Welcome to 2023. Whether you are a new or returning family thank you for joining our TLC Community. We are a College who in our humanness, aspires each day to live out our values and provision a space for your young people to feel a sense of connection to our Character. We hope that The Lakes College will be a place of Belonging, of Believing and aid your child/ren into Becoming the person they were created to be.

After three years of pivoting through the pandemic, it is a relief to finally feel we have commenced a school year with some normality. Thank you to each family for helping your child/ren (and us), to make the start of the year smooth.

Each year at The Lakes College we adopt a theme, something that acts as an anchor to both sustaining and growing culture in our community. Having dug deeply into ‘Unearth your Worth’ and ‘Magnify our Worth’ across the past two years, we now set our sights on the importance of our common humanity in a world that still seeks to create division between those of different faith, culture, race and gender.

For many people, adopting an inclusive mindset is still a struggle and becoming love in the world an even greater challenge, despite Love being a common thread needed by all humans to survive and thrive.

In our inclusive, multi-cultural, multi-faith organisation, supported by the transcendent values and ethos of the Uniting Church, we are called to be Love in a diverse world. A focus on loving each other as God himself loves us and commands us to do as friends of Jesus, is a priority that enables us as a College to strive to be a Light in the Heart of North Lakes.

The concept of Everybody, Always, aims to engage us individually and collectively to:

People with a posture of ‘Everybody, Always’, bring unconditional positive regard to Humanity – in essence they are people ‘Becoming Love’ in the world. They don’t walk past others who need connection, they don’t ignore someone who seems lost, lonely or left out, someone who looks different or acts differently, someone who might disagree with them. These people are present where they are needed.

This doesn’t mean that we throw ourselves into unsafe situations, but it does challenge us as a community to take the time to engage with those who are new, those we don’t know, those who may seem a little different to the types of people we might normally surround ourselves with. For some of our families who are new to TLC, they may find commencing in our community a bit daunting; by stepping out of our comfort zones and extending positive regard to others we reveal to another their worth.

We will be asking ourselves both individually and collectively to live out our College Values by being:

• Present
• Authentic
• Intentional
• Disciples
• Do the unexpected - Do the intimidating - Do the seemingly impossible

If we were all a little more present to each other, we could collectively grow a community where Everybody, Always felt they were seen, heard and ultimately had worth.

I ask all of us to find ways to contribute to building a positive community culture for all.

“My faith demands – and this is not optional - my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.” Former US President Jimmy Carter