Sport at St Peters – ‘In the Spirit of Fellowship’
At the start of each year the eight AIC Colleges come together for an ecumenical service, to mark the start of the sporting year and celebrate our shared Christian ethos. This year the service was held at St Patrick's College, Shorncliffe. The theme for the service was ‘In the Spirit of Fellowship’. This theme is straight from the purpose of the AIC Charter – ‘The association provides a platform for young men to participate in inter-school competitions, with a view to foster a spirit of fellowship, founded on Christian values’. Fellowship is a rather old word that dates to the 13th Century. It was deliberately chosen by our AIC association because we believe that it best encompasses our purpose and vision. The word fellowship is not often used today but can be defined within the spirit of comradeship and friendliness. To hold fellowship with others is to hold communion with others… a concept well understood and integral to Christian communities like the eight AIC Colleges. There is no such thing as a single Christian, we live in communion with one another – we exist together. Christianity is a communal religion and being in community requires seeing one another with friendship, support and where necessary challenge (fellowship).
For this to happen the AIC association is called to develop good and healthy young people of character through the sport and competition that we offer. If our purpose is to be actualised, at our sporting games each week, above all else, we should see young people enjoying the sporting activity and bringing out the best in their team mates and their opponents. Developing character is about making the young people better at being good people, not just good at sport. This is the vision for AIC Sport.
The AIC Charter does not identify success in terms of premierships that are given, or the number of representative players that we produce. It is to be marked by the character of our student participants and the spirit in which we compete and the type of relationships that we form within our competitions.
To quote, Mr Chris Mayes, the 2020 AIC President and Principal of St Patrick's – ‘to be truly in fellowship with each other, we all look forward to a year of strong healthy competition that will produce great games, wonderful spirit and pride and long-lasting relationships and respect for each other and each school community’. To this end, over the coming weeks the College will be encouraging all our sporting teams to be good hosts for home games and welcome the visiting team by going over to them prior to the game, introducing themselves, welcoming our guests, and wishing them well for the game. This small simple gesture is an example of ‘in the spirit of fellowship’ in action.
