At the beginning of 2019 a small but dedicated group of Monitors banded together to form a service portfolio dedicating themselves to the betterment of the school and our community.

Throughout the year, we gathered each Thursday lunchtime to discuss the possible ways in which we could make a positive impact on the environment and lives of people in our community and beyond.

Initially, we began with our own community and worked alongside the environment portfolio to help create and run a junior service day, replacing the school ‘workday’. We asked the boys to get out amongst their community for a few hours and help out with anything they could think of, e.g. mowing the nature strip on their street, helping out at a local retirement home or simply combing the streets for any rubbish they could find. The service group also ran several community clean-ups at locations across Christchurch such as Mona Vale, Sumner Beach, and Hagley Park for boys that wanted to participate.

To tackle our goal of helping people beyond our own community, the service group came up with a highly ambitious plan to collect unused sports gear that people may have had lying around their homes and send this gear to less privileged areas. Our aim was to help more people have the opportunity to learn, socialise and have fun through playing sport. Lachlan Hill, student in charge of the CBHS sports drive, said to us, “Our whole goal of the sports drive this year is to get any type of sporting equipment, from golf clubs and rugby boots to cricket bats and distribute this to people who aren’t able to go out and purchase this gear as easily as us. Any gear that is handed in we would be very grateful for so as we can give it to a good cause and a well-deserved home.”

Our initial goal was to get this gear to kids in Fiji, however due to unforeseen circumstances with logistics we were unable to make this happen – this was really hard for us, as we had set out at the beginning of 2019 to make this our main goal for the year. The gear however did find a worthy home, and with the help of the Christchurch City Council, the sporting gear has found a new lease of life in less privileged areas across Christchurch.

We have also held several mufti days throughout the year such as ‘Pink Day’ to stand up against bullying and ‘Blue Day’ to raise awareness of prostate cancer amongst men.

During 2019 the service group also played key roles in the operations of both the Student Executive Council and Student Forum groups that run within the school.