Greetings from St Bede’s,

It's been quite a week! If you were at the College the last couple of nights you would have seen plenty of events and activity going on, and hundreds of people participating.

This was a special week in the springtime life of the College. Over 20 boys were baptised on Wednesday night in the Chapel and 500+ people witnessed 77 Bedeans receive the Sacraments in the Gym last night. Principal celebrant was Bishop Paul whose messages to the assembled, reminded all of us of the importance of these sacraments in Catholic life - visible and tangible signs to help us to live a good life on this earth in preparation for eternal life with God in heaven.

Also on Wednesday night, the Arts Faculty staged a Variety Concert, which was the first live concert this year, with an audience in person.

This week saw the inaugural BMA’s, or Bedean Media Awards. This was the culmination of the year's work for the Y12 and Y13 Media Studies students. The boys have worked hard on completing a design and plan, script, and then producing this work. The BMAs were a showcase of this work for family and friends. The Y12s produced very engaging film trailers, leaving the audience wanting to watch the films the trailers advertised! The Y13s produced short films, including an angle to help them out, some scares and laughs also. A special thanks must go out to those students who acted in these films who were not in the Media Studies classes, and also to a number of family members making cameo appearances. The boys had an excellent night, and a rightly very proud of their work. A very enjoyable, entertaining and positive night was had by all.

Also to note two groups, Ivan in Y12, and Ciaran Thomas and Sam Woodward have been named as finalists for the School Shorts Screen Competition run through the NZ Broadcasting School to be premiered at the Palms next weekend. Fingers crossed for their success. 

At Assembly this week, we held the Winter Sports Awards which are also published in the newsletter. In my introductory remarks, I shared the conversation of two leading sportsmen in late February, lamenting the fact that they may have played their last games for St Bede's in the wake of the announcement that we were going into lockdown! This was on the back of the news that we couldn't stage the CanTeen "Run for a Life".

I vividly remember their disappointment, so it was good we could stage an assembly which acknowledged the exploits of player in all the winter codes. Equally it was heartening to be able to present a cheque of $75,000.00 to CanTeen, and for them to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of our boys in raising such a significant sum!

Another example of how we have made the best out of second best in this unique year.

Until next week,

J. G. Boyle