Each year St Edmund’s College provides a range of family formation opportunities. As part of our suite of family formation opportunities offered at the College, this year we were able to offer fathers/parents a wonderful weekend to spend quality time with their son/s down at the NSW South Coast.
Last weekend our Father/Parent and Son program was presented in the relaxed atmosphere of “The Pines” at Tuross and this program is designed to help fathers/parents/significant role models develop their family relationship with their sons. Personally, I very much value the relationship between a father and a son, so I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to share in this weekend with our families. After a welcome and orientation, we began with some team building and bonding exercises which were a lot of fun for the father and son combinations. We were blessed with terrific weather considering how wet it was elsewhere in NSW and Canberra over the weekend. Formation sessions focused on what it means to be a great father and a great son and on the Saturday Fathers and sons were encouraged to spend quality time with each other. Whilst many went to the beach to enjoy the sunshine, others went fishing and others made use of the recreational facilities at The Pines. On Sunday, the group took a walk down to the lake to enjoy some coffee and milkshakes. Here we focused on contemplating and writing affirmations for each other. Fathers and sons were then encouraged to walk back to The Pines together to share what they love about each other – a truly special way to cap off a wonderful weekend. Thank you to the caterers and Mark Todd at The Pines who looked after us so well. I am already looking forward to next year’s camps.
Many special memories were created over the weekend, and it was nice to see that one of our Fathers was returning to Tuross years after he and his father had attended a Father/Son camp with St Edmund’s.
If this type of activity is of interest to you and your family, please look out for advertisements for the Father/Parent and Son Weekends which will be in a newsletter during Term 1, 2023.
David Kelly
Co-ordinator Father and Son Weekend / Parent and Son Weekend