Funfest

Funfest was a fantastic display of our community, staff, students, parents and grandparents all coming together to make a tremendous day.

The P and F and Funfest committee began the planning this event more than a year ago and all their hard work has more than paid off. It was such a huge effort by so many people I don’t want to mention individual names in case I forget someone, but there are particularly two people it would be remiss of me to acknowledge and they are the Funfest Coordinators Stephanie McCredie and Margaret Johnson. Their leadership, management and vision for this project has been outstanding and a blessing to the College. What a labour of love!

The Funfest Committee itself has put hundreds of hours into Funfest. I would like to thank the multitude of parents who helped in all sorts of capacities, whether this be with the manning of the stalls, the preparation for the stalls, providing donations, pack up, pack down, car parking or in other ways. The day would not have been the success it was without you. There were also a multitude of parent helpers running stalls and working wherever they were needed on the day. Many of our students gave up their Saturday to help or perform and I appreciate their sacrifice.

It was great to see so many of the GCC staff assisting behind the scenes in the office, on different stands and in performances. I also appreciated those who put their hand up to be slimed as I know from first-hand experience how diabolical that gloop was!

Our maintenance staff put in a Herculean effort setting up stages, stalls, power and safety equipment and they were kept busy non-stop throughout Saturday and still had more work unpacking everything the following Monday.

A huge thanks goes to of the people, businesses and organisations who donated goods for the auction, sponsored a stall or donated other items to help make it such a worthwhile day. We have put the logos of our major sponsors on the back page of this newsletter and I encourage you to consider giving them your patronage in appreciation of their support of the College.

10 Year Tenure

During the pupil free week of the July school holidays we took time out from professional development and setting up classrooms to honour some very special staff members who have now been at GCC for ten years.

Mark Bowman, Rachel Bull, Bronwyn Harrison and Natalie Woolston were our guests of honour at a lovely lunch up at Tranquil Park in Maleny. In this day and age it is very rare for people to stay with one organisation for any length of time and I want to thank these staff members for their loyalty, dedication and commitment.

Grandparents’ Day

This year’s Grandparents’ Day was another triumph. The numbers were large making it a challenge to host and cater for about 500 people but the feedback was very positive and the grandparents absolutely loved it.

There was a lot of praise for the food and I want to thank Mrs Julie Peters and the Hospitality students for the outstanding job they did. The mind boggles just thinking about the quality and quantities they prepared.

The concert was another wonderful showcase of the talent we have at GCC. The choir performances, items and stage decorations were very entertaining and enjoyed by all. Bert Kasselman gave the address and grandparents loved being shown photos of items from their childhood that would now be unrecognisable by their grandchildren.

Thank you to the army of background helpers working behind the scenes and then to the people who backfilled those positions in the helpers absence. Grandparents’ Day is a real team effort.

Performing Arts Achievements

While most of our collective focus was on Funfest last weekend, many of our students were competing in the Sunshine Coast Drama Festival and I am pleased to say we had some outstanding success. On Friday night we had three Year 12 girls win a silver award for their performance of a piece from the Australian Gothic play, Children of the Black Skirt.

On Saturday we had two Middle School groups perform at the festival and both were presented with a bronze award. On Sunday night we had the Middle and Senior School Dance Troupes performing at the Gympie Dance Eisteddfod and they both received a Highly Commended in the under 18 Jazz section. We were the only school against dance studios, so these are great results.

Mike Curtis, Principal