Welcome to the Autumn edition of the alumni e-newsletter.
2021 has been a welcome return to a little bit of normality for our Damascus College community, where we returned to onsite learning and classes as normal, but we were challenged with a snap lock-down earlier this year, which only lasted a few days, thank heavens. We pray and hope that each member of our community remains COVID free and that the world overcomes this pandemic sooner rather than later.
Our students and staff have settled back into learning and teaching onsite, where we commenced the year holding on to some of the invaluable lessons we learnt throughout 2020. Many of our large-scale events were held with reduced capacities to adhere to COVID guidelines, including the Academic Assembly and the Opening Mass.
This year we celebrate the 140 year anniversary of our college, dating back to 1881. Past students and staff of Sacred Heart College, St Paul’s Technical College, St Martin’s in the Pines and Damascus College are invited to join us in celebrating this milestone, and we invite you to visit us online to keep up to date with our 140 year celebratory events.
Our alumni would have been looking forward to their class reunions in 2020 which had to be postponed to this year. We are thrilled to have already hosted three of five 2020 reunions throughout April and May, and we will also host the 2021 reunions in July and August. It certainly is a bumper year of welcoming our alumni back to our beautiful campus, with a total of 10 reunions this year. I wish to take this opportunity to thank Korina Hegert, Alumni & Development Officer, for her wonderful coordination of these reunions, Korina’s passion and enthusiasm always make the events a special occasion for all involved.
A couple of events that are coming up on the Damascus calendar, that we wish to invite alumni and the wider community to attend, are the Bright Futures breakfast and our annual guest speaker event, that we were unable to host in 2020.
The Bright Futures Scholarship Breakfast will be held on Thursday 3 June, 7am where we welcome our special guest speaker Jocelyn Bignold (OAM) to address the audience. Jocelyn is the CEO of McAuley Community Services, which provides support for women and children experiencing family violence and homelessness. Jocelyn has over 25 years’ service to the community and was recognised for her commitment to making people’s lives better with a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2020.
The breakfast will be a fantastic opportunity to network with like-minded members of our community, hear from our guest speaker whilst enjoying a sumptuous sit-down breakfast, in our new Damascus Events Centre. Get your tickets here.
The annual guest speaker event this year is on Wednesday 23 June, 7pm and we welcome our guest speaker, Luke Kennedy, a motivational speaker and mental health advocate and he will address our community on the following topic: “Improve your mental health by developing self-care strategies and resilience.” This free community event is aimed at parents and guardians within the Ballarat community, register here.
This week we welcomed around 200 guests to celebrate our annual Mother’s Day Liturgy and Breakfast. Due to COVID guidelines, we limited attendee numbers, but we were extremely excited that the event sold out within a few days, showing the growing commitment to these quality events at Damascus. It was wonderful to welcome mothers and the significant women in our lives to the liturgy that was held in the John Shannon Centre, followed by a sumptuous breakfast in the Damascus Events Centre.
As with any school community, there is always lots happening at Damascus and to tell our community a little about what our students and staff are up to, we produce our bi-annual publication called “The Road”. The Autumn edition of The Road is out this week, and alumni and parents will receive this publication in their mailboxes within the news two weeks. The Autumn edition includes a host of articles including student profiles, event updates, student celebrations, anniversaries, sports reviews, awards and much more. The beautiful front cover celebrates this year's 30th anniversary of The Final Hours, our College production that tells of the final hours of Jesus' life.
I wish to thank the many members of our alumni community that have taken the time out of their busy schedules this year already, to attend their 2020 reunions, it is always a lovely occasion to see so many past students together reminiscing about what school used to be like, 50, 40, 30 years ago. As a college, we now look forward to welcoming more alumni back to Damascus throughout the rest of this year.
Thank-you and stay safe everyone.
Sarah Boswell
Leader of Marketing & Development