Last Saturday’s beautiful ceremony in the church, when 97 children and young adults were confirmed and received their first holy communion, was a credit to Oliver Cafe and Team of Catechists, the children and their parents. Now that the children have made these two important steps, it is seems logical and necessary for them to have the opportunity to practise their faith regularly through prayer and attending Mass on Sundays. At Mass this Sunday, Father Elric was talking to us about the importance of Sunday Mass in the lives of Catholics and being active members of the parish community. For a while I thought he was talking to the converted, then thought that no matter what our involvement is, we can all step up! I wonder why regular attendance at Sunday Mass has declined over the years? Is it that life has become too busy, or that Mass is not an exciting activity or that we don’t really believe any more?
In order to be truly healthy and well, we need to look after, nourish, cherish and exercise our bodies, minds and souls. Perhaps we are more focused on looking after our bodies these days, so that takes priority. The Maori word for health is Hauora-Wellbeing and the 4 dimensions of that are: Tinana-Physical, Wairua-Spiritual, Whanau-Family & relationships and Hinengaro-mental and emotional. Many people put a lot of effort into Tinana-physical wellbeing; we try hard to put effort into Whanau-family and relationships; there is a growing awareness of the need to be healthy mentally and emotionally-Hinengaro, so perhaps at the moment, putting the effort and time into our spiritual wellbeing -Wairua, is not seen as that important, particularly when the exercise required from us in the spiritual sense does not seem that appealing!
On Monday evening , the Friends of St Joe’s met, and as always, worked well together on organising a variety of events for the benefit of the school. Please do think about giving your time to help out. The more the merrier. The areas of focus for fundraising at the moment are Entertainment Books and the quiz coming up on 13th June. Make sure you buy tickets and either organise a table or join in with an existing one. The Friends, with your help, raised over $30,000 for the purchase of iPads and contributing to many other school learning activities such as subsidising the cost of mathletics to keep the cost down for parents. Thank you to Mary-Jane and all the team for their work during the year and for the support from parents and community. Congratulations to Anna MacNaught who was elected as the new President of Friends of St Joe’s!
Tuesday was soccer skills day when all children, throughout the day, had the opportunity to learn more about how to play soccer. Regardless of whether they go on to play the game, there are many excellent skills and attitudes to be learnt.
Teams from Years 3-6 had a great day at an Inter schools’ Rippa Rugby Tournament on Thursday, accompanied by Hayley Mahuru, Alice Simmers, their coaches and a number of parents. Hayley commented on how proud she was of the children’s behaviour, attitude and skills. Thank you to parents and coaches. On Thursday afternoon, I went to the Shore to Shore Presentation at North Harbour. We received $900.00 towards Sports equipment as a result of the number of children and parents who entered from our school…so thank you! Thank to Hayley for her organisation of the event and Friends of St Joe’s for the catering.
Footsteps Dance got Friday off to a good start and there was plenty of dancing throughout the morning as each group went to learn their dance steps and moves!
We are moving closer to starting off the major building programme, with the end of June/early July likely to be the starting time. . If you haven’t been in to the staff room to have a look at the plans, please feel free to do so. They are on the wall – near the back on the left. We will be using the first floor of the St Joseph’s Centre for the time it takes for the build and the classes using that will be operating in a “modern learning style” even though they will not be in a modern building! Rooms 14 and 15 teachers and children will be the lucky ones, joined by the next round of new entrants. This is likely to occur from the beginning of Term 3. Parents of those children will be kept fully informed as soon as we have definite dates and arrangements.
The basketball/netball courts area will not be available once the project starts, so the back court (behind the senior block), the hall (which will have to be shared more) and some offsite venues will need to be used. Once we have definite dates, people involved will be contacted. Room 11 will be moved offsite completely and Rooms 9 & 10 and the toilet block will be demolished in the short term, with Rooms 7 & 8 being demolished once the building is completed. Children in Rooms 7 & 8 will use the hall toilets. Parking will be affected as there will be no staff parking by Rooms 5 & 6, nor by the senior block. The senior block parking will be reserved for the St Joseph’s Centre. There will be no vehicle access past the end of the drive on weekdays.
It is all very exciting that our school is going to receive modern buildings which will provide learning environments that will be recognised as innovative and progressive and will relate to life in this 21st century! The building project and process will be challenging and, no doubt, require more patience than usual..from all of us! In the meantime, and also once the new building is in place, our wonderful teachers will continue putting maximum effort into ensuring that your children are learning well, developing their faith, their thinking and their relationships and working hard to become good contributors to our country and our world.
