book and purchased it.

Park shared his writing process which was quite unorthodox.  His process of writing, I found was obscure and contradictory to everything we have learnt in our English classes.  His rather arbitrary writing process resonated with me.  The standard plotting of a novel, from the introduction to conclusion was abandoned by Park as he found it didn’t work for him.  He adopted a rather ‘wild’ writing process, in simply making the story up as he goes.  Perhaps in future examinations I could adopt this particular writing-style and see if it works for me!

Park creates a voice for the individuals who cannot be heard.  He has written numerous autobiographies highlighting, for example, a war hero, winner of the Victoria Cross, a story that could have been lost without him writing it down.  Park also provides a voice for the individuals he has met in Africa and their dire circumstances.

Overall, the experience of meeting Park was interesting.  He captured my curiosity as a student learning to write stories and has influenced me to try a new technique when facing certain creative writing tasks I may encounter on my HSC journey.