Over the past four years, the Sustainability Committee has grown from just three Year 9 students to over fifty active members across all year groups. The uniting feature among this diverse range of students is a passion for improving the world around us, with a belief that change is possible with the right amount of determination and motivation.

As the inaugural Captain of Sustainability, I’d like to take this opportunity to inform the Newington Community on the current state of the Committee, as well as reflect on the successes of the committee over the past four years.

The central philosophy of the committee is focused on student-led initiatives, with a belief in the development of skills that will be carried off the campus and into the broader community after graduation. Therefore, we seek to instil students with the abilities they would normally be able to develop through leadership opportunities similar to those the school offers to senior students, except the committee is original in the way that it offers these opportunities to all students.

After three years of steady growth from 2011 to 2013, the committee took a big step at the start of the year in becoming a formal co-curricular activity at Newington. With this came the development of a senior leadership team composed of Year 11 and 12 students – the Executive Committee. This team, combined with Ms Randell and myself has overseen huge successes throughout the year, as well as the consolidation of our previous efforts.

It’s natural for one to think that a small group of students at a huge school at Newington wouldn’t be able to do much – but this is far from the truth. We’ve seen the installation of solar panels, water refill stations and recycling bins on College grounds. These changes will have drastic implications for the school’s carbon footprint and energy expenditure in the future, as well as decreasing plastic waste and encouraging recycling practices at school and home.

The committee has also been successful in establishing itself within the Newington calendar, through two key events. Firstly, the committee established Clean-Up Australia Day at the school, with 150 to 200 students participating every year. Motivated students have taken to the street on the first Sunday of every March over the past four years to clean the streets around Stanmore, as part of a national effort to keep Australia beautiful. We’ve also established a name for ourselves at Back to Newington Day, running a successful stall last year. We will build upon this success and run another stall this year, focusing on educating the Newington community on sustainable practices at home. We have also expanded into the digital community, with a Spaces page and a blog, enabling students to have their say on issues that are important to them.

A recent highlight within the committee was at the end of Term 2, whereby myself, Keegan Roberts (12 ME), Roger Li (9 FL) and Ashan Karunagaran (11 KL) along with Ms. Randell were able to take a day-trip to Taronga Zoo to see Dr. Jane Goodall speak. We spent the morning in groups with staff and students from many other schools, whereby we engaged with various activities aimed at developing sustainability programs around the school. In the afternoon we attended a speech by Dr. Goodall, who encouraged students of all ages to be more conscious about their activities, as to root-out the ignorance that leads to unsustainable practices in adult life.

Naturally, we could not have achieved any of this without the wise guidance provided by Ms Randell, who leaves us this year to become Head of English at Macquarie Anglican Grammar School in Dubbo. Needless to say, without her support the Committee would have never got off the ground and grown to the extent is has. Her ability to instil a need for action on matters that everyone needs to be more actively engaged in has led to many successes for the Committee, on and off school grounds. Everyone in the committee wishes her the best of luck for the future.

Overall, despite our Year 12 leaders and Ms Randell leaving, we all have faith in the knowledge that the Committee will continue to grow and be successful in the future, under the leadership and guidance of 2015’s Captain (who will be announced next week), the newly installed Executive Committee and Mr Parkin.

Finally, I’d like to encourage anyone – staff, student or parent – who’s interested in making long-lasting and effective change within the school or broader community to get into contact with the committee, by sending an email to sustainability@newington.nsw.edu.au.

Connor McNamara (12/MO)
Captain of the Sustainability Committee