School Retreats 2011

Campion College

In February this year we sent a team of 6 people, once again to Gisborne for the Campion College year’s 11 and 13 retreats.

We started off with the year 13’s where we had an over nighter at Whangara Marae. The focus of the year 13 retreat was leadership. We ran many different activities, which included the likes of team building, sand castle competitions and  a lot of personal and spiritual reflection.

The next 3 days were spent with the year 11’s in Gisborne itself.

The retreat team included Kitty McKinley, Daniel Kleinsman, Hadley Middleton, Emma O’Callaghan, Eddie Condra, Luke Collins. We all had a great time and were pleased with the retreats and the way the young people mostly engaged in them. And Gizzie is a hot place!!

St Patrick’s Silverstream

The  Leadership Retreat for Year 13′s at St Patrick’s College Silverstream was a real challenge – 120 students was a big number to facilitate over three days. The retreat team was James van Schie, Andy Murray, Daniel  Kleinsman, Luke Collins, Heath Hutton, Andrew Solomona, Joe So Choon and Tihei Maihi Ioane.

We had a number of guest speakers including Brian Roche – CEO NZ Post, Tim Duckworth sm, John Robinson – a Nelson USAR member who had spent the previous week in Christchurch, Senior Sergeant Steve O’Connor from Police National Headquarters, Kitty McKinley and Matt Crawford sm. Workshops, experential learning activities and a concert were all part of the retreat and Father John Greally celebrated Mass to finish off the retreat. There was a lot of time to reflect and discuss and think about the factors that make a Marist man.

The Year 13 students put a lot of effort into working in their respective houses and reflecting on how best to be inspirational servant leaders to the rest of the college. Many of the Year 13 students showed that they were excellent leaders and motivated, positive followers.

St Oran’s Leadership Retreat

Bridget Roche and Heath Hutton facilitated this programme for the Year 13 Prefects/ Exec. Leadership was defined and discussed as a theory and then each leader was nominated to lead a particular experiential activity.

This was then debriefed and the reflection process used to transfer the learning back to their college situation. The leaders were excellent and showed a real commitment to leading their College from a strong values base as role models and making a difference in 2011.