A busy term comes to an end …….

Academically one where seniors got a taste of reality with exams and making decisions about courses for next year.

On the cultural front, the CanTeen Concert a few weeks ago was a highlight and as we have seen at various assemblies the art folios coming together.

On the sports field many of you have represented the College so very well, both in the winter season and during Tournament Week. Well done.

And now this term culminates with something special to St Bede’s – CanTeen ‘Run for a Life’.

On Wednesday, we had a liturgy prior to the runners departing. George Watson (Y12), recounted his story of losing his mum to cancer when he was in Year 9. It brought the cause we are raising money for to the fore, and all present were moved by George’s courage in telling his story of a teenager living with cancer.

The other day a staff member new to the College asked me “why do we do CanTeen?”. For a start, I mentioned the stock-standard answer that by doing so, we are trying to show or teach our boys an attitude of doing for others less fortunate than ourselves, and that we are living out a very gospel message as a way of teaching the boys. In this case, it is for those young people that are afflicted with cancer or who are living with someone who has cancer.

Another back-story to why we do this came about after an observation that the then Chaplain, Fr Walls and I made in the first months of our beginning here in 2002. Many of the conversations we had with boys, parents and staff were about making comparisons with other schools in the city. At Christchurch Boys’ School they do this, or at Christ’s College they do that. It is a very Christchurch thing to talk about schools, but it seemed to us that here we had walked into a school that was then 90 years old and we weren’t hearing too much about our own story. As we found out 10 years later at our Centenary it is a GREAT STORY.

It was Fr Walls who suggested we do something that was distinctly about St Bede’s, and living out our motto Fide Et Opere – “Let us show by our actions what we believe.”

And so evolved the first ‘Run for a Life’.

One hundred students went on the first CanTeen ‘Run for a Life’ in 2002, some very reluctantly, and I am always grateful to the boarders at College that year, many of whom volunteered at the very last moment! A far cry from the 2018 version where we had to turn down so many.

It has grown to now involve so many more and not just the boys currently running on the roads of the South Island, but also all of us. Whether we helped organise or attended the concert a few weeks ago, or today with Home Day, where members of our community – parents, staff and boys, came together to add their support. As a result, we all live out what our College stands for, instead of worrying about making odious comparisons to other schools.

Let us get on with the telling and retelling of our own story, without trying to copy or envy other schools. We must certainly respect other schools, but be proud of our own and when we come together on the front field today, let us think of those we are doing this for and by so doing, live out our motto ……Fide Et Opere.

Until next term,

Justin Boyle