Celebrating our long serving staff

On 15 January 2018, at our start-of-term staff Chapel service, we acknowledged 25 of our staff who had reached long service milestones ranging from 10 to 35 years. These staff members included academic and support staff that have a combined number of 370 years of service to the College!

Two of our longest serving staff this year are Robert Moshidi and Johannes Phala, both celebrating 35 years of loyal service to the College. What was very special was the standing ovation they received by over 400 staff in the Chapel as they went up to collect their awards.

Robert Moshidi joined the College in 1983 as a cleaner in the Mountstephens boarding house. He remembers that Mark Henning was the Headmaster of the Boys’ College and Jimmy Verner was the Boarding House Master at Mountstephens at the time. Robert remained as a cleaner in Mountstephens until the end of 2009 when the boarding house cleaning function was outsourced. He then moved to join the campus Operations department as part of the events team responsible for moving furniture and setting up for events all over our campus. Robert is one of the drivers responsible for driving the truck carrying the furniture around campus. 

When asked why he likes working at Saints, Robert says he loves all the people he has the opportunity to meet and all the changes he has seen over the years.

Johannes Phala joined the College in 1983 as a waiter in the boarding house dining hall where he spent the first five years of his employment. He then moved to the grounds department reporting to Billy O’Reilly, the Estate Manager at the time. He worked as a general worker mowing the grass and tending to the gardens. He then moved into a cleaning role working at the Boys’ College where he was responsible for cleaning the Chapel and classrooms.

In 2000 Johannes moved to his current position of Photocopy Assistant and Messenger based at the Boys’ College where he spends his time ensuring staff have all their tests, exam papers, and class notes copied and ready when they need them.

He shared with me that in 1983 everything on the far side of Jameson field (where the Girls’ College is now) used to be forest and that is where the support staff lived in a compound. He said that even though their salaries were not a lot, he was very appreciative that the College had provided him with full-time employment as well as meals and accommodation.

Johannes shared that what he loves about working for Saints is the opportunity to meet lots of people and to interact with the children. He also told me about a “afternoon school” that used to be run by Johanni La Vita and Mary Reynolds, who were teachers in the Boys’ College at the time. It was held in the glass house (now the renovated High Performance Centre). Any of the ground staff who wanted to learn to read and write were able to attend these classes. Johannes told me that through working at Saints he has also been able to learn to speak English which he, in turn, has shared with his wife and children so they too can learn to read, write, and speak English.

Below are all those long serving staff we celebrated at our first term staff Chapel service.

10 years

15 years

20 years

35 years

We celebrate all our staff who give so passionately to make our College a place of real welcome and wonder.