News

Every year presents new challenges for commencing and continuing students of Aquinas, such as adjusting to a new home, striving to better themselves on the sporting field and achieving their desired academic results – amongst socialising at the events on offer.

The House Coordinator team would like to congratulate everyone for meeting these challenges head on in true Aquinas spirit this semester and summarise how 2016 has progressed so far.  Beginning our journey at Port Elliot, the House Coordinators along with Carolyn, Brother John and Evie (our beloved College mascot) we began our second round of training, setting goals which we have continued to pursue over the past two terms. Although the week was jam-packed with training and group bonding activities, we certainly got an opportunity for some down time. Particularly, we showed our friends from the student executive a thing or two on how to build a raft followed by a lovely dinner at the Port Elliot Hotel.

A couple of weeks later, the semester began with the first year students moving in a day before the returning students, ensuring they had some extra time to adjust to their new home. This day was filled with fun activities, chances to get to know the fresher cohort as well as some down time, to allow these students to feel comfortable at Aquinas, and easily transition into their new home. These first few days are crucial for the new students; and we feel that we have succeeded in transitioning the first years into the college setting, who are now a vital part of our community.

O-Week followed, which was great fun and enjoyed by all, a credit to the extensive planning undertaken by Stella Cox and her team. Many friendships were formed and strengthened throughout the week, setting up all members of our community for what has been an extremely successful semester.

The Lawrie Smart Shield competition continues to be a healthy inter-competition between the 10 houses, with students competing in games such as Tunnel Ball, Rob the Nest, and Tug of War. It is an opportunity for each house to work together as a team, allowing stronger bonds between house members as they work towards a common goal. Finally, the activities, dinners and weekly ‘hangs’ organised by each member of our team has fostered the strong relationships within their respective houses and college itself. We now look to further improve upon these relationships with the infamous corridor crawls among other rostered events to further promote the Aquinas spirit amongst our college family.

We hope all students have enjoyed their holiday period spent with close friends and family, away from the constraints of university. Please approach the coming semester with the same level of passion and enthusiasm you have brought to Aquinas thus far and we can certainly better the success of last semester. Go WOLVES!