Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Chaplains Spin Out at fundraiser

Sweat, exercise bikes, loud music and cheering. These things don’t sound like your typical Chaplaincy activity….or do they?

In late May, Chaplains across Bundaberg celebrated Chaplaincy Week. A week to recognise the work of chaplains in the local State Schools and for Chaplains to thank their school and community for continuing to support them supporting our young people.

But it was Saturday afternoon of May 20th where a highly physical culmination of all things Chaplaincy came to a head at the Quinn St YMCA. “Spin Off” saw teams of staff and students face off on stationary exercise bikes for 30 minutes to be the winner of time and distance.

Teams consist of 5 to 10 competitors who will ‘push the pedals to the max’ over a 30 minute period. The overall aim is to be the team who pedals the most kilometres. This event also raises the profile of school chaplaincy and provides an effective fundraising vehicle for local state schools and their communities to support their chaplain.

Bargara State School Chaplain Tanya McKee was one of the organisers and loves the way the students really throw themselves into this event. “They turn up in droves to lunchtime training each week in the couple of weeks prior to the Spin Off and they have lots of fun” she said. But the biggest thing for the competitors isn’t just the bike riding or the training. 

“The kids are here to have a good time, but they’re really here to support the Chaplains. They’re not getting anything out of doing it, other than they know they’ve helped out Chaplaincy in their school” Chappy Tanya explained.

The overall winners of this fundraiser were Chaplains of course, but the schools also got to take home bragging rights. 

In the Primary School competition, Bargara Bandits won the day by riding 17.4 Kilometres in the 30 minute time frame. They beat Woongarra, East, Burnett Heads, Branyan Rd, Norville, Central, South and Kalkie. In the open section; both high school students and staff competed against each other and it was a staff team from East that was triumphant riding 19.3km narrowly defeating South staff who rode 19.1, Bundy High students & staff, Norville and Kalkie staff.


Bundaberg East State School staff team are presented with the winners trophy by Chaplain Tanya McKee