Welcome to the Leaders Lounge! This year, the 2022/23 Leadership Team will be utilising this space to promote upcoming events, challenges and activities that both students and the community can get involved in. 

We would also like to take the chance to wish the best of luck to the graduating class for their HSC exams and express our gratitude for being great role models for us and younger students in the school community. 

Term 4 kicked off with a variety of activities during SWS with competing house year groups battling it out in skipping competitions, Kahoots, basketball, soccer, Big Ball, UNO games and many more. Beautiful sunshine saw a great start to the final term of Hennessy’s House Cup, with Gallagher and McAuley taking the early lead at the end of Week 1. 

The current standings for the SWS Interhouse competitions are as follows

1st - Gallagher 10 & McAuley 10

2nd  - McAuley 11, Nagle 9, Rice 9, Rice 10 & Rice 11

3rd - Nagle 8, Gallagher 7

With Year 11 exams finishing at the end of Term 3, the incoming leadership team travelled to Galong with Mrs Holding, Mrs Wright and Mrs McInerney for our leadership retreat. There we developed our communication and leadership skills, whilst getting to know each other that bit more. A highlight for the team was a trust building activity where we were split into two teams competing against each other to see who could build a tent first with half of their own team being blindfolded. With a few close calls between tent poles, pegs and people’s heads, both teams managed to both successfully assemble their tents. Amongst delicious birthday cake, building the tallest and strongest tower fit for a marshmallow and mysteriously being led around the gardens blindfolded by teachers, as a team we discussed how and what we would like to contribute to the Hennessy community including strengthening relationships between year groups, focuses on mental health awareness and our annual upcoming events particularly Melbourne Cup. 

We were honoured to receive our leadership badges at our College Mass on Tuesday. Afterwards, the team, our families and staff were served a delicious luncheon put on by the Year 9/10 Food Tech class. A huge thank you to Father Jiss and Mr Mitchell for the work put into the mass and Mrs Duff and Mr Stratford for organising and preparing our scrumptious lunch. 

As briefly mentioned before, the 2022/23 Leadership Team is super passionate and excited about the year ahead. Our first initiative will be held next Wednesday (26th October) where we will be raising awareness for Mission Australia. Students are encouraged to bring in a pair of white socks to decorate during PC and then wear their decorated socks for the day. November 1st will be our annual Melbourne Cup Day featuring PC horse sweeps, obstacle courses and, of course, costumes. This year’s race day also falling on the start date of “Mo-vember,” the theme for this year’s Melbourne Cup Day is “Fashes and Staches,” where we encourage staff and students to come along dressed up in their race day fashions or to come wearing a moustache… or both! Mo-vember is a great initiative to raise awareness for men’s mental health and is an initiative where Year 12 boys and male staff are encouraged to grow their moustaches for the cause. Additionally, Nagle and Gallagher’s Dine and Donate evenings are coming up in weeks 6 & 7, so keep your eyes peeled for that coming soon. We hope to see as many people get involved as possible and support these initiatives. 

Thank you,

Elisabeth Hall

Gallagher House Captain 2022/23