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St Bede's College
 
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Greetings from St Bede's

Mr Justin Boyle —

Winter has hit with a considerable bite this week, and returning from China where the temperatures were in the thirties, was indeed a shock to the system for me.

The Board are keen for the College to grow international student numbers and I accepted an invitation from an organisation called One World Education to join a group of principals and international student directors, with the purpose of establishing relationships with schools in China. We visited a number of cities not as well known and signed Memorandums of Understandings in the cities of Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Xiangyang, Changsha and Shanghai.

At assembly I endeavoured to give the boys an insight into this vastly different country, but took the opportunity to impress upon them that China already a significant player as a world power. Greater knowledge of the Chinese culture and ways is something New Zealanders would benefit from, knowing that in the future many more opportunities to work within China will occur.

Three of our boys will visit Changsha accompanied by Mr Bryce in July, and it is hoped more opportunities will occur for more of our students to go and for Chinese students to visit us, for short term or the long term stays.

At assembly we welcomed members of the CanTeen organisation and girls from Marian College as we launched the CanTeen project, which will occur next term.

Rob Methven and Ethan Evans skilfully outlined why we get involved with this charity and dispelled a few myths on the way. I include their speech because they sum up very well all the good reasons why we embark on this cause as a College…….

Today, is a day of great significance in our college and wider community. Today, we announce a massive charity event which we want everyone here to play a part in as we strive to improve lives. Today we proudly announce the 2018 Canteen Run for a life.

Ethan: Many of you would have heard about Canteen as an organisation, the Canteen run for a life event or the Canteen Concert. Something we can guarantee is that everyone in this room would have been affected or at the very least heard of one thing. Cancer.

Robert: This is where the organisation Canteen comes in to play. Canteen is an organisation close to our hearts as it supports teenagers living with cancer, teenagers which have lost a family member to cancer, whether that be a parent or sibling and those bereaved of a family member lost to cancer. Canteen plays a massive role in being there to support these equal members of Canteen. This is where everyone one of us here today, can take the baton from CanTeens hands and do some hard work which can be crucial in making a difference. Be crucial in supporting the members of Canteen. Cancer is obviously a life threatening disease and you would be inclined to believe that an organisation like Canteen would be considered as an essential part of overcoming cancer and would receive government funding to do their work. You’d also be wrong as Canteen is completely reliant on donations. This is where we, St Bede’s and Marian college comes in. This is our call to Canteen.

Ethan: Our 2018 Campaign is a three pronged campaign- the Canteen Concert, The ‘Run for A Life’ and the home team. All of this aspects will become more and more relevant as the year goes on but for today we are talking about the Run. Canteen have become important members of our college community over the last sixteen years and this will be our eight ‘Run For a Life’ campaign. From September 26- October 1 2018, over five days 200 members of our college and from our sister school Marian, will run in relay style covering approximately 25 kms each day per day from eight different locations around the South Island; Karamea, Nelson, Motueka, Haast, Cromwell, Lawrence, Mount Cook and Pakawau. This is a tough ask, running 125km all up, 25 kms a day all the way back here to the college but as the boys say… Not as tough as living with cancer.

Robert: The goal is simple; raise as much money as we can in order to improve the lives of the members of CanTeen which are affected by Cancer. This needs to be kept in mind from right now all the way to the 1st of October as the runners cross that finish line together. In order to do this we are going to expel some “CanTeen myths”.

Robert: If you are the first runner to cross the finish line on the last day of school, it means you were the best runner over the run and therefore win the run for a life….

Ethan: MYTH. The only winners in the run for a life are the members of CanTeen. We are simply their support team, the pit crew that does the work they can’t.

Robert: If you run more than the 125km you’re prescribed to run then you have done more than is expected of you and deserve further recognition. Once again…

Ethan: MYTH. recognition is not why we do the run and all is asked is that everyone runs to their best ability with the goal in mind.

Robert: We do this event as a school to get recognition and publicity for the school…

Ethan: MYTH. We do this event because as we said the CanTeen organisation is one close to our heart and it affects people of our age.

Robert: Because you weren’t picked for the run it means you no longer should participate in campaign as there is nothing else you can do to help….

Ethan: MYTH. As said the 2018 Canteen Campaign is three pronged and offers other ways of participation especially the Home day.

Robert: The run is for good runners only...

Ethan: MYTH. The run is for everyone as it is for a team effort. With the myths debunked we will know have a video presentation.

Robert: Information on signing up for the run will come in the following weeks.

Until next time

Justin Boyle