TWENTY Queensland Catholic young people will brave the snowfields of Mt Hotham in Victoria on their way to the annual Australian Catholic Students Association (ACSA) national conference in Melbourne.
The group will leave in convoy from Brisbane for a five night holiday in the snow before they join about 200 Catholic students, including a further 10 Queensland students, at the conference titled “How Can We Know the Way?”
Holiday organiser and ACSA Queensland representative Anthony Goodwin said the snowfields should be a great lead up to the conference at Newman College at Melbourne University.
He said it would give students time to get to know each other and perhaps share in some healthy rivalry with students from other states.
Travelling in a convoy of vans, the students will arrive at Mt Hotham on July 2 and leave for Melbourne for the weekend conference the following Friday.
Anthony said many of the students were looking forward to experiencing snow for the first time.
Joanna Hayes, a speech therapy student at University of Queensland, said she could not wait to get to Victoria and looked forward to getting to know others along the way.
She said she was also looking forward to hearing guest speakers including Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, the Provost of Ave Maria University and founder and editor of Ignatius Press; Archbishop Barry Hickey of Perth; Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne; Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Kevin Andrews; Auxiliary Bishop Julian Porteous of Sydney and Associate Professor Tracey Rowland from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne.
Toowoomba psychology student Stephen Purcell said he expected the trip to be well organised, fun filled, spiritually uplifting and cold.
In the lead up to Sydney World Youth Day 2008, organisers of this year’s conference have included a strong workshop focus.
For more details about the conference e-mail qldcatholicstudents@gmail.com or phone (0400) 366 437.
