Toongabbie Christian College

GARRY GANNELL

I served at what was then called Toongabbie Baptist Christian Community School from 1986 to the end of 1996. In my first six years I was Deputy Principal (Secondary), where I learnt about the sort of leader I was called to be while working under the pioneering leadership of Rev Peter Hester. I then had the honour of being Principal of the school during its tumultuous adolescence as the Board and I sought to lay further groundwork for the growth years that were to follow, beginning with the leadership of Mike Budden. During my 11 years at the school, although a Deputy and Principal, I continued to teach classes from Year 4 to Year 12. These were sometimes difficult times, but always good times, and many memories elicit great joy when recalling God’s faithfulness, and laughter as I remember our silliness. Like that time a teacher, frustrated with a student with a very long, complex surname, needed to write that student’s name on a playground misdemeanour report. ‘How do you spell the surname...?’ she asked in the staff room to no one in particular. She dutifully wrote, letter by letter, Mr (Steve) Williams’ response. She almost got to the end when she realised he was spelling the word ‘wheelbarrow’! Or the time when I told a visual joke (one that requires actions) and Mrs (Gai) Thomas asked me if I had... ‘got the joke from radio’! Or the time a student in my class (I was in the room then known as G1) interrupted my class four or five times with, ‘I’ve lost my...’ she lost her pen, ruler, exercise book, textbook. Then, she announced that she had lost her jumper, and asked if she go to the playground to look for it. I said, ‘Sure, but please, don’t lose your class’. Once she was out of sight, I took the whole class out of the room and hid them. The look on her face when she returned to find that she had, indeed, lost her class, was priceless! I also look back fondly at two weeks in 1994 when about 40 of the school community - parents, staff, students, took off in the September/October holidays for a two-week bus/camping trip visiting (among other places) Mount Isa, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, Uluru, Coober Pedy, Broken Hill and Bourke. Amid bus breakdowns, our bus being accompanied by a local police car with his lights on (because our bus had no headlights and it was night), sleeping under the stars (and having some swags sniffed by passing dingoes), climbing to the top of Uluru, flying a kite in an outback dust storm, and sleeping underground, we shared experiences and built relationships that are as fresh in my memory today as they were over 25 years ago. I have many happy memories, of friendships, of laughter, of learning and of changed lives from my time at TBCCS. I want to wish everyone in the TCC Community, past, present and future, God’s grace and mercy as He continues to do His good and perfect will among the individuals who make up this wonderful school.

Parent 1986-1996 Teacher 1986-1996 Assistant Principal 1986-1992 Principal 1992-1996

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