Parents’ Association update

from The Star November 2020

Alumnae stories

Pivoting

TO SUPPORT OUR COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY. ENGAGEMENT. CONNECTION.

These were the three words I wrote down when I began planning for the presidency of the MLC Parents’ Association. They seemed the most fitting to describe our goals for 2020, a year that was going to be filled with more than two hundred diverse and interesting events and activities, all with the aim of creating a feeling of community, a sense of engagement and connection within and to MLC.

Who knew those three words would have even more relevance than we could have imagined? In a year where we’ve spent so much time in our homes and where ‘community’ has become a buzzword, these goals have been our guiding principle. They led us to ‘pivot’ with the rest of the world and in May we launched the PA Live series. The idea was to keep the MLC community sane while keeping us all connected. More than 1100 families took part in 11 hour-long live events covering a wide range of topics. We presented a COVID Q&A with medical and health experts, looked at the role of the media across different countries and explored the response to the pandemic by corporate Australia. We ran a session on wellbeing during lockdown, a live cooking class, a wine tasting and a yoga class. Our amazing presenters included Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp, Libbi Gorr (1982) and the finale, in true Melbourne style, Stephen Quartermain, who presented a Talking Footy panel.

We even launched our own ‘catchup TV’ channel on myMLCfamily under PA Live. Thank you to our 31 panellists from Australia, England and America drawn from within our very own vibrant and diverse community, who gave up their time to bring this entertaining series to life. A special thank you to Kate Torney, CEO, State Library Victoria, for her role as series host.

Bernadette and Paisley from St Vincent’s Hospital receive some of the face masks sewn by MLC volunteers for Masks for a Cause.

The PA tag line expanded in 2020 to include “supporting community, supporting local” and in July the Community Care Group, having provided home cooked meals to families in need, pivoted too, launching the Masks for a Cause drive in collaboration with the College. With the aim of supplying 5,000 reusable masks for charities and homeless shelters across Melbourne, at the time of writing, 5,701 masks have been donated by MLC families and friends and distributed to our charity partners CAMCARE, Big Group Hug, St. Vincent’s Hospital in partnership with The Salvation Army Melbourne 614 and Boroondara Community Outreach Program over the past 6 weeks.

The pandemic has changed the way we connect and engage and it’s heartwarming to see how our community has responded. We’ve learned that connection has many different forms and we’re thinking about this as we make plans for 2021. As we all try to navigate our way through these unchartered waters, the MLC Parents’ Association will be thinking, creating, evolving and responding in order to provide support, reach and much needed entertainment, in whatever form that is, to the MLC community.

Sophie Torney, President, MLC Parents’ Association