From The Classroom

Year 12 Active Volunteering - Step Into Your Community!

On Tuesday 14th October, some of our students from the Year 12 Active Volunteering classes spent the morning at the Grafton Regional Gallery at a volunteering expo. Whilst there, students were able to find out more about different organisations and got to speak with active volunteers who are involved in a range of activities covering LandCare, WIRES, Lifeline, Australian Red Cross, Rural Adversity Mental Health Program and the School of Arts Neighbourhood House.

Students were able to hear first-hand from these volunteers about the personal and social benefits of being an active part of the broader community and were given food for thought on how they might get involved themselves. It was a pleasure to spend some quality time with our students and great to see them taking an active interest in the various opportunities open to them. A big thank you to Mr Smith for getting us safely there and back on the bus, and to Mrs Green for her support. 

Kind regards,

Caroline Doyle

Leader of Catechesis

Jubilee Art Prize Finalists Progress to Grand Finale!

Congratulations to our talented students in Years 8 and 9 whose hope inspired artworks have progressed to the final stage of the Jubilee Art Prize. A special mention goes to Max Lobsey from Year 9, who was also an individual finalist in the Junior Photography section.

The Jubilee Art Prize is an art competition hosted by the Diocese of Lismore to celebrate their Jubilee Year of "Hope." Max, as well as students from 8A and 9A were previously announced as finalists for their creative works inspired by this theme, and their projects were on display at St. Augustine’s in Coffs Harbour, during September.

We are thrilled to announce that following this regional exhibition, the works by our  students have all progressed to the final exhibition! This grand finale event will take place at St Carthage’s Cathedral in Lismore on December 6th. This is a huge achievement and a wonderful recognition of our students' work.

All parents, carers, and students involved in this art exhibition are invited to attend the final exhibition to celebrate this success. To ensure your place, please RSVP.

Please join us in congratulating these talented artists on their incredible journey in the Jubilee Art Prize.

Ignite Conference

On Thursday 25th September, 4 of our senior students, Raimi Mortimer, Molly Dick, Eleora Nichols, and Beckett Albert embarked on a 4 day retreat to the Ignite Conference in Brisbane. 

Ignite is a Catholic discipleship event which invites all ages of life to participate and celebrate their faith. Through praise and worship with Emmanuel Worship dynamic rallies, which gave us the opportunity to encounter the lord, and prayer teams which allowed for others to pray over you. 

Day 1: Started with a bus trip, we left McAuley at 9:30am. After many hours of games, talking, sing-a-longs to music we arrived at our venue. As a group the Lismore Dioceses made our way to Ignite Conference 2025. With a massive expo centre with people from all over the world, merch, different Religious orders, and the opportunity to ask many questions. We entered into our first rally of Ignite which had a hype pre-rally, followed by a talk by Stacey Trolove and a dynamic prayer experience to launch Ignite the Light. We left the venue with our hearts on fire. After a short debrief we were ready for whatever was heading our way for day 2. 

Day 2: After a well deserved and needed sleep we all woke up to eat a delicious breakfast and start the day off right with bacon, eggs, toast and drinks all offered to us so we could be energised for the day ahead. The day started with an opening rally with praise and worship lead by Emmanuel Worships, amazing songs, and then a touching talk from Fr Rob Galea which spoke about how stains on a wedding dress are like our sins and the person at the alter is Jesus and he is ready to accept you. After a quick morning tea we went into mass which was led by Fr Will who’s homily was a standout to all the participants as he used rap to begin and showed how connected he was to the culture of today. After celebrating mass we had lunch and were ready to go to our first keynote of the conference and first of the day. After both keynotes were complete we headed into our rally to conclude the night with more praise and worship, then a speech led by Sam Brebner which was then concluded by a beautiful time of Adoration which then led to us quickly piling into the bus to get back to the accommodation to sleep and prepare for Day 3.

Day 3: Another round of breakfast had us fueled and ready to go! After the bus ride we went straight into our morning rally. An absolute highlight of Ignite was Kym’s Couch. This is an opportunity to hear from 3 people who have written a letter about their life to their future selves. We heard from Emily, Father Josh and Jess. Which, hearing their own stories gave us the opportunity to reflect and see how God has worked in our own lives. We then had the opportunity to experience Reconciliation and Prayer teams for the first time at Ignite. After this we went off to our own workshop and keynote streams, we could chose workshops based off our own interests. This was an absolute highlight of Ignite this year. After our keynotes and workshops we had dinner breaks to explore the expo and join the podcast hosted by some of our College Youth Ministers. This was followed by a night rally of Holy Spirit night where we heard from Rebecca Crouch how we could live in the light now and every day. This night was very powerful and we were ready for day 4 to live in the light now and everyday. 

Day 4: After the last big three days, we all woke up ready to face the last one with new found hope, belonging and fostered faith. We once again had a delicious, nutritious breakfast to prepare us for the day and packed all of our things into the bus. We headed to the venue one last time for Ignite 2025 and straight into mass. As a diocese we all decided to sit together in mass and have that last opportunity to bond and grow our faith together as a collective along with our peers. We then headed into our last workshops of the conference. These workshops were designed to foster the needs of each age group and encourage them in their faith journeys. We were reminded about the fruits of the spirit and how we can live these out in our daily lives - teaching us about ourselves and how we can use our personal strengths to help others. We then headed into our final rally where we heard from Tash, the director for youth and young adults in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. She discussed the “light of Christ’ and encouraged us to take the lessons we learnt and our spiritual growth from the conference and apply them to our daily lives. We then said goodbye to our new found friends in Christ and headed home on the bus. The bus ride consisted of lots of sleeping, singing and new found bonds flourishing. Anyone that attended this last day of Ignite 2025 and was on that bus could tell you the profound joy radiating from each and every one of us. It was a pleasure to be a part of, and we can’t wait to do it all over again. 

Overall Ignite conference was a beautiful time to explore and deepen our understanding of our faith and allowed for us to open our eyes to the world of ministry I wholeheartedly recommend this retreat to any people who are unsure about their faith or anyone wanting to further deepen their understanding of faith; next years theme of Ascend will truly help to raise our hearts to the lord and continue living out our faith.  

Beckett Albert, Eleora Nichols and Jacob Somers (CYM)