Dear Parents

Welcome back to the College for Term 2.

Today, we held our College ANZAC services on each campus.  We have a large number of Defence families attending our College and it was fabulous to welcome our parents who are currently serving our country as our special guests.  We also had the pleasure of welcoming Wing Commander Carmel Cash as our guest speaker.

On Monday, our Year 9 students will represent the College at the ANZAC Dawn Service at Robelle Domain as part of the Rite Journey program.  Although our Year 9 students will be in the roped-off school section, TSAC students may attend in full College Uniform and be part of the service in the public area.  The service itself begins at 5:30am.

On Tuesday, our new Chaplain, the Reverend Jonathan Kemp will be commissioned as Chaplain of the College.  The position of Chaplain is an important position in an Anglican school and as such, we will have a number of special guests at the ceremony.  Our Regional Bishop, the Right Reverend John Roundhill, will commission Reverend Jonathan and will be joined by members of the clergy, College Council and Board on the Secondary Campus at 9.30am.

Next week the College celebrates its Foundation and we will have some special activities and events to mark the College’s 24^th Year.

The Secondary Campus will host the Interclan Cross Country Carnival on Tuesday 3 May.  This carnival is one of the few times our Primary and Secondary students come together to compete for their Clan.  Included in this day will be the TSAC Dash, around the internal road of the Secondary Campus.

It is a busy start to the term, but one full of celebration.  With the further easing of COVID restrictions, parents are welcome to attend our events this term.

My very best wishes
Steve

From the Chaplain

Earlier today, I had the privilege of participating in ANZAC Day services for both Primary and Secondary campuses. Every year, I’m really interested to see the way young Australians continue to respond to the ANZAC story. Next Monday, on the 25th of April, many young people in Springfield and surrounds will get out of bed in the dark, much earlier than usual, and voluntarily attend a community ANZAC Day service. It would be fair to say they are treating ANZAC Day as a ‘sacred’ event – a special day when there is something important to be remembered and people behave more solemnly and treat what is happening with the highest level of respect, much like Good Friday or a church funeral, for example.

About twenty years ago, I had the privilege of travelling to Turkey and visiting Gallipoli in person. I could write a lot of words about all the things I saw there, but I’ll just mention that Anzac Cove is a much smaller beach than I had imagined. Everywhere we looked in the muddy soil up above it, we could see little bits of green – the remains of bullets and exploded bombs from nearly 100 years earlier. It was shocking to realise how many people must have been killed or injured on every square metre of that heavily contested terrain. I was also very emotionally affected by walking through some of the war cemeteries in the area, reading the white gravestones which lie flat on the grass and seeing how young the typical Anzac soldier was. Many were teenagers.

Although our soldiers died over there in 1915 or 1916, their names are still visible today on those gravestones in Turkey. We can also see them today on the stone war memorials you can find in almost every town in Australia. Remembering their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the many who have followed, for one special day of the year, seems the least we can do. Lest we forget.

Peace in Christ
Reverend Jonathan