From the Leader of School Evangelisation

Proclaim Lismore Students aims to provide a comprehensive continuum of Intentional Student Discipleship Programs across the Diocese for students from Year 4 to Year 12.  These gatherings aim to bring Catholic secondary students together to meet like-minded peers and to celebrate and meet with other young people who practice their faith.

In 2022, six (6) Year 11 students from our school will join students from each of the other parish secondary schools in attending the Street Retreat experience in Brisbane.  This experience will form, equip and empower students to return to their parish communities with a passion for social justice and greater sense of the call of Jesus Christ to serve the poor.

Participants in the Street Retreat will spend from Thursday night 23 June to Sunday lunch 26 June working with a range of social justice initiatives in Brisbane.  Their participation may make a small contribution to those being served – but the event is first and foremost an exercise in discipleship formation. 

Participants will find the activities on the street retreat challenging and possibly confronting.  Many activities run either very late at night or very early in the morning.  The retreat will culminate in a celebration of Sunday Eucharist.   In addition, all participants must commit to a follow up Social Justice activity to be held in their own parish/school community following the Brisbane formation experience.  Details of these activities will be made available to students upon their selection.

In discerning which students might participate in this retreat experience, the Diocese has recommended the following selection criteria:

• Catholic students who can demonstrate involvement in their parish.
• Catholic students who have attended previous student discipleship programs.
• Students who exhibit the following attributes:
  • a strong sense of social justice
  • initiative
  • common sense and a mature character

A large number of St Joseph’s College students have already expressed an interest in this event.  We can, however, only offer six (6) places.  Any student who would like to be considered is asked to write a brief statement supporting their nomination on the information sheets provided by Mrs Hannah Ardrey, and available at the front office.  Attention should be given to the stated selection criteria.  Nominations should be handed to Mrs Hannah Ardrey no later than Friday 20 May.

Successful applicants will be asked to make a contribution of $50.00 towards the cost of this experience payable to the school office, as well as provide $5.00 to be donated to a worthy cause and collected on Thursday evening at Street Retreat.

Catholic Schools Week 2022

In Week 2, we celebrated Catholic Schools Week as a College.  CSW is celebrated around the world and is a celebration of what makes our culture unique.  

We are centred around the Gospel values and at the heart of this is building and developing relationships with others in our community.  We showed appreciation for different groups of people throughout the week.  These groups included; parents, students, parish community, teachers and support staff.  During RE classes students had the opportunity to write letters of appreciation for parents and teachers.  Teachers also had the opportunity to write a small note of appreciation for students in their AWC groups.  On Wednesday morning, students from the Year 9 and 10 ministry classes attended mass at the parish and served morning tea to parishioners.  The students were exceptional representatives of the College and were noted by those who attended for their friendliness.

St Joseph's Parish Mass celebrated with our students during Catholic Schools Week

Year 11 CFIA classes also helped organise a morning tea to thank support staff for all they do behind the scenes to support student learning and life at the College.  The following speech was read to our support staff during their appreciation day:

Dear support staff members, I would like to welcome you here on this beautiful day.  On behalf of all students here, I would like to sincerely thank you all for making this school what it is today. 

• We thank the groundsmen for our clean and beautiful environment 
• the teaching assistants for their unconditional support
• The office staff for all the work done behind the scenes
• To Kali and Elise for their spiritual support
• And Sonny for helping with our tech support
• as well as everyone else who has made a difference to St Joseph’s College

Ethan Kennedy
Year 11 CFIA representative