From the Boarding School
It has been a brilliant and busy week as we celebrated Boarders’ Week with our entire Pymble family.
The week started off with a fun and fabulous Community Night with our Boarders challenging themselves in the dance off to end all dance offs! Sunday morning was a more serious affair, but equally enjoyable, as we joined with the Pymble Uniting Church congregation in our own War Memorial Chapel. This special service is always a treat, and it was extra good to have our Boarders so involved. The delicious brunch that followed was much appreciated and provided great sustenance for the afternoon’s sporting challenges.
We arrived at school on Monday to find the Houses and offices radiantly swathed in pink and sprinkled with an assortment of Boarder-inspired paraphernalia including hay bales, flamingos and even a life-sized cow! This set the scene for various events throughout the week including the Boarders versus Day Girls relay, basketball, AFL and volleyball, Boarder presentations in Chapel and at assemblies, and an egg and bacon breakfast on Marden Lawn.
While Boarders’ Week is an opportunity to celebrate all things Boarding, it also presents another way in which we can recognise and thank the broader Pymble family who make residency at Pymble so special. Our heartfelt thanks go to our Day School staff, students and families who go out of their way to make living at this beautiful College so special.
Pymble goes to West!
As you will have read, last week I was lucky enough to visit a host of Pymble families and friends as I travelled around rural New South Wales. The trip culminated with the Dubbo Boarding Expo and a celebration with past, present and prospective Pymble families. It was an excellent opportunity for us to share all the great things about Pymble Boarding and was made all the more special by the attendance of the Chair of our College Council, Mr James Hunter and his wife, Mrs Katrina Hunter, as well as Dr Hadwen and Mr Bell. Fun stories about sleeping on verandahs and various Boarding ‘sisters’ were shared. The common theme of the happy conversations was the deep gratitude that all past Boarders felt for their time at Pymble.
A View From My Window
My name is Victoria Burton, but to everyone I am known as Torie with an ‘e’, and I’m currently a Boarder in Year 9. I live eight hours away from Sydney in a small town called Coonamble. Coonamble is located in the north west of New South Wales about two and a half hours from Dubbo.
I live on a property called ‘Thara’ halfway between Coonamble and a small village called Come By Chance. On my property my family runs livestock such as Angus cattle and Wiltipol sheep which we butcher for our meat. As well as running livestock, we also do dry land cropping where we plant crops such as wheat, barley and chickpeas.
I have a family of four including my older brother Angus who is currently Boarding at The King’s School in Year 12, then there is my mum and my dad. I own three dogs – a kelpie named Spider because she is always finding something to climb or chase after, a chocolate Labrador named Milo due to her chocolate coloured coat, and a red cattle dog named Ding as he has a quarter of dingo in him. I own a number of chooks – isabrownes and black bones, and we have a duck named Lui and my dad’s work horse – Fernese.
When I’m at home I normally spend my days helping dad in the paddocks with stick picking, moving livestock, maintenance on machinery, picking and dropping off different equipment and doing general work around the place. I generally help my mum with the washing or just doing the simple jobs around the house like gardening and cleaning. As a family we enjoy going water skiing in the holidays with our ski boat and catching up with friends.
One of the things I enjoy most about my home is being able to ride my motor bike off in the late afternoon with the sun setting and racing my brother. I really cherish the moments I spend helping my dad while he works in his workshop and watching romance movies with my mum.
From the view of my window, I can see my dad waving at me from the cab of the tractor, my mum sewing on all our name tags for school or weeding the garden bed, my brother playing footy in the backyard and the dust kicked up from his motor bike as he zooms past, the dogs chewing on old bones, the duck flying out of the cage towards the dam, and the chooks scratching around. I can see the silos in the distance, the last picture of dad’s ute as it heads down the paddock, the postman delivering the mail down our drive, the sound of mum’s favourite music playing from the kitchen, the sunrise in the early morning, the sound of birds singing, and the beautiful view of millions of stars in the night sky.
Boarder of the Week
Lucy Small is the perfect choice for Boarder of the Week in this week of celebrating all things Boarding. Lucy, Prefect of Sport and the Arts, comes from a long line of Pymble Boarding alumni and as a fourth generation Boarder, it feels as though she is related to almost everyone in one way or another. She is an outstanding role model for our community and demonstrates the College values in all that she does. Her gentle ways, kindness and joyful approach are appreciated by the entire Boarding family. She is especially thanked for her faultless and inspired organisation of Boarders’ Week.
Mrs Carolyn Burgess