The Black Dot Theory

In talking with a colleague recently they shared with me the inspirational and thought-provoking short story of ‘The Black Dot’. The short story provides a wonderful reminder for us to focus on the positives in our day to day living. I will leave the story below for your own viewing/reading.

Boarding Parent Network

I look forward to meeting with our Boarding Parent Network via Zoom this afternoon. These meetings prove vital in gaining feedback from our families, we look forward to communicating outcomes to our boarding community in the coming days.

Pastoral Care

Wellbeing is central to learning and effective pastoral care is inextricably linked to positive academic outcomes and engagement. The effective mastery of social and emotional competencies is associated not only with greater wellbeing, but also better school performance. An integrated whole-school approach to build a supportive and protective school culture, underpinned by the presence of caring relationships, high expectation messages and opportunities for meaningful participation will encourage such outcomes. This term our residences focus on Healthy Living. This strand focuses on building healthy minds and bodies. It takes a strength-based approach and explores protective behaviours in relation to leading a healthy lifestyle. This strand assists in overcoming the barriers that student face in achieving good health and empowers students to make educated and thoughtful decisions.

Important leave dates for Term 3

EKKA Break: Wednesday 11 August to Friday 13 August
EKKA Leave: Tuesday 10 August (From 3:15pm) till Sunday 15 August (return prior to 8:00pm)
Last day of Term 3: Thursday 16 September (Leave from 3:15pm)

Uniform

Full winter uniform for Term 3;
Socks must be black or dark navy business socks with no patterns. The College summer grey socks are also acceptable;
Belt must be thin and black. The RM Williams belt is not allowed to be worn to school.
Haircut as per College diary.

Key Boarding Contacts

Head of Boarding - Ty Casey

0400 785 433; caseyt@marash.qld.edu.au

PA to the Head of Boarding

Renae Lewis - 9:00am – 3:00pm (not in the office on Wednesday)

07 3858 4619; lewisr@marash.qld.edu.au

After hours Boarding Reception

Erin Livingstone - 3:00pm – 10:30pm weekdays

07 3858 4619; boardingreception@marash.qld.edu.au

Br Terence Residence (Year 11-12)

Anthony Mathison - 0419 762 186; brterence@marash.qld.edu.au

Fourviere Residence (Year 10-11)

Ben Maddox - 0409 425 584; fourviere@marash.qld.edu.au

Hermitage Residence (Year 9)

Jamie Morgan - 0402 124 194; hermitage@marash.qld.edu.au

Montagne Residence (Year 8)

Josh Mulligan - 0407 161 984; montagne@marash.qld.edu.au

La Valla Residence (Year 6-7)

Tim Sedgwick - 0430 924 805; lavalla@marash.qld.edu.au

Camilla Sedgwick - 0438 080 928; lavalla@marash.qld.edu.au

Health Centre

07 3858 4618; healthcentre@marash.qld.edu.au

Indigenous Support Officer

Melissa Orcher - 07 3858 4545; orcherm@marash.qld.edu.au

College Counsellors

Jorge Ruiz - 07 3858 4609; ruizj@marash.qld.edu.au

Lisa Babon - 07 3858 6435; babonl@marash.qld.edu.au

Around the Grounds

La Valla

It was wonderful to have the buzz and the energy of the boys back in La Valla. The campus is certainly very quiet without them! We spent time getting organised and settled into our new living areas. As with the start of each new term the boys are developing strategies to help them with their homesickness. This is a very normal part of being a boarder and it can strike at any time and last for an hour or several days. The boys are so supportive of each other during these times, and they are learning that developing a routine and talking to a friend or staff member will generally help. We had a massive week of sport this week with many boys trialling for new teams and gaining inspiration from the elite level games on TV. Mr Sedgwick's decoration of the dorm in NSW colours was appreciated by very few students! A particular highlight of the week were the Wallabies games, although they couldn't stay up until the end of the weekday match, they were lucky enough to watch the full game on Saturday night. It was a great social event for the La Valla boys.

Montagne

Ms Maggie Wasson officially started her tenure as a Supervisor in Montagne Residence. We hope that she enjoys her time at Marist and in particular in Montagne. Plenty of sore throats on Wednesday night following the State of Origin. Congratulations to Queensland on a close victory, although as a New South Welshman, I’m happy to see the silverware return to the southern state. After losing their origin bet, the boys will be cleaning supervisors cars in the near future. I am just glad that I didn’t have to make beds for 2 Fridays straight!

Well done to those boys trialling and making AIC teams this term. We have Ignatius Hallman and George Philp playing tennis, Talis Mark and Fin Manning playing basketball and Cooper Fleischfresser, Sean Green, Nate Hughes, Joe Jackson, Finn Kennedy, Theo Knight, Matt Lyons and Kalan Schnaubelt playing league. We hope that their seasons have lots of success and no injuries! As well as attending school and classes for the week, the highlight was laser tag on Sunday. Boys loved it in an altered Rec program – thank you Mr Whitlock. Covid be gone!

Tim Tully’s mum Jody also supplied a cake for Tim’s birthday this week. If you ever want to get the attention of boys, cake is the answer. Thank you for the cake Jody!

Hermitage

This week saw the return to the dorms for our Hermitage boarders and the entire boarding school. After a busy end to Semester 1, it was great to welcome the boys back into the dorm. We also welcomed two new boarders into our community - Matt Peng and Jack Carlon. Coincidentally both boys have come to us from Coomera where they attended Coomera Anglican College and St Joseph's College respectively. We warmly welcome these two gentlemen and their families to the Hermitage community. A special welcome back goes to Nathan Lam who returns to us after a 12-month stint home in Hong Kong with the emergence of the global pandemic. Nathan has slipped straight back into dorm life like he never left us, and the boys are excited to have him back in our community. Welcome back Nathan! Continuing on with the welcoming theme, we also welcome Mal Grealy into our community as a new supervisor. Mal comes to us from Toowoomba and is currently studying a Bachelor of Education at QUT. Mal completed his induction last week and is excited to get to know the boys. Welcome Mal!

With a semester of Year 9 under their belt, the boys are challenged to improve on their results from last period. Whether it is a full or even a half year, the boys have set themselves academic goals for the semester ahead. The boys are encouraged to make the most of their study time and the resources available to them - CLE, A Team support, indigenous tutoring etc. I look forward to seeing the boys work hard this semester and achieve their personal bests.

Congratulations to the following boys who have been successful in making the school Rugby League team for this year - Dan Goddard, EJ Bowen, Jimmy Davies, Zek Anderson, Ryan Johnson and Lachy Manning. I look forward to seeing these boys take the field this term. Congratulations also to Nathan Lam who wasted little time in making the 9C basketball team. Nathan missed the trial last semester and is keen to work his way up the MCA basketball ranks.

Fourviere

The Fourviere boys returned to the residence with plenty of energy getting straight back into the swing of things for Term 3. The Year 11’s attended a driver safe education program in the gym on Monday night which was very well received and the 10’s have begun the process of selecting their subjects for their senior years of schooling.

There is also plenty of cocurricular activity going on with many of the lads turning their attention towards trailing for Term 3 sports which commenced on the weekend. Basketball is certainly a popular choice amongst the lads and so too is Rugby League, Tennis, Athletics and of course the ever-popular Strength and Conditioning sessions that are on offer.

We also extended a very warm welcome to several new supervisors who have joined the Fourviere team; Sam Priddis (Senior Supervisor), Carl Palmer and Jack Janson, have all commenced their supervision and have enjoyed meeting the members of the Fourviere crew. We are looking forward to a productive term ahead.

Br Terence

There was plenty of positive energy in and around the residence this week with the boys catching up on all the holiday stories and with our Year 11s changing residences and getting used to their new surrounds and living arrangements. Our Year 12 boys enjoyed three days away from Brisbane on Retreat before returning to the College on Friday, just in time to take to the fields and courts for the Term 3 sporting trial matches. The Year 11 boys had the residence to themselves for part of the week and it has been pleasing to see how quickly they have settled into the routines of Br Terence residence. On the weekend, it was great to welcome back Leon Simonetti to the campus for the first time since Term 1 of last year, after he returned home to Singapore as a result of Covid! Finally, we have had a few of the boys celebrate their 18th birthdays of late with Clancy Clemson, Lachie Butler and Chadd McCoy turning 18 during the most recent school holidays and Jove Smith who celebrated his 18th birthday on Saturday – happy birthday boys!

Recreation Report – Mr Blair Whitlock

Unfortunately, our first week of rec was disrupted with the COVID uncertainty in Brisbane and we decided to keep the boys on-site over the weekend. A good plan’s a flexy plan and we certainly kept the boys busy with all the facilities on offer at school. Friday night saw a full gym with boys playing a mixture of Basketball, Badminton and Volleyball with a full weights room as well.

Term 3 sport had the final set of trial matches on Saturday morning ahead of AIC starting next week. Boarders were out and about playing Basketball, Tennis and Rugby League all morning, which made for a pretty quiet set of dorms. There were plenty of tired bodies on Saturday afternoon and many opted to chill out in their areas before watching a thrilling final game of the Wallabies vs France series. It was a shame we couldn’t be at Suncorp but the game was an exciting watch nonetheless.

Sunday started off with a bike ride along the Enoggera Creek to the ‘Blue Nurses’ biking park. The council had sharpened the jumps up over the holidays which saw many of our boys getting a little more airtime than they are used to! The Sunday morning bike rides have become a really popular activity over the last few months and we look forward to continuing them throughout the term. An hour of Touch Footy on the oval took us through to lunchtime before the highlight of the weekend arrived. We had been lucky enough to get 30 sets of laser tag hired on short notice which arrived just after midday. The boys split into red and blue teams and bases were set up near the Chapel and the top gym. Tactical snipers found high ground while other less subtle tactics were in play with boys charging each other’s bases regularly! Three hours passed in a flash with boys from Year 7-12 getting involved. It was great fun and we finished around 4:00pm for the boys to get changed for Sunday mass.

Another busy weekend on-site and fingers crossed we are able to get out and about next weekend. Week two sees the start of the boarder’s clubs programmes which include Art, Cooking, Mountain Biking, Music, Tennis and Golf. These certainly keep the boys busy and involved throughout the week!

Father and Son Camp

Mr Benjamin Webb