Kia ora koutou, I wish to extend my sincere gratitude to the college community for your support with our non-uniform day fundraiser for recent old boy Oscar Parker. We have raised $6000 to date, which we plan to present to Oscar and his family this coming week. As with Oscar’s journey, our support for him will continue as we aim toward a total of $10,000 by the end of the year.

The school certainly has been busy this past month with a number of learning, faith, and co-curricular activities. This week has been the first of our Encounter weeks for the year, focusing on leading self and others. It has been great to have Fr Mark Walls and his Marist Youth Team on site all week to assist us in establishing an ongoing encounter programme that supports the great work already occurring across our Religious Education and service-based programmes. We have received numerous good news photos and stories on the impact of the recent service day, which you can read more about later in the newsletter.

I am very much looking forward to our annual Fia Fia night tonight and the performance of our students at Polyfest on Saturday. We are delighted to see the group grow to more than 50 boys, who have worked incredibly hard for most of the term to prepare for this weekend. If you are able, I would encourage you to come along and support our boys while enjoying the dance, food, music, and fellowship that Polyfest provides. Our boys are on first at 9am at Hagley Park.

Next week is Summer Tournament week; we have 128 students competing across seven sports - Touch, Rowing, Basketball, Softball, Futsal, Water Polo and Mountain Biking. We wish them all well; I have no doubt they will put their best foot forward and represent our college with pride. You can keep up to date with results on our social media platforms.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh - Wishing you all a Happy St Patrick's Day.

Jon McDowall
Tumuaki I Rector