Blog

Budding entrepreneurs at St Mark’s spent three hours with Lean expert Bruno Pešec from Norway, and Alister Lee, learning about the principles of Lean last week.  By playing the Lean Board game, which is competitive and fun, students were able to learn the core lean start up principles such as the importance of uncovering what customers really want before setting out to build a product.   Seven students from College and a further four from UniSA worked together on their mythical companies (based on real ones) in a competitive environment.  We hope to facilitate more workshops of this kind into the future.

Throughout the year the College’s Sodexo chef, Colum, holds cooking classes in association with the Charitable Foundation. With themed nights including brunch, Italian and burger night, these classes provided not only a relief from study, but life skills through food preparation and nutrition. By gold coin donation, these classes raised funds to buy ingredients used to cook a meal for the families staying at Ronald McDonald House. This year, five collegians and Colum went to Ronald McDonald house on September 6^th to make homemade burgers for the visiting families. We found it a very rewarding experience especially when we were able to sit down and chat with the residents we cooked for, each with their own story. Thank you to Colum and Sodexo for continuing to support this program and to Ronald McDonald House for having us, we look forward to our continued association.

— Sarah Trewren, Charitable Foundation President

The Master and Dean hosted the inaugural parents’ dinner on the College’s Open Day weekend, which attracted over 60 parents and friends who travelled from rural and metropolitan areas across Australia. The President of the College Club, Ms Heidi Hutchesson spoke about her own College experiences and how they have helped her to continue to develop personally and to further shape her values and career goals. The success and excitement about College life comes from its community which extends beyond our students and Collegians but to our parents and grandparents, who on this occasion appreciated the opportunity to hear from the Master about the College’s plans for the future as well as connecting with one another.

Amongst guests on the evening, the College was delighted to welcome Mr Robin Millhouse QC (Alumnus 1947-51) who travelled from Sydney to be with his granddaughter Alice Moyle,  a third year Engineering student at the University of Adelaide.

Photo: Harry Cator of the Jubilee Sailing Trust (2nd from left) with St Mark’s students (L-R) Henry Hole, Alex Makarowsky, Brandon Swain, Will McLachlan, Joe Cavanagh

“The Jubilee Sailing Trust provides an unparalleled insight and opportunity into how disabled and able-bodied people can live and work together side-by-side in some of the most challenging and thrilling of circumstances” said Alex Makarowsky, a second year Electrical Engineering student at the University of Adelaide, who attended a recent Port ‘n’ Talk at St Mark’s College with guest speaker Harry Cator of the Jubilee Sailing Trust.

Established nearly forty years ago, the Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST) has continued its vision to integrate physically disabled with able bodied people on a tall ship – an extraordinarily unique concept which today is the only organisation of its kind in the world.  A registered charity, the JST has made an incredible impact upon the lives and perceptions of many people, in particular Harry, whose grandmother overcame serious disability caused by polio and  managed to take part in normal life.

Tenacious is the world’s largest operating wooden hulled ship built by 1,500 disabled and able-bodied volunteers with special features such as talking compasses for blind crew, and joystick controls for people with limited mobility. Currently circumnavigating the world are a crew of 40 sailors, half of whom have disabilities and may have a wheelchair, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, post-traumatic stress disorder, be an amputee, blind or deaf.

The JST is providing people with disabilities the chance to experience life on the high seas, whilst providing able-bodied members a sense of what is possible with a diverse crew.  Every crew member is expected to to play their part in the day-to-day running of the ship, and the experience has been life-changing for people of all ages, backgrounds and levels of physical ability.  The voyages have helped crew members build their self-esteem, confidence, leadership and life skills in many ways.

Tenacious, is now in Australia and has commenced an action packed program of voyages between Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart and Sydney until April 2017.

Further information can be found on the JST website:http://jst.org.uk/australia/

Port’n’Talks provide a unique opportunity for College students to hear from distinguished speakers on just about any topic. From Governors to business leaders, politicians to scientists, there is always an interesting topic to spark curiosity. Last night was no different when Dr Lewis Mitchell, an applied mathematician from the University of Adelaide, presented his recent research data using mathematics to better understand human nature and the world around us. Dr Mitchell fascinated the audience with his research into the mathematics of story-telling, how movies and books can be modelled with a curve representative of the happiness in the story. He then continued to provide an insight into how social media, particularly Twitter, can be analysed to show the apparent happiness and sadness in the populations of states in the USA and Australia (see: http://hedonometer.org/index.html). Dr Mitchell co-authored a study to analyse the most frequently used words across 10 different languages to confirm that humans do have a positivity bias and that the way we think is intrinsically positive. 

~ Ryan Burley, talk coordinator and second year University of Adelaide student