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St Bede's College
 
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Greetings from St Bede's

Mr Justin Boyle —

I write this weeks piece from Wellington. Along with some of our special character people, I am attending the NZ Catholic Education, an event which occurs every 3 years attended by over 800 members of the catholic education community.

Principals, Board members, staff and priests from all over the country are in attendance but also all the Catholic Bishops. It is a wonderful celebration of catholic education in this country and we have been treated to some excellent speakers and presenters from both NZ and from overseas.

The theme of the conference is “Christs Call: to love, to be, to do “. The challenge laid down at the convention is to be exactly that!!! The challenge is even greater in the very secular world we live in. The first speaker was Dame Therese Walsh who has had an illustrious career working in the corporate world coordinating major events like the Rugby world and Cricket Cups and she regaled us with stories of those roles and others in a speech she labelled, “A Corporate Take on Catholic Leadership”. She came from a large Catholic family and in a very amusing manner explained how that upbringing had such an impact on the way she conducted herself in that very corporate but very secular world. She continued that the values she was weaned on, of humility, respect of others and integrity, are still relevant in the cut throat corporate world.

Her address has set the standard and two other speakers from overseas also were most impressive. Fr Daniel Horan, a young Franciscan priest from the United States spoke with real passion and conviction in a similar vein. His speech was entitled “Fear: The Enemy of Christian Discipleship in an unjust world” and spoke of a number of people in the last century who conquered fear in proclaiming the gospel. Because we live in such a secular world he challenges us that we are afraid to be overt about living the gospel, because in a sense Christs way is unfashionable, but that the market driven way the western world has become is not necessarily the way to happiness in life. He referred to recent research in both the USA, Australia and NZ, which points to the crisis among young people round their wellbeing, the scourge of social media, the ’me’ centred attitude to life which the western world promotes but that is exacerbated via social media. All in all it has been a good conference and as I said a great celebration of Catholic education in NZ.

The wet weather looks like it will play havoc with winter sport again this weekend, which is unfortunate for the large number of boys who play football or rugby, but a fact of life in a NZ winter. The cold winter hasn’t prevented the year 10 and year 12 seminars going ahead. The theme of both was based round, what are the blockages to manhood, and namely as I alluded above the misuse of technology and the potential impact that has on young person’s development. A parents night was well attended and the outside presenter David Kobler gave parents a snapshot of what he covered with the boys, some of which was most confronting. We hope to give all parents access to his material. It is most enlightening!!!

The large number of contractors on site is a sign that the building projects are progressing nicely but providing some logistical challenges for us as they invade the spare space on the campus.

From Wellington and until next week

Justin Boyle