2 3 Redefining Greatness in a Time of Crisis 2018 Educate Plus Award Winner: best Marketing Communications Video. St Patrick’s College, Ballarat had, for many years, taken great pride in its mission to “raise fine boys to the status of great men”. And, for the most part, this Catholic day and boarding school in regional Victoria had lived up to that lofty goal, featuring scores of Australia’s most recognisable faces in business, sport, arts, music and industry amongst its alumni. However, after three years of featuring prominently in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, due to the behaviour of people historically associated with the College decades ago, the College felt it was time to revisit this statement. The college wanted to clearly enunciate to its broad community what it meant in 2018 to be “a great man” of St Patrick’s College. Under the guidance of Headmaster, John Crowley, the College embarked upon an 18-month research project involving in- depth conversations with many members of its community, includingstudentstoclearlydefinethetraitsexpectedofgreatmen. The College was then left with the challenge of finding an accessible and relatable way to distill and distribute all the information gleaned to the wider community. As Mr Crowley explained, “we determined that the best way to do this would be to produce a short, two-minute video and launch it at the start of the 2018 school year. The launch of the video would coincide with the commencement of celebrations for our 125th anniversary,” he said. “It was never originally our intention for this video to become a promotional tool - rather its main purpose was to use it as an exemplar for our students to aspire towards.” “However, as we commenced the production process with local video production company Mass Motion, we quickly realised that what we were unearthing, through using student voices, was a fine example of all that we stood for as a College and a great advertisement for what it means to be a 2018 “Paddy’s boy”.” As such, along with the full two-minute video (viewed online by tens of thousands of people), the College also produced 30 and 15-second versions for a prolonged television and online newspaper advertising campaign, ensuring the video’s reach extended well beyond our current community. “We credit this video as a major reason our enrolment numbers have remained steady despite a period of enormous turmoil for our College in the national spotlight,” Mr Crowley said. “It has also been incredibly useful in refocusing all our students and staff on our true mission. We have produced spin-off posters using words and frames from the video and these A1-sized posters now adorn each of the 100 classrooms throughout the College.” Mr Crowley said the key themes from the campaign – aspiration, hope, honour, compassion and respect – have set a benchmark for all involved in the school community, “The “Great Man” video will endure beyond 2018. Its voice will carry on to our student leaders in 2019 who will be encouraged to add their own values and their own take on what it means to be a great man. We can’t wait to see what they come up with.” View the video here: https://youtu.be/7duDVvUXIbk PAUL NOLAN DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ST PATRICK’S COLLEGE, BALLARAT Image:Thevideohighlighted the keymessages of aspiration, hope,honour, compassionandrespectand has setnewbenchmarks for all attheschool. DECEMBER 2018 2 3