Tournament of the Minds

Saturday, 17th August saw the Regional stage of the Tournament of the Minds in full swing. McGuire College was lucky enough to have 2 teams competing this year in ‘The Arts’ challenge. In a nutshell, the challenge required students to prepare a short 10 minute retelling of The Wizard of Oz, but set in a local area with a new overarching theme. There was singing, acting, hand-painted backdrops and original costumes amongst a lot of smiles and laughter.

Team one ‘Fame of Flame’ was made up of Leizal Hawking, Alex Teusner, Tristan Phipps, Kaitlyn Crowhurst, Jacklyn Crowhurst, Matilda McKenzie and Samantha Comline. They approached the challenge through the lens of mental health and the impact social media has on kids.

Team two ‘The Gnarly Vegemites’ was made up of Ben Okely, Trinity Drain, Natalie Downie, Amirah Ahmet, Ash Molisak, Hawraa Alderawy and Cooper Sidebottom. They included the need for family as their concept, along with a rainbow echidna, some friendly bogans and the Wizard of Bunnings.

I am incredibly proud of the teams and the hard work they put into their challenges. Thanks to Nicole Craighead for helping to facilitate the teams, and to Adam Fox and all the parents who came along to support the students on the day.

Sam Sharpe

SEAL Leader

Greater Shepparton City Council Mayor visits McGuire College

During Homegroup this week, Year 12 students were addressed by Greater Shepparton City Council Mayor and a former McGuire College student, Councillor Kim O’Keeffe.

Cr O’Keeffe told the students of her journey from Shepparton businesswoman to being elected to Council in 2016. She also talked about her pride in being elected to Deputy Mayor in 2017 and Mayor in 2018.

Cr O’Keeffe talked about the wonderful opportunities that young people have, and will continue to have in Greater Shepparton. She spoke passionately of the reasons why this community is thriving and why businesses wanted to invest in the area.

The Mayor then answered questions which ranged from what a typical day in the life of the Mayor was like, to her remuneration and why local government was important to residents’ quality of life.

Cr O’Keeffe’s talk follows similar talks to Year 12 students in Homegroup during the year from Hon Damian Drum, Member for Nicholls and Suzanna Sheed, Member for Shepparton.

Vince Branigan

Wellbeing Leader

Gnurad Update

Our three Year nine students currently attending the School for Student leadership near Warnambool are working on a community project as part of their learning and they need your support for this to work out.

The cause they are partnering with is called Envision, who as you may have heard on the news, collect bottle caps to make prosthetic limbs for kids in need. What they need you to do is start collecting your milk bottle caps now and over the holidays. The aim is to raise over 1200 bottle caps which would require you all to bring in at least two caps each. Do your best to get behind this cause for the kids that receive these limbs and your fellow peers at the School for Student Leadership.

Chemistry Workshop

Recently our Year 12 Chemistry class attended workshop at Latrobe University Albury/Wodonga.

Year 12s from McGuire College and Shepparton High School attended a very informative practical session that complemented their class work. They also got to explore University life on a regional campus

Music Matters

BOITE Schools Chorus, Melbourne Town Hall.

On Thursday August 15, fourteen Singers took the

trip to Melbourne to perform with approximately

250 other singers in the Boite Schools Chorus.

The singers were from schools all over Victoria, although mostly Melbourne!

We sang 10 songs from the Deborah Cheetham Dhungala Song Collection. Deborah is a Yorta Yorta woman, from the Shepparton area, and a renowned operatic soprano who conducts the Dhungala Children’s Choir here in Shepparton for children of aboriginal heritage, and is also the Director of Short Black Opera. The songs she has written and we performed are written to include some aboriginal language as well as English.

It was a very exciting day. We headed off about 12, arriving in Melbourne in time for the pre- performance rehearsal, and collection of our performance t shirts.

The Town Hall is a large venue, but a fantastic acoustic space and the singers filled the hall with their voices and sounded magnificent! It was a challenging experience for the McGuire choir, as we had not attended any prior rehearsals. However, after conducting our last rehearsal by singing our way from Shepparton to Wallan, we were in good voice and paid great attention to the conductor, Jess Hitchcock.

The performance was accompanied by a 4 piece band- keyboard, bass guitar and drums. It also included a performance of 2 songs given by the Geelong Dunghala choir. We were also honoured by the presence of Deborah herself, who was thrilled to hear the songs she had written sounding fantastic.

McGuire student, Makayla Durston, was chosen to introduce one of the songs, which she did with aplomb. Senior choir member Mimi Md Saidi was honoured by the attendance of her family who had driven down from Shepparton. They were delighted to see Mimi perform – Mum, Dad, sister, sister’s fiancé and little baby brother at 6 weeks old!! His first concert! Mimi studies Music Performance in Year 11 and her instrument is Voice.

After performing at 7.30pm we struggled to get through the huge audience crowd to make it to the bus and set off for home. We arrived in the pouring rain at McGuire after 11pm after a huge but exciting musical day!

Gabrielle Ryan

On behalf of the Music Department

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