NET Team update

As a team, we’ve been kept busy with lots of Siena Catholic College and Parish events and activities!

To start with, we began the school holidays by attending a three-day retreat at Alexandra Headland facilitated by Alpha Youth Australia. (You may remember the Parish running the Alpha series a few years back.) Together with two students from Siena – as well as 120 other students and youth leaders from different Christian denominations across Australia – we were formed and trained in running the Alpha Youth series and its precursor, the Life Essentials series, in school and youth groups. Next week, we’re going to begin running the Life Essentials series during break time on Friday – pizza and a ping pong tournament will be essential components in this launch!

During the holidays we were also part of Junior Ministers and ‘Fun Days With God’, which were great ways to meet and spend time with lots of the children in our parish. We loved joining the Junior Ministers to learn more about altar serving, to eat pizza and to play some Easter-themed games! At Fun Days With God, we got to join in the games and the arts and craft and learn more about the Easter story with 43 children!

Many thanks to Bernie for putting together such wonderful days.

Once Term 2 started, we went to Siena’s Year 12 Retreat at Lake Somerset, which was an excellent opportunity to spend time with the Year 12 students and get to know them better through conversations at meal times and free times, as well as joining in their small groups. We also ran a session on the second evening. The session began with Mass (huge thanks to Fr Isaac!); then we shared about how we can lay down our burdens and give them to Jesus. The session finished with a time of Eucharistic Adoration, during which the students were invited to bring their burdens to Jesus and lay them at the foot of the altar. Fr Isaac also was available for the Sacrament of Reconciliation during this time, which a handful of students took up! Overall, we reckon it was a huge success!

In addition to all of this, we’ve enjoyed running in Siena’s Cross Country Carnival with the students, being part of Religion classes, meeting students at break times and even going to the zoo at Wildlife HQ with the Year 7s!