This weekend, May 6th and 7th, St Mary's is hosting the O'Shea Shield Competition, one of New Zealand's oldest intercollegiate competitions, dating back to 1946. We picked up the hosting of this competition after Cyclone Gabrielle struck Hawkes Bay, making it impossible for Sacred Heart College, Napier, to host the event this year. 

O'Shea Shield includes eight separate competitions involving debating, speeches, drama, scripture reading, and religious questions. You are all very welcome to attend any or all of the events, which will take place mostly at the College. We will be hosting around 280 competitors from the 17 Catholic secondary schools in the Wellington and Palmerston North Archdioceses. 

For the Religious Drama event, you will need a ticket (free), which is available from Reception on Saturday, May 6th. The Religious Drama takes place at St Patrick's College on Saturday night, starting at 7pm, and is being organised by St Patrick's College.

The weekend concludes with Mass and Prize Giving at St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, at 12.45pm on Sunday afternoon. We would love to see members of our wider community there in support.

Our team is:

Debating: Isabella Cash, Emily Ung, and Hannah Sema

Junior Prepared Speech: Charlotte Murray

Scripture Reading: Fabronia Toma

Te Reo Māori Scripture reading: Kahurangi Douglas

Oratory: Celestine Kaio

Religious Drama: Hannah Sema, Anna Comeskey, Fabronia Toma, Erin Webb, and Sahana Bharadwaj

Impromptu Speech: Victoria Watson

Religious Questions: Kate Nahu, Milla-Rose Klausen, and Maria John

We wish our team the very best of luck in the competition - they have been working very hard to represent St Mary's at the highest standard. We also thank the many students who are volunteering their time to help with hosting over the weekend - as always, our students demonstrate our wonderful Mercy spirit!

Article added: Monday 01 May 2023