On Friday 21 March 2025, the NET members along with senior students from the school came to Sancta Maria College for the Year 7 Retreat and introduced a series of activities that the students would be doing during the day; which included small group discussions, gospel and faithful-based games, and a small prayer time, which all followed the theme of the Retreat of ‘Wonder’.
To start off the event and our first session, students had to sign themselves into the auditorium where the event was going to take place, and then students made their way to their designated seats ready and prepared for the NET Team to introduce themselves and explain the theme of ‘Wonder’ that was the symbol of the whole retreat. Before commencing the educational and faithful purpose of the event, we got to play a few games to ‘break the ice’ around the auditorium, which included ‘Chicken Noodle’ Tag where one person was blindfolded and had to run around and try to tag people with a noodle to get as many people as possible. Our next game was then a game called “A single Crisp Clap” where one of the NET team members started off the game by saying “On the count of three, we’re all going to give one single, crisp clap”, then they count “One, Two, Three”, and once they say three, everyone in the auditorium has to all give a single crisp clap and to get the perfect synchronisation which we were all a bit off at first but we improved after a few attempts.
It was then time for our second session, which started with the leaders sorting us into different groups and giving us a piece of paper. As each NET member called out the names that were in each group, all students walked along to their assigned group. The students and one NET member all sat down in a circle together somewhere in the auditorium and looked at our piece of paper that we were given. The piece of paper provided us with faithful and spiritual-based questions that we had to answer. We all then talked within our assigned group, hoping to share ideas on how to answer the questions with guidance from the leaders who helped us speak and talk about what the questions were maybe asking us. Then we re-joined as a whole year group to play a few extra games such as jockey, backwards, colour-shift, and guess the colour with a one-word provided as a description.
After lunch, Year 7s lined up outside of the Auditorium, in the olive grove. We all waited patiently and stood in the line to be pointed by one of the members to walk our way inside quietly and peacefully. As we all walked in, the room was dark and the only light you could see was the candles that are placed on the altar that made the room dimly lit, along with calm music playing in the background. Everyone found their own space somewhere on the floor of the auditorium while the students waited for one of the members to explain what we would be doing for our third session. In the centre of the auditorium lay a beautiful altar, that was decorated with candles and rocks, which we all found very spiritual and holy. For our 3rd session, one of the NET members asked us to write a prayer on a sticky note and place it onto the altar, surrounding the sticky note with candles and rocks, for no one to see but you and God. The students then sat back down and were given two options; either to go to the stage to pray, or to talk to one of the lovely, kind-hearted NET members about anything they wished to, within a safe and controlled environment where you wouldn’t be judged. After praying, the lights were switched back on and the next activity was to write about our experience of being at this retreat on a piece of paper that was handed out to everyone. We all then wrote our honest answers and returned our papers to the person that was collecting them. Our retreat ended with the NET leaders saying a few words and sending us off with positivity and God in our hearts – cherishing the memories we’ve made.
