ST MARY MacKillop College offers a variety of leadership opportunities for students.
On Friday, February 14, two students travelled to Sydney for the Australian Student Leadership Conference | yLead
JJAMM (Joseph, Julian And Mary MacKillop). It was a four day gathering of student leaders from Josephite secondary schools around Australia and New Zealand.
Student Koby McMillan provides a recount of the exciting trip.
Bella, myself and Mrs Wright drove down to Melbourne ready for our early flight to Sydney on Saturday morning.
After our short flight to Sydney, we arrived at Mary’s Place in Sydney.
This is a heritage centre for Mary MacKillop and includes many galleries, memorial pieces, her final resting home and her tomb.
Having the experience to witness and stand where Mary MacKillop once was, was breathtaking.
It was such a surreal moment that we will remember forever.
We had the opportunity to meet many familiar faces and new ones from other Josephite schools as well as Sister Jan who helped lead and guide us throughout the conference.
We participated in many sessions to enhance our knowledge of the Josephites and their journey taking away lots of inspiration.
On Saturday night we were able to encounter Sydney’s true beauty as we went for a ferry ride across the harbour and saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and Luna Park under the lights.
It was a bright and early start on Sunday morning as we prepared ourselves for another big day of learning and growing as leaders.
We had the privilege of listening to many different guest speakers like other Josephite sisters, community helpers and two girls who are active members in their school in Sydney.
Listening to their speeches and what they have achieved was inspiring.
After a few more leadership sessions and some sweet treats, the collective of JJAMM organised a Mass with the majority participating.
We had the privilege of performing a liturgical movement and it was so fun.
Following the Mass, we then headed to our new destination in Baulkham Hills where we settled in and prepared for tomorrow.
Later that evening, we held a Mary MacKillop song remix.
This is where we split into groups, picked a song and refined the music to relate to either Julian Tenison Woods, Joseph or Mary MacKillop.
After performing all our acts, it was time to go to sleep, exhausted after another busy day.
On Monday. we put the leadership skills we had improved on over the past few days into action by creating our own ‘soap box’ to imitate us protesting an issue we were interested in and wanted a change to happen.
After this individual chance to protest we split into groups and chose an issue to protest as a group.
We created signs, a chant and a speech to perform as a group as we walked through the chapel to the stands.
Later on Monday, we held a great race where we got mixed into groups and had to find 18 different hidden objects.
This tested our strengths and weaknesses as individuals and also in a team setting.
We then had some fun showcasing our skills and talents with JJAMMer’s Got Talent.
Our last day consisted of planning and collecting ideas from other schools that we would like to implement in 2025.
We then packed our bags and headed to the airport to fly back to Melbourne.
I would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Haeusler and Mrs Wright for making this trip possible.
