Dear Parents and Guardians,

It was wonderful to see a full house at the OBLT on Tuesday evening to hear Professor Genevieve Bell, the first speaker in our Ethics Centre lecture series.  Professor Bell is an Australian anthropologist and futurist best known for her work at the intersection of cultural practice and technology development. She is widely published, and holds 13 patents.  Professor Bell spoke about “What it means to be human, and Australian, in a digital world”.

Professor Bell’s deep understanding and views across many areas were cleverly woven into her lecture. Thought provoking, challenging and a little mischievous, this lecture provided something for everyone and again demonstrated Dr Hall’s capacity to attract some of the most talented academics and thought leaders from Australia and from overseas.

On Wednesday, we invited more than 200 prospective parents and guardians to tour our campus facilities accompanied by staff members and volunteers from Years 10 and 11.  Thank you to the boys for participating, and for being such great ambassadors for the College.

At assembly we presented our 2018 Swimming Age Champions:  12 Years – Tom Farr-Jones (7/JN), 13 Years – Jackson McCleery (7/MO), 14 Years – Thomas Oates (9/JN), 15 Years – Christopher Mina (9/PR), 16 Years – Sam Lye (10/LE), 17 Years – Lachlan Sheehy (11/JN) and Open Swim Champion 2018 – Jack Rudkins (12/MA).  We congratulated Daniel Nailand (11/LE) who entered Trop Jr, an event showcasing the work of incredibly talented young filmmakers. Sixteen finalists were named, and Daniel placed third with his film “Mr Wolf”. We were entertained by the Stage Band performing “Chicken Scratch” by Kris Berg.

We have now launched the Tupou College Cyclone Relief Container Appeal for our brother school Tupou College, which suffered significant damage to its infrastructure when Cyclone Gita hit last week.  Newington students, staff and Old Boys have been travelling to Tupou College since the 1970s.  More than 300 boys and 30 Newington staff have resided at Tupou College as part of our Annual Service Learning, Rugby and Music Tours.  One hundred and fifty current students have been welcomed with open arms and experienced the support, love, hospitality and culture of Tupou College and Tonga.  We have been in regular contact with Tupou College in recent days, and now have an extensive list of much needed items.  We have a container on site, please help us to fill it. Click here to find out how you can help with the appeal.

I wish all of our Newington families a relaxing weekend.