Distinguished Guests, Members of the Bishop Tyrrell Community and Students,
Welcome and thank you for joining us today,
I know that you are here today to honor and celebrate members of your family and students are honoring their successes and each other’s success. If you are not publicly recognized today in this prize-giving ceremony, let me acknowledge your collective efforts, your striving together for excellence, and your lifting of others. The reward is not in the prize, it is in the task done well, and done well in the company of other young men and women. Always remember that it will be a team that builds a strong culture and no one is more important than the rest of us. So, congratulations one and all.
Excellence is a habit, on thinking about this, habits are behaviors and behaviors that shape culture, and culture aligns with purpose, and purpose fuels our human quest for excellence as we seek to live and serve in this world.
So excellence is a habit. It is achieved through hard work and dedication all day, every day.
This morning I am going to reflect upon the heart and soul of what I believe is Bishop Tyrrell Anglican College and to point us towards the future.
To help us reflect on that, I am going to use the word LIFT as an anacronym because that is our future.
Lift stands for loyalty, it stands for integrity, it stands for faith and it stands for tradition.
I trust that it will remind us that a bold vision invites us to lift. Progress demands that we lift. Challenges and threats motivate us to lift. A genuine quest for each one of us to be the very best that we can be, inspires us to lift.
Our quest for cultural, sporting, and academic excellence has only just begun. The strength of our foundation will determine how successful we will be in the future. Character, integrity, values, and trust are four constants of a good foundation and creativity unites all of that together.
Bishop Tyrrell Anglican College is not simply a school for students, although this is fundamental to who we are. I deeply and sincerely believe Bishop Tyrrell is a noble enterprise, it is an agency for human transformation. It is also an education incubator for the inspirational servant leadership that we seek to demonstrate day by day, year after year.
Bishop Tyrrell is a place where students are expected to step up. We make no apologies and they do step up. Where students will link arms in unity, where students will act with courage and moral purpose. Students at Bishop Tyrrell learn to value and apply the principles of lift.
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To get the best out of a person, you must look to the best in a person. What is in you? Your spirit? Are you nourishing and nurturing it?
Let me talk a little further about the idea of lift and the letter ‘L’ – Loyalty. You’ve all heard the phrase “All for one and one for all’. It is a motto traditionally associated with the hero of the novel ”The Three Musketeers” written by Alexandre Dumas in 1844. It means each individual should act for the benefit of the group, and the group should act for the benefit of the individual. That is what loyalty is. Loyalty is a feeling or an attitude of devoted attachment and affection. Loyalty demands a corporate dedication to truth, honor, fidelity, trust, and communication. Loyalty to Bishop Tyrrell, to students and community members means rejecting forces that seem to divide us, for selfish or jealous gain, and embracing motives and motivations that seek to unify us. Without loyalty as our number one principle, there is no lift.
When I see students in a basketball huddle with their hands on top of each other, or students arms around their team mate’s shoulders, or a group of students sharing notes in a study session putting the good of others before the good of self, that reminds me of the foundation of loyalty. The importance of it? It is the foundation of our team.
The second word beginning with ‘I’ is another critical word. It stands for integrity. Integrity describes a state of being, whole and undivided. It is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. It reminds us of words like uprightness, probity, nobility, unity, and honesty. Integrity is being what you claim to be, and doing what you promise to do. A great leader must demonstrate personal integrity every day. It takes years to develop integrity and seconds to lose it. Proverbs 11: 3 is a reminder that the integrity of the upright guides them. If we could teach you only one value to live by it would be this. Success will come and go but integrity will be forever. Integrity means doing the right thing all of the time in any situation, whether someone is watching or not.
Let me give you an example of this, your 2018-2109 College Captain, Charlie Campbell is a role model of integrity. She is Miss Consistency. She is trustworthy. She is honest. She is steady, honorable, and humble, and she thinks of others all of the time. She leads by example and through example. She is engaging and motivating students all of the time just by being in their company. She is a servant leader and a student like Charlie puts the educational debate in perspective by answering the question what do we value most in education? At Bishop Tyrrell, we value integrity lived out in the lives of students like Charlie.
Let me go to the third letter F - faith. As we look forward, we also look back and we see a continuity in life that is guided by our faith journey. And that faith inspires truth, honor, loyalty, and commitment. The faith we encourage is not, and I repeat is not, a call to conformity. It is not a call for compliance or timidity. This does not mean that mind, courage, or passion are put aside when you consider the profound questions of faith. In the words of Professor John Stackhouse faith is about the discovery of shalom. Shalom is not only a greeting of peace but also a description of completeness, wholeness, peace, contentment, and fulfillment. It is about human flourishing for God’s good purposes. It is human excellence in its truest and most profound sense. The faith dimension will lift and equip you in your search and defense of truth.
Let me give you another example. When College Captain Patrick Eve compassionately mentors other students, you think about loyalty faith and integrity in action. Patrick demonstrates the notion of all for one and one for all. And when Patrick stops you for an engaging and mature conversation about students’ antics, or what’s going on around the school, or school spirit, or just a classic Patrick asking you how you are doing, it is something that inspires others and these are moments to cherish because Patrick is a servant leader.
The fourth area that I would like to touch on is tradition. Tradition is not essentially static or backward-focused. Some people think that. It does look to the past, but it seeks to learn from the past. It seeks to draw out things from that inheritance, but it equally looks to the present and the future. It seeks the acquired wisdom of former generations’ appropriate ways and means of dealing with new challenges and circumstances. It keeps you on the road. It is like a road leading to a T-junction, it takes you to a point and it equips you to go left or right with confidence. Somerset Maugham the great writer said, “Tradition is a guide, not a jailer”. However, T.S. Elliott another author and poet warned that “Tradition without intelligence is not worth having”. So, we need to look after and use our traditions wisely.
Our students live and breathe creativity, they love Bishop Tyrrell and embrace its beliefs and values, they propel the College forward and encourage us to lift. But ultimately education is about conviction. These convictions both compel us and inspire us to lead. Each student carries a legacy and you are trusted custodians of Bishop Tyrrell Anglican College’s traditions and convictions in the world. The College hopes you will remember the things that you have been given by your teachers this year.
On behalf of the College Community, I would like to thank our College Council for their vision this year, for their commitment to do their work with seriousness and passion, wisdom, and dedication. I would also like the thank our College Leaders, the staff, the parents, friends, and community that have supported the College this year.
I wish you a happy and joyous Christmas, a Happy New Year and a very safe and peaceful vacation. We look forward to the future for 2020 and remember, excellence is a habit, remember the values of lift because that is the 2020 focus – loyalty, integrity, faith, and tradition, and if you take one message from today, it is all for one and one for all.
We look forward to 2020 with confidence. If God is with us, who can be against us? Learn Lead and Serve.
Thank you.
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