I had the privilege of accompanying our Year 12 students to Anglesea for their Retreat experience from Wednesday to Friday of last week. They are a remarkable group of young people who capitalised on this opportunity to strengthen their inter-relationships and explore their personal connection with our loving God. While not perfect, the weather was somewhat suitable for beach time, and the sun shone on the iconic beach photo on Friday morning to conclude what was a fantastic three days away. Our Year 12 Retreat is an experience that many people reflect on post their secondary school with great fondness, and this certainly appeared to be the sentiment of the students of the 2022 cohort. I thank our Retreats Coordinator, Adrian Newman, for his work over the last 12 months in preparation and the support of RE teachers, small group leaders, Martin Ryan, Tony Haintz, Andrew Robertson and former students Tasya Dalem, Daisy Jessup and Asher Kuhn.

There will be a Parent Access Module (PAM) webinar this evening from 6:00pm to 7:00pm, for new families or any families that would like support in accessing the wealth of information available, including providing permission for student activities. The link to the MS Teams meeting can be found here.

Year 7 Camp kicks off next week at the Log Cabin Camp near Creswick. Students will go out in House groups starting with McAuley Monday, Xavier Tuesday, Rice Wednesday, and St Martin Thursday. Families should have all received information regarding the camp; however, do not hesitate to contact the College office if there are any questions. It should be a great week for our newest and youngest students to consolidate friendships within their new House groupings.

Next Thursday (17^th), there will be an information evening for families of VCAL and VCE students. Both events will be live-streamed, beginning with VCAL at 6:00pm, followed by VCE at 7:00pm. If you have a student in VCE or VCAL, you are strongly encouraged to attend these events.

Today we received an additional supply of Rapid Antigen Tests for distribution to students, which will now occur during TA tomorrow morning, to students with multiple Damascus students in their household. We anticipate being in a position on Monday morning to provide to all students and staff one box of 5 RAT's that will be sufficient supply for the final two weeks of the government return to school plan and the four week supply period of Rapid Antigen Tests. We are unsure at this stage if this initiative will continue beyond the next two weeks, but we will certainly keep you updated on developments.

This Friday, the Opening School Mass will occur in the Damascus Events Centre for Year 12 and SRC students commencing at 11:30am. Unfortunately, we can't run this significant event as an entire school community in the JSC, but we appreciate your understanding. COVID safe precautions have been put in place to support social distancing and the safety of all students and staff involved.

The Enhancing Catholic School Identity Project (ESCIP) is coming soon to Damascus College.

The Catholic University in Leuven was commissioned by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Ltd (CECV) to design a process and tools based on sound research, to accomplish the goal of understanding our current Catholic identity and where the school community might like to see it in the future. It has been four years since we used the tool to understand Catholic identity at Damascus College in this way.

Quite soon, the whole school community will be offered the opportunity to be involved in the process.

There are a number of approaches or scales used to describe Catholic identity in ESCIP. The first compares belief (and non-belief) with how religious belief (or non-belief) is experienced. Does someone believe in God, or not? Is there a transcendent God involved in the structure of someone's philosophy of life? Is religious belief (or non-belief) being processed literally or symbolically? To learn more about this process click here

Other scales will be described in future newsletters. It is an exciting time for us at the College, and I hope you can engage in the ESCIP to support the understanding of our Catholic identity; now and into the future.

The rowing crews represented the College very well over the weekend in quite challenging conditions, both Saturday and Sunday at Lake Wendouree. Our Junior Girls Year 9 Division 1 crew of Jovie Skewes-Clinton, Meg Cahir, Sam Crilly, Bridie Orchard and Emma Bethune won their race. Well done to all competitors, and thank you to Paul Blanchfield, Georgia O'Leary, Hamish Walsh, Claudia Griffin and Nikki Hexter for their support over the weekend, along with Mary Vanderlinden and all parent volunteers who supported the cooking of the BBQ as a fundraiser for Damascus Rowing. We wish our rowers well for the weekend ahead. Our Junior and Intermediate girls will be competing in the Firbank Regatta on the Barwon River, Geelong, whilst our boys will be rowing in the Head of the Schoolboys Regatta on Lake Wendouree; both events will take place on Saturday.

Until next week…Chris