From the Principal - Edition 2 - 2020

Last weekend saw stars like Alice Cooper, Hilltop Hoods, Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham all sing at the Fire Fight Concert, where they helped raise over $52 million for relief. As we started the school year in the aftermath of the devastating fires, Westminster launched the idea of a School Fire Aid Concert and we put the call out through our network of independent schools, asking them to get a band together to join the concert.

While the concert will ultimately be student organised and run, Heads of Music, Captains of Music and Principals have all been busy helping get the night together. The result, on Wednesday 25 March, Westminster will host School Fire Aid in the Michael Murray Centre for Performing Arts. We will have rock bands from St Mary’s, Immanuel, Sacred Heart, Nazareth, PAC, Seymour, Emmaus, Pulteney and, of course, Westminster.

Our School Captains will be rallying the other School Captains to ensure that we fill the Murray Centre. There will only be 1000 tickets and as Fire Aid is for charity, all tickets will be $10 plus a 50 cent booking fee that Trybooking will donate back to the event. If you want to donate more or just make a donation, you are most welcome to and there will be a donation box on Trybooking for this purpose. If tickets don’t pre-sell out, they will also be available on the night. The Principals of the schools involved will decide which charities will receive the donations, and if any families at the participating schools have been impacted by the fires, we will be looking to help them too.

While the event is happening, our School Leaders will provide catering with a sausage sizzle and drinks stand. If you would like to support the event in ways other than attending, please do not hesitate to make contact with me or Interim Director Advancement and Marketing, Peter Trenorden (’77), E: ptrenorden@westminster.school. We are already grateful to Callie Rose, our media representatives, and Westminster family Caledonian Scaffolding for the generous support they have given to the event.

Tickets will be on sale through TryBooking.com and sales will be open at the same time for all schools. Once the site is open, we will email the link out simultaneously.

Thank you in advance for your support and I know that we can proudly show our Westminster community spirit in support of our bands and school leaders as they try to raise funds for those impacted by the fires.

Simon Shepherd
Principal