This past Wednesday, Oratory’s Student Council and Campus Ministry embarked on a spiritual retreat to the Archdiocesan Youth Retreat Center in Kearny, New Jersey. There they participated in various leadership and faith-building activities that helped them set goals and make plans for the school year ahead.

While many of the seniors were already familiar with the retreat from participation in past years, the new members of the Student Council and Campus Ministry were in for quite a treat. Through unique outdoor activities such as balancing a giant seesaw and carrying each other into a giant rope net, the two teams learned lessons on both leadership and collaboration, as well as the importance of strategy and planning.

Inside the retreat center, the two teams separated into groups and collaborated on developing plans for the upcoming year. The first step was to identify prominent issues present in Oratory today such as school spirit and communication between the student body and the Student Council. Keeping this in mind, the groups then came up with goals they believed the two clubs should work to achieve; examples included trying to increase student attendance at sports games and reinstating the once prominent Oratory pride.

Following this, the two clubs came up with specific goals concerning their respective clubs and then narrowed the list down to five. From there, they were tasked with drafting a plan regarding the perpetration of the idea they deemed both most important as well as most feasible.

Afterwards, the Student Council and Campus Ministry met back up to present and explicate what they came up with. The day was concluded with a friendly giant Jenga game in which the members of the club with the shortest tower at the end of the time had to sign up for an act in the talent show. Overall, it was a productive day for the two clubs, and, hopefully, they deliver on their ambitious goals for the 2017-2018 school year.