Welcome to the Christmas edition of the alumni e-newsletter.

2020 has been a challenging year for students, staff and of course for our families. COVID-19 has presented many challenges for the world to tackle, and I am proud to say that our Damascus community has risen to the challenge with grit, resilience and resolve.

Our students and staff have adapted quickly to an online learning environment, which at times presented challenges for us all, but our capacity to learn new things and pivot to a new way of doing things was nothing short of remarkable. You can indeed, teach an old dog new tricks!

The wider Ballarat community including members of our alumni have also endured hardship and challenges throughout this pandemic year. I trust that each of you, our alumni, have met these challenges head-on, with the grace and the tenacity needed to overcome and succeed.

As a Damascus community, we farewelled the Class of 2020, and I think it is fair to say that they have had a final year of schooling like no other, one for the history books! As the year drew to a close, it was wonderful to witness our senior students undertaking their final exams in our newest building project, the Damascus Events Centre, which is a purpose-built event and exam space.

As alumni of Damascus College, we now collectively look forward to celebrating our 140 year anniversary in 2021, where we will honour our history 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 https://www.damascus.vic.edu.au/news-events/140-year-anniversary

A unique feature of our new website is the Historical Timeline which pictorially tells our 140 year history and celebrates significant milestones along the way. Please take the time to peruse this timeline to learn more of our collective history:

https://www.damascus.vic.edu.au/about-us/history/timeline

We now look forward to 2021 with hope and optimism that we, and the world, achieve the elusive COVID normal so that we can all enjoy a safe Christmas and new year. I am hopeful and optimistic that the resilience of our community continues to shine bright in 2021, and I encourage us all to look back on the year that was, the year of remote learning, with pride.

I wish to thank the Damascus staff for their continued passion and dedication to delivering a quality educational experience for our students, through the ups and downs of remote learning. I encourage you, our alumni, to get involved in the life of your College, to reach out, to be proud of what we have achieved, and to re-connect in the variety of ways available to you.

Remote learning presented many challenges to our community, and I am proud to say that our Damascus Development team, consisting of myself, Korina Hegert, Alumni & Development Officer, Natasha Adam, Archivist and Jamison Thomas, Development Officer have risen to this challenge, which forced us to learn new things and to adapt, and collectively we have done a remarkable job in enabling our Damascus community to stay connected in the online environment. We found ourselves developing new and innovative ways to engage our community via our social media platforms, and the benefit of creating engaging video content has been enormous. I wish to sincerely thank Korina, Natasha and Jamison for their dedication, creativity and can-do attitude, as it served us well throughout two periods of remote learning, where we found ourselves working from home and we quickly adapted to it being our new normal. The fortitude and resilience shown has undoubtedly developed us each personally, and as a team, will help us to reach new and exciting heights in the future. Exciting times.

Finally, I take this opportunity to wish you and yours a festive holiday season and a prosperous new year.

Thank- you, and I look forward to welcoming you back to Damascus College in the near future.

Sarah Boswell

Leader of Marketing & Development