Avondale hosts regional high school athletics event
Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia
Avondale College of Higher Education has earned kudos for its role as a first-time host of a regional high school cross country event.
Avondale PDHPE students helped with the running of the HRIS Cross Country. Credit: Karen Zeuschner.
About 900 high and 600 primary school students visited the Lake Macquarie campus for the Hunter Region Independent Schools (HRIS) Cross Country on Monday (April 30). They represented 16 schools.
Avondale School now organises the event as part of its membership of the Association of Independent Co-Educational Schools. The former organiser, impressed with the facilities, asked Avondale’s HRIS coordinator Tarlae Bradford where she had been hiding the course. “He said he wished he could have used it last year,” says Tarlae, “then added, ‘If you don’t do it next year, I’ll come here and run it again.’”
The two-, three-, four- and six-kilometre courses began and ended on the sporting ground behind the Chan Shun Auditorium. They included parts of Girls Walk and all of Sandy Creek Walk.
Brothers Drs Darren and Jason Morton improved the walks only a few years ago. “I always had this in mind,” says Darren, a senior lecturer in health and exercise science at Avondale, “that the walk would help showcase the estate and get more people on campus.”
Senior personal development, health and physical education students joined staff members from the Faculty of Education and Science and from Marketing Services to support Tarlae and her team. “We couldn’t have run this event without them,” says Tarlae. The experience is particularly valuable for the students, says Darren. “This is what they’ll be doing in a school.”
Avondale School principal Dr David Faull thanks the staff members and students for their support and notes how comments and questions about the college from parents is good for credibility. “This type of word-of-mouth PR is invaluable.”
The HRIS Cross Country is more than likely to return to Avondale each year.