Feast day - what an exhilirating day!

This week we have enjoyed the festivities of our Feast Day honouring our Dominican Patron Saints – St Dominic Guzman and St Catherine of Siena. It was a great day of prayer, fun and friendship for the whole community. We were grateful to warmly welcome back our former College Rector, Fr Frank Bertagnolli SDB to preside at our mass and to welcome our Dominican Sisters - Sr Pam Davis OP and Sr Mary Rickards OP to join us.

The day opened with art activities in K-2 - we are in the lead up to our great Creative Arts festival in September, and students across the College are embracing their creative juices! The day closed with after-lunch buddy games for our K-6 students.

In between we had it all! Volunteers making healthy salad rolls, academic races, theatresports, Mass and a talent show... here's a few snippets from the day:

The Amazing Race in 7-10
In the morning of Feast Day, before we came together for Mass, 7-10 students enjoyed a challenging Amazing Race, organised by our Pastoral Care and subject teachers. We formed groups based on year levels and Houses, and worked together in a variety of activities based around subjects at school in “stations” around the school.

Stations included: Maths – Game of Letters and Number; English – Write a Limerick; Humanities – Create History Timelines; Physical Education – Fitness Challenges; Art – Making Hearts and/or a Colour Wheel; Outdoor Ed – Set up a Tent; Drama – Untangle Activity; Design in Wood – Nailing, Screwing, Planing and Box Making; Religion – Saint Puzzle; Science – Change the colour of a Liquid; Home Ec – Tea towel basketball and folding; and IT – Lego Activity.

Once an activity was successfully completed within a time limit, your group would get a puzzle piece and were instructed on where to go for their next challenge. If your group completed everything you ran to the 7-10 office and put together all the pieces you had obtained from completing the activities.

The Bosco Year 8 girls took out first place followed by the Siena Year 10 girls and just behind them, the Bosco Year 10 girls. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the brand new “Amazing Race” and everyone was eager to work as a team to complete the tasks.

See more photos on our gallery: The Amazing Race
Cameron Goodsell - Bosco Sports Captain

Entertaining Theatresports in 3-6

On Feast Day Years 3-6 took part in the first Dominic College Junior Theatresports Competition. Students from Years 5 and 6 competed in various improvisation games in the hopes of winning the title of Theatresports Champions and the coveted rubber chicken trophy.

There was much laughter and audience participation from all involved and there were some outstanding performances. Special mention goes to Mitchell Cleland for his performance of Little Red Riding Hood and Zoelle Lin’s performance of the washing machine robot! You can see more photos on our website gallery: Theatresports

Congratulations to Savio House who took out first place by just two points, ahead of Guzman! Well done to all.
Miss Jess Brownrigg - Drama teacher

Feast Day Mass
On Wednesday we celebrated the feast days of St Dominic Guzman and St Catherine of Siena with a wonderful Mass in the Savio Centre. The stage was set up with an altar and lecterns, candles, bright balloons and greenery, to be the focus as we turned that huge area into our sacred space for just an hour or two.

Mrs Gabi Ashlin, K-6 REC, is to be commended for her preparation of the liturgy. We raised our voices in prayer and song together. We were led in song by our K-6 students, particularly Year 2, who led us in singing one of the hymns all by themselves!

We were very pleased to have Fr Frank Bertagnolli as a special guest celebrant, and what a rousing welcome he was given! Father spoke to us of the positive characteristics of our Saints of the day, and challenged us to mirror these qualities in our daily lives.

A feature was to hear Year 9 student Faith Scotney-Baron read the Acknowledgement of Country in her language - a poignant and significant moment. Max Brideson and Hannah Maw read the First Reading with maturity and dignity, while Kelsea Calderon Cano and Priyannika Kumrai led us beautifully in the Psalm and Alleluia. Year 7 students had fun and laughter presenting a dramatic version of The Good Samaritan story. Thank you to that group for the fun and depth they put into the story. Our Mission Captains, Sona Sojan and Alicia Paice led us thoughtfully in the Prayers of the People.

After Mass, Ms Gilligan addressed us and presented gifts to our wonderful Dominican Sisters, Sr Pam and Sr Mary. It did the heart good just to see the Kinders leading off at the end of Mass to the theme music from Toy Story.

See more photos on our gallery: Feast Day Mass
Ms Margaret Rootes - Acting K-10 Director of Mission

7-10 Dominic’s Got Talent

The final event of our Feast Day celebrations for our 7-10 students, was an entertaining, engaging and exhilarating concert in the Savio Centre which focused upon the talent of our students, some of whom we knew about already, and others we didn’t!

MCs for the day, Jonathan Mulungula and Jacob Davidson officiated with aplomb.

The show began with the screening of 8 Elective Dance’s spectacular Eisteddfod piece, ’GREASE LIGHTNING’. Following items ranged from inspirational ‘Spoken Word’ poetry from Alex Simpson, to lyrical dance pieces from Haylee Fry, Maddison Smith, Danica Ellis, Molly Woolley and Jessica Duggan. Solo singers were similarly breathtaking with knockout performance after knockout performance. Lillian Waites had every audience member on their feet after her rendition of ‘My Immortal’.

Rowan Dale, Chelsea Jones, Promise Mudzingwa, Ella Mollineaux and Brianna Howard all drew terrific responses for their material and delivery. A superb duet from Nicki Stanton and Julia Narracott, ‘Something Else; was backed up with an original song, ‘Everywhere is a Venue’, presented by Julia Narracott, Alex Simpson and Rosaline Alo, with Melanie Casboult out front on vocals.

Entries from each House in the inaugural House Singing Competition were a highlight. Vast numbers of students, as well as staff all presented highly energetic, imaginative and hilarious offerings. Side-splitting moments were Mitchell Clark’s (Siena) air guitar routine, using an actual guitar, Guzman’s magical, but ugly, sugar plum fairies, Savio’s spectacular dance moves, with Rohan Sullivan’s jive almost stopping the show. Finally, Bosco’s ‘Cup Song’, segued into Cameron and Jacob’s unusual interpretation of the love duet from ‘Grease’. Everyone left the Savio Centre exhausted but exhilarated after one of the special days at Dominic.

You can see photos at: Dominic's Got Talent!
Mr Mike O’Brien - K-10 Director of Creative Arts