Welcome back to the 2024 Leadership Team’s second instalment of the Leaders Lounge for this year! This week’s edition will be brought to you by the McAuley House Leaders, Sarah and Oli. 

We have finally reached the halfway point for the first term of 2024 and Hennessy has already had such a busy 5 weeks! To start off, Hennessy celebrated our Opening School Mass for 2024 where we welcomed all the returning members of our school, as well as recognising the new staff and students from Year 7 to 11. We also took the time to announce and present official badges to our Year Level Captains, Peer Support Team and House Vice Captains for Year 11! A special thank you to Ms Coffee, Mrs Wright, Father Jis, Deacon Mark, the music department and volunteers who were involved in putting together such a beautiful opening mass!

Hennessy also joined St Mary’s church in helping celebrate our first Parish Mass for the year, which gave students the opportunity to get involved within the wider community, as well as connecting them to their spiritual faith. It was amazing to see so many students who offered their time to help with either the music, altar serving, reading or just coming down to help support - Mrs Wright and parishioners all greatly appreciated the effort and congratulate the students!

Also, congratulations to all of our students who represented Canberra Goulburn at the U15’s and Opens Touch football in Wagga earlier throughout the term. A special congratulations to 9 of our students who gained selection in the Canberra Goulburn/Wagga combined teams to play at the NSWCCC Championships! Great effort everyone!

Throughout the next couple of weeks, each house will be holding their fundraising events in support of Caritas Australia. Last week, Gallagher held a cake stall with students bringing in a large range of cakes and slices to sell to raise funds for the charity. Currently, McAuley has been fundraising this week, selling boxes of Cadbury chocolates in hopes to raise a large amount of funds. Rice will then follow with their bbq and Nagle with a mufti day event.

During Week 5, Hennessy is also focusing on Mental Health Awareness Week as part of our Student Wellbeing sessions. Students from Years 7-10 have had the opportunity to be involved in the Mentally Sound concert, which focuses on mental health through a musical approach! 

We encourage everyone to keep getting involved during PC and House events and as for our fellow ‘McAuleans’, try your best to involve yourself through PC/House activities because we’ve still got quite a few points to catch up to the rest of our opponents! Thank you to everyone who has contributed to all the events which Hennessy has held over this past term, keep up the great work!

Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Leaders Lounge!” 

Until next time,
Sarah McDonald and Oliver Baker
Mcauley House Captains