President’sAddress

When reflecting on the first half of 2023, I cannot believe how quickly time has passed and how many great memories have been created at John XXIII. It has been so nice welcoming our new Ressies to the J23 community and seeing our returning Ressies also. I hope everyone is settling into both college and university life. Living away from home can be tough sometimes but I truly feel the community at J23 ensures this transition is the easiest it can be and that nobody feels alone for too long.

General

My 2023 leadership team journey began in January. The J23 leadership team came together for a training week. During this time the different leadership portfolios were able to prepare for the year ahead. The week had a great integration of ‘retreat-styled’ events and the team as a whole bonded during this time.

N-Week was an excellent week and received positive reviews from our first-year residents. The college utilised guest speakers for information sessions kept the content interesting for our first-year residents. The week was full of both mandatory information sessions and a variety of sports and arts events, which the majority of the first-year cohort chose to engage in. Notably, the daily sporting activities and the nightly corridor chats had great turnouts.

O Week this year was successful in adding a diverse range of events to encourage a more holistic week. The goal was to encourage all residents no matter their interests to get involved in activities to meet and bond with the broader Johns community. Thanks to the RA team, J23 staff and the wider leadership group, the introduction of arts and crafts, sports and ANU events, along with traditional night-time and drinking events worked well.

Sports

The battle for the Interhall sports (ISO) shield is back and Johns is already smashing it! Historically, John XXIII College has won the ISO sports shield 25 times out of the last 38 years. During term 1 a variety of sports were played including male and female* touch football, badminton and ultimate frisbee or ‘disc’. Both the male* and female* teams made it to the grand final for touch football with both teams versing Wright Hall, an exciting clash. The female* team then secured a win and the male* team unfortunately lost but played a great game. The disc team also won their grand final and had a great season beforehand winning most games considerably. Badminton served as a very fun and social sport for the J23 community, with many residents getting involved in the singles and doubles. Finally, Road Relay was great for all our keen runners at Johns. The runners participated in many early morning trainings and displayed their hard work at the event!

Term 2 sport is just getting underway at the time of writing this! The sports occurring thisterm are favourites in our community and they include male* rugby 7s, female* AFL 9s and basketball! I’m sure it will be a great season and we will come away with many wins.

Arts

The arts this year have seen a significant increase in interest and involvement from J23 Ressie’s this year! Having trivia in week 1 everyone was super keen to represent Johns and test their general knowledge, we have two Johns teams participate! Although a possible win was lost due to some points being docked, I think everyone still had a great time. Debating also had great participation and congratulations from all those involved. Thank you to our Academic Arts rep Stella for organising these great activities.

Holly our theatre rep put together a great video for Forty Hours of Film! Given three prompts she directed and shot a film, featuring many students from our community.

Our music rep Louis is preparing for Big Night Out. Arguably the biggest Arts event on the calendar. Auditions and rehearsals for the college band are underway, although they have already had a lot of practice this year. Performing at many college events including o-week, Gala and more! J23 can’t wait to see their performance at BNO.

In summary, I would like to thank my wonderful leadership the RA, SRs, CRs, HAMs and DIT team! They are all the people in the background working to get events, activities, support and advocate for all students at J23. Without which our college would be a very different place! I would also like to thank all the staff members at Johns for their continued work and support. This an important reminder to say hello to our staff whether it is Bree or Em at the Front office or any of our lovely kitchen staff members who work tirelessly for us! Lastly, please reach out to myself, my Vice President Stephen or any of the RA members if you have any ideas on how we can improve or things we should implement.

Kind regards,

Josie Bates (She/her)