The Road Autumn 2020

The dynamic new music building at Damascus
The Damascus alumni strongly support our community and over
the past few months we have been privileged to celebrate the
achievements of two significant alumni. The Shining Light Award
recognises inspiring alumni and this project has brought forth two
remarkable women. Dr Cathy Vaughan and Judy Brewer OAM have
both provided inspiring contributions to all within our community
and I urge you to engage with their stories, each of which gives a
lived manifestation of the Cristian outreach on which Damascus is
founded.
I congratulate 2019 graduate Imogen Brown on being Dux of the
College with an ATAR of 96.95 and 2019 College Captain Matthew
Snibson on his 96.90 ATAR. I extend the congratulations of the
entire College community to the class of 2019 for their individual
achievements and for the joyful way they concluded their secondary
schooling — we look forward to following your individual journeys in
the future.
Our Year 12 class of 2020 is one of the largest in the College’s
history and it was a genuine privilege to spend time with them on
retreat in Anglesea at the start of February.
Damascus proudly competed across all divisions in the 2019–20
rowing season and has commenced the year strongly in the BAS
interschool competitions. Very few premierships were awarded
due to the early completion of the term, but Jarrod Joyce is to be
congratulated on winning his second Rob Benoit Cup for junior
tennis and Megan O’Beirne on being runner-up in the final for the
Henderson Shield for senior girls tennis. We had a fantastic House
Swimming Carnival with St Martin House coming away victors.
Congratulations to the 55 students who represented Damascus at the
BAS Swimming Carnival. You should all be proud of your efforts, and
it was wonderful to see many of you step outside your comfort zone.
Damascus was placed 4th in the overall boys and girls aggregate
and 3rd in the Co-ed aggregate. Well done to all involved!
Our co- and extra-curricular activities have been thrown into turmoil,
with sports, productions, trips, excursions and camps postponed
or cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID-19. We are exploring
different means of engaging students, and I am sure that there will
be amazing stories of creativity arising from this shared adversity to
come from this community over the coming months.
Each year the College chooses a theme to frame our prayer,
reflections and liturgies. This year our theme comes from the prophet
Micah around 700 years before Christ’s ministry:
Do justice,
Love kindness,
And walk humbly with your God! (Micah 6:8)
This comes from text Jesus would have been familiar with and which
would have guided his ministry and actions. We too are invited to
look at ways that we can ‘Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly
with God’. The current global crisis does indeed call us to respond to
this beautiful invitation and we are working to do that at Damascus
College in 2020!
Enjoy this great edition!
MATT
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