Newsletter 38

6 December 2013

PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE 421 Elizabeth Mitchell Drive Thurgoona NSW 2640 Telephone: (02) 6049 3402 Facsimile: (02) 6049 3490 Email: heather.watson@trinityac.nsw.edu.au

ALBURY 421 Elizabeth Mitchell Drive Thurgoona NSW 2640 Telephone: (02) 6049 3400 Facsimile: (02) 6049 3490 Email: office@trinityac.nsw.edu.au

WODONGA 34 Ellen McDonald Drive Baranduda VIC 3690 Telephone: (02) 6049 3480 Facsimile: (02) 6020 9125 Email: officewodonga@trinityac.nsw.edu.au

WEBSITE

www.trinityac.nsw.edu.au AFTER SCHOOL CARE ALBURY

0423 845 646 EARLY LEARNING CENTRE WODONGA

6049 3485

From the Principal

Year 6 Dinner On Tuesday of this week I had the great pleasure to join all of the College’s Year 6 students at a special dinner in the College’s Multi-Purpose Hall to mark the milestone of finishing their time in the Junior School. The students had clearly gone to some effort to prepare for this event and I thought everyone of them looked fantastic at the dinner! It is amazing how quickly they grow up and every student looked really great on the night and very much ready to take on the challenges of the Senior School! I take this opportunity to congratulate all Year 6 students on reaching the milestone of formally completing their primary schooling. They are a talented group and have done particularly well in many areas at the College. All going well they are set to achieve great results next year and beyond in the Senior School!

My special thanks goes to Mrs Kathy Walsh, Mr Nash Clark and Mr Simon Fairall for their work in organising the dinner for Year 6! The catering was done by Ms Kate Millan and a small team of very capable Senior School students – thank you to the catering team! And thanks also to the many parents who worked behind the scenes to make the night so memorable.

As I said on the night to the students, it was a tribute to the group that a good number of staff chose to attend the dinner, including teachers from years gone by, staff from the Tutorial Centre and Mrs Diana Ashley, who accepted the invitation to attend the dinner. It was a delight to see the lovely reaction from the students when Mrs Ashley arrived – she clearly had established wonderful relationships with them during her years here and they were very pleased to see her at the dinner!

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Principal’s Awards At this week’s End of Term Assemblies, I had the great pleasure of presenting a good number of Principal’s Awards to students in both the Junior and Senior School. It is a significant achievement for any student to achieve a Principal’s Award and this comes only through a lot of dedication and consistency in a number of areas across the entire year. I am pleased to publish the names of the students who were presented with their awards during the week and take this opportunity to congratulate them on this achievement! This year’s recipients of Principal’s Awards are:

Student Name Year/Class Student Name Year/Class Ben Quirk KDP Riley Piltz KDP Lily Bowler 1KS Ben McNay 1TO Alicia Auwardt 1TO Ruby Taylor 1TO Isaac Delcour Year 1 Wodonga Imogen Ziebarth 2TD Toby Sarkis 2TD Audrey Adams 2TD Avie Liley 3JT Imogen Murray 3JT Lana Heer 3JT Tihara Fernando 3SO Rosie Bradford 4CS Annalise Conibear 4CS Jarni Nehme 4CS Sarah Horner 4CS Hilary O’Connor 4NP Phoebe Ziebarth 4NP Grace Wilson 4NP Evie Nelson 4NP Sidney White 5JH Destiny Shannon 5JH Kalyia Jones 5JH Victoria Alker-Jones 5JH Taisha-Mae Vitolo 5JH Nic Lockhart 5JH Aiyana Warren 5JH Jake Salan 5JH Aimee Offner 5JH Bridget Brown 5SM Alex Freire 5SM Caleb Reid 5SM Adelaide Jacobs 6KW Jackson Walmsley 7D Thomas Freire 8M

I am thrilled that so many students have achieved a Principal’s Award; well done to all of these students!

2014 Reminders I remind all students that there is a staggered start to the academic year in January, 2014. The year will commence as follows:

Tuesday, 28 January Staff PD and Preparation Day Wednesday, 29 January Staff PD and Preparation Day Thursday, 30 January Staff PD and Preparation Day Friday, 31 January Term 1 classes commence for students in Years 1-7 and Year 12; PIPs testing for Kinder/Prep students commences Monday, 3 February Term 1 classes commence for students in Years 8-11 Wednesday, 5 February First day of classes for Kinder/Prep students

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I ask that all students return to Trinity in 2014 wearing the correct summer uniform (hats, correct school shoes – black, leather, lace-up school shoes) and with appropriate hair-cuts and styles.

Merry Christmas! In many ways it is hard to believe that another year has gone by! I have been thrilled with the many achievements we have witnessed in our students during 2013 and how the College continues to grow in stature. I take this opportunity to sincerely thank all parents and guardians for the faith they place in Trinity when they choose to send their child(ren) to the College. It is incredibly rewarding for College staff to see the growth and development in our students each year. 2013 has been another great year and I hope that parents will enjoy reflecting on the achievements and growth of their child(ren) over the summer holiday!

I hope and pray that all members of the Trinity community enjoy a happy and holy Christmas and a well-deserved and restful summer holiday. It is a wonderful time of the year to enjoy the company of family and friends and to give thanks for all that we have and share with these important people.

At assemblies this week, I asked students to remember the real message of Christmas – among the enjoyment of giving and receiving presents with family and friends! I hope that all students will develop an appreciation of the important aspects of Christmas and that they might say a prayer of thanks for all that they enjoy in their lives, as well as the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ at Christmas!

I offer the following Irish blessing at Christmas for the entire Trinity community:

The light of the Christmas star to you The warmth of home and hearth to you

The cheer and good will of friends to you The hope of a childlike heart to you The joy of a thousand angels to you

The love of the Son and God's peace to you.

Merry Christmas to the entire Trinity community!

Stay well and safe, enjoy the holidays and I look forward to welcoming everyone back to another wonderful year of opportunity and achievement at Trinity in 2014!

Steven O’Connor Principal

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From the Director of Studies

DesignTECH Success We are very proud of all of our HSC students. The successes of two in our HSC class of 2013 – Adele Trebilcock and Mairead Horsfall – received some recognition in the newsletter last week where we announced that they had been nominated by the Board of Studies for possible inclusion in DesignTECH: Mairead for her gorgeous Spring races outfit, and Adele for her innovation, The Fridge Butler. DesignTECH is the annual exhibition of outstanding Major Design Projects developed by HSC Design and Technology students. We extend congratulations to both girls for this very special honour.

The Major Design Project requires the students to identify a particular problem, investigate the area thoroughly, and to document the processes that they employ to find solutions. They create and test prototypes, and develop their innovations. To be nominated for DesignTECH, the whole of this process is scrutinised by the Board of Studies and only the most notable are considered for inclusion.

It gives me great pleasure to report that Adele’s innovation, The Fridge Butler, has been selected for inclusion in the DesignTECH exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and Mairead’s Outfit for Fashions on the Field will join the regional tour of DesignTECH at the Museum of the Riverina.

Adele’s product, mounted to the cabinet of the fridge, opens the door by breaking the vacuum seal. It is designed to save power in the home and to allow people with limited upper body strength to easily open the fridge door. The DesignTECH exhibition will be at the Powerhouse Museum from 22 February to 18 May 2014. The regional tour will be at the Museum of the Riverina from 23 May.

Adele has received additional recognition for the execution of her design and was, last Friday, awarded the runner-up prize for the University of Wollongong’s Product Design competition. This competition is for the most impressive Design and Technology project across all NSW HSC Design and Technology students.

It is most remarkable that two of our students have been selected for the DesignTECH exhibitions and we are very proud of these talented young ladies.

Kym Armstrong Director of Studies

Congratulations Adele and Mairead

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From the College Chaplain

God With Us

The life of a shepherd in first century Israel was not to be envied. It was a thankless task – people looked down their noses at ‘agricultural specialists’ like these. They were poorly paid – so perhaps it won’t be a surprise to know they weren’t all men. Lots of women looked after sheep in cold fields, guarding them overnight from predators. So, when God chose to be born in the stench of a cattle shed, it’s no wonder the angels bypassed the universities and the theological colleges and churches to announce their good news to the lonely figures on a hillside. Men and women who probably felt forgotten suddenly discover that God has offered them a supreme honour: for thousands of years, so many Israelites had wanted to be first to hear the Messiah had come. No one suspected a bunch of smelly shepherds would be the chosen ones.

God is down-to-earth in more ways than one. The text tells us God is with us, whoever we are. Today God isn’t in the tinsel and trappings. He is with the homeless man on the streets. He is with the lonely pensioner in her flat. He is with the drunk on the park bench. He is near the addict too. He is in the midst of all of us but whenever there is a forgotten figure on a spiritual ‘hillside’, God’s heart is particularly there. And this Christmas we could be his messenger of good news. The pair of socks we buy for the homeless guy tells him God is with us. The visit to the lone pensioner tells her God is with us. Joy to the world. Emmanuel. God is with us.

Rev Lee Weissel College Chaplain

From the Senior School

As we quickly approach the end of another term and another year, it is important to reflect on how much has been achieved by the students at the heart of Trinity College. I am constantly humbled by the amazing things I see our students do; whether it be their involvement in community events, their achievements with their studies, their performance and creative talents they so willingly share or their care and concern for those around them here at the College. On this note I make mention of

two of our graduating students this year, Serina Gray and Rebecca Lane, who are currently

Bec Lane Serina Gray

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working with orphans in Cambodia as a way of committing themselves to making a difference to others.

Mother Theresa said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”

Every day I witness our students making those ripples to create positive changes for others. I must commend them here for their approach to the recent Anglicare appeal which saw car loads of donations for those less fortunate; a true sign of the wealth of spirit which defines our students. Likewise I would like to congratulate all the students, and in particular the leaders within the Senior and Junior schools on the inaugural College Carol Competition which took place this week. Students banded together in their houses to share and celebrate the festive spirit with a house rendition of a traditional Christmas carol followed by a whole school delivery of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I was thoroughly impressed by their level of involvement, enthusiasm and enjoyment which saw students from Kindergarten to Year 11 all working together to a common goal. Congratulations also to the winning house, Petts! I am sure there will be renewed rivalry as the competition continues next year and into the future.

As we finish this year, I would like to extend my thanks to the staff, students and families involved in the Senior School. Trinity is truly a place where we feel those connections on each of those levels. I take this opportunity to wish all of our families a very safe, happy and holy Christmas which sees you all spend time with those you love.

Lorraine Willis Acting Head of Senior School

7D Pastoral Care Pool Party

On Saturday 30 November, 7D took the opportunity to throw a party at the Albury pool in recognition of their hard work this year. They celebrated a successful year with food, games and lots of splashing.

“I thought it was a great day to catch up with friends and have a swim” said Darcy Twist.

Mrs Millan acted as Santa and everyone jumped into the photo. The day ended with water volleyball, Marco Polo and very red eyes! Even the parents seemed to be enjoying themselves! (By Amy Smith).

Thank you to 7D for such a fantastic afternoon. A special thank you to the parents who came along and were able to stay and meet new parents and enjoy the company of friends. I am privileged to have shared in their first year of secondary school. It really is an amazing group of young people.

Kate Millan 7D Pastoral Care Tutor

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French News

New Caledonia 2014

Contact us if you are interested in this wonderful opportunity! We are still awaiting further quotes before choosing our final tour group – but the indicative costs, the details we have so far, and a time line have all been given to students this week. If you missed out, please contact the office. We hope to have deposits in and the trip booked at the very start of Term 1 next year, so that we can lock in the costs.

As it is very close to Christmas I am therefore sending out the general information, with some indicative prices for the two possible tours; the short, hotel-based one and the longer, homestay-based one. Both tours will run concurrently with one teacher coming home with the short stay students and the other staying the second week with the homestay students.

Being an Exchange student is a remarkable experience. Knowing people in another country allows students to learn understanding and acceptance of a range of cultures. Practical immersion in the language develops the skills at lightning speed. Students become aware of the myriad methods of language acquisition. They develop problem solving skills and have a wider knowledge of global issues

Returned exchange students have often developed self-confidence and self-esteem. They have matured and developed social poise. They have been integrated into another family and developed friendships as well as having a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

I heartily recommend this trip and look forward to expressions of interest from lots of parents. When we have sufficient interest we will run an information evening, give deadlines for deposits, and with luck, we will be on our way to a wonderful experience for our students.

Mme Bennett Head of Languages

From the Junior School - Albury

On behalf of the staff of the Junior School I would like to wish all Trinity families a happy and joyous Christmas.

Chris O’Loan Head of Junior School

Our hotel, last time we travelled

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ECOA News

ECOA Students Turn Their Hands to Writing

Grace Trebley and Ebony Trebilcock have successfully co-authored their first book, a biography of Hazel Cook and her work with W.I.R.E.S.

This opportunity was part of the Murray Catchment Authority’s Creative Catchment Kids which aims to engage primary students with local sustainability issues.

With the theme of Catchment Champions, Grace and Ebony chose Hazel because of her devotion to rehabilitating local injured wildlife for release back into the wild. These animals range from koalas to sea eagles.

After going through the writing process of drafting, editing and publishing, the girls experienced the thrill of attending the official release of their book at CSU last Tuesday. Grace and Ebony were presented with their own copy along with 30 copies for the College Library.

Scott Melgaard ECOA Programme Facilitator

Sports News

The College’s aim to provide all College students with the opportunity to try new sports and excel in their chosen fields has led to another successful year in sport. Trinity has been proudly represented by many talented students across all sports. Students have represented the College on the court, in the pool, on the field or track with great pride. Regardless of the result, Trinity students are renowned for their sportsmanship and respect for officials and competitors.

The last round of basketball before the Christmas break begins tonight, with this final round finishing on Thursday 12 December. The first game back after the Christmas break is Friday 7 February.

Tomorrow, Trinity will be represented in multiple netball grand finals. I would like to wish all these girls the best. Their commitment to their team and training is to be commended and I’m sure it will best prepare them for a fierce battle.

Sailing programme Tackers School Holiday week long programs are on again these holidays. Tackers is Yachting Australia's program aimed at getting kids aged 7-12 into sailing. Each program includes 20 hours tuition from qualified YA Instructors and assistant instructors, fun on-water & off-water games and a Tackers Kit and Certificate. Conducted at Lake Hume at Albury Wodonga Yacht

Ebony Trebilcock and Grace Trebley

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Club, 13-17 January 2014 and 20-24 January 2014. For more details contact Leanne 0467 355 258 or email awyc.training@gmail.com

Nash Clark Head of Sport

Trinity Trickstars (Under 11)

WOW! What a season. The team has lost only two games for the whole season and has qualified for finals. The girls have displayed a positive attitude to training and playing, and great sportsmanship on court.

Skills have definitely improved and the speed in which they have played has increased. They are now progressing to learning the finer points of the game and the tactics they can use to win. Learning how to play in different positions has been challenging but all part of playing the game. The enthusiasm the girls have displayed throughout the season is to be commended.

A special thank you to team manager, Urshula Harrison, for her support with the girls on game day.

Again, thank you very much for the support of parents/grandparents over the season with scoring and training. Good luck for the GRAND FINAL on December 7!

Absent from photo: Grace Wilson and Josielee Russell.

Shara Knobel

Community Announcements

St Matthew’s Monster CAR BOOT Sale – Adamhurst, 603 David Street, Albury – December 14, 8am to 12 noon – Gold coin donation towards the St Matthew’s Christmas Appeal. You could also bring along your treasures - $20 per car – 6031 3022 – book early to secure an allocated position (payment by Monday 9 December).

The Albury Central Christmas Family fun day is on again, right in the heart of Albury. Saturday, 14 December from 10am-2pm in QEII Square. Look out for: Face Painting, Jumping Castles, Play on Wheels, Ready Steady Go Kids, Music and Entertainment, Santa and his helpers, Make A Wish Foundation community BBQ and Coffee Jalopy.

Extra activities on the day include: make your own Christmas decorations and our traditional pavement chalk with thanks to Who What Why. We also have Chalk & Chat colouring in competition, decorate your own shortbread with Beechworth Bakery, and the AlburyCity Big Band punching out your favourite Christmas Carols.

How will Santa arrive this year? Come down and find out for yourself. With so many things happening at this year’s Albury Central Christmas Family fun day, you’d be crazy to miss it.

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Canteen News

Thank you to volunteers Raelene Weissel, Ellen Uniacke, Lou Walmsley and Karen McLean.

Please check the College website for any menu updates in the New Year. I will publish an updated menu in an early 2014 Newsletter. Our gluten free product (chicken strips) will have a price increase effective Term 1 2014 – 3 strips @ $3, 6 strips @ $6.

Many thanks to all Canteen volunteers this year:

Lisa Brown, Vanessa Matthews, Ellen Uniacke, Shanika Dikkumbura, Raelene Weissel, Sharon Walpole, Lou Walmsley, Linda Garoni, Karen McLean, Carol Gray, Lyndal Jordan, Jo Goodwin, Jane Bromich, Tracey Haberecht, Sue Russell, Leanne Durandt, Angela Jones, Meg Salisbury, Michelle Densley, Ellen Sampson, Susannah Dale, Janelle Cooke, Tracey Zauner, Kylie Bridges, Sam Vitolo and Jenny Moyle.

The Canteen cannot provide the service it does to the College without the support of volunteers. Your time and assistance is so valuable and I am genuinely thankful!

Margaret Cochrane Canteen Manager

Back to School Visit our website www.trinityac.nsw.edu.au for information about textbook ordering, 2014 term dates and other important information.

Textbook and Stationery Ordering

Yorke Educational Centre will supply only a full stationery pack – not individual items. The stationery requirements for each year level are listed on the booklist which can be accessed and printed from the links below.

You have two options to order your textbooks.

Option 1. Collect from the school.

Order online at www.trinityac.nsw.edu.au or www.yorkebooks.com.au by 3 January 2014 and book packs will be available for collection on 29 and 30 January.

Option 2. Post.

Order online at www.trinityac.nsw.edu.au or www.yorkebooks.com.au. Textbooks must be ordered by 20 December 2013 for delivery to the nominated address by 17 January 2014. Postage and handling fees apply.

Visit our website for further instruction on how to order your textbooks.

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6049 3440

Uniform Shop

Cathy Katsoolis

Uniform Shop Manager

We wish all Trinity families a safe and happy Christmas.

If any of your address or contact details change over the holidays, please remember to tell us when you return in 2014.

Your child should have received a Local Excursion Form for 2014. If you have not completed and returned this form would you please do so on or before the first day of Term 1 2014.

Thank you.

Uniform Shop Operating Hours During School Holidays

Tuesday 21 January 8:30-11am and 2-4:30pm

Wednesday 22 January 8:30-11am and 2-4:30pm

Thursday 23 January 8:30-11am and 2-4:30pm

Tuesday 28 January 8:30-11am and 2-4:30pm

Wednesday 29 January 8:30-11am and 2-4:30pm

Thursday 30 January 8:30-11am and 2-4:30pm

Uniform Shop Operating Hours During School Terms

Mondays 8:30 – 10:00 am 2:30 – 4:30 pm Cathy Katsoolis

Tuesdays Closed Wednesdays 8:30 – 10:00 am 2:30 – 4:30 pm Cathy Katsoolis

Thursdays 8:30 – 10:00 am 2:30 – 6:00 pm Cathy Katsoolis Fridays Closed

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House Carols