"Keep patience ever at your side, you’ll want it for a constant guide." Catherine McAuley

PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE

Greetings and welcome to Issue 6 of Community for 2022. The college community enjoyed a truly exceptional winter term. For the first time since 2019 we were able to provide our students with all the Term 3 experiences and excursions that we cherished before the pandemic, along with new camps we had been planning for more than two years.

 

CAMPS

  • The good times ‘snowballed’ when the Year 11s headed to Perisher for their Snow Camp.
  • Just this week, the Year 7 cohort headed to Victor Harbor for a new camp.
  • Next week, the Year 9 students will set out on an adventure exploring the centre of our amazing country. They will visit Adelaide, Woomera, Coober Pedy, King’s Canyon and Alice Springs over the spring holidays. 

More on the Year 7 and Year 9 camps in the next issue.

 

EVENTS

  • After two years of cancellations, we held a brilliant Father’s Day Breakfast for all the marvellous men in our students’ lives.
  • Social dancing returned in a big way this term. Two Debutante Balls in July built up the excitement for last week’s hugely successful College Ball, the first in three years.
  • At the Athletics Carnival on August 16, Xavier House emerged victorious. Along with winning the Swimming Carnival and the Cross Country, they have clinched the college’s 2022 ‘sporting trifecta’.
  • Following successive pivots to online platforms, the VO and Senior School Pathways Information Evening allowed us to connect face to face with many of our college families just when new secondary school certificates had been released by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.
  • Last week’s Mercy Mass gave the college a chance to honour our Mercy heritage and legacy, as well as thank our very own Sisters for all they do in our community.

Read on and you will discover more about all the great goings-on at St Joseph’s College over the past several weeks.

 

ENRICHING SABBATICAL UPDATE

Earlier this month, I began a four-week immersion program in Mercy history and tradition. The program’s carefully planned itinerary includes sites in England and Ireland, among them the original ‘house with the red door’ on Baggot Street in Dublin where Catherine McAuley began her work.

 

I began by visiting the Bermondsey Mercy Heritage Centre in London. At this exact site, Catherine McAuley herself founded the first Mercy convent outside of Ireland in 1839. I viewed marvellously detailed exhibits that inspired me with ideas for our own Mercy Heritage Centre. You can read more about my sabbatical on the Principal’s Blog. (Term 3, Weeks 9 and 10.)

 

Most recently, I was in London when Queen Elizabeth II passed away. When I visited the University of Cambridge this past week, I signed a condolence book dedicated to Her Majesty’s passing on behalf of the college community in Kings College Chapel. May she Rest in Peace.

 

God Bless

Mrs Marg Blythman