The crowds came and lined up patiently early last Sunday morning 16 May for the annual St Catherine’s Snowsports SWAP.

COVID safe lines snaked up the stairs of the main hall and all the way outside. Patrons all hand sanitised and QR coded themselves – ready for action at 10.00am.

The doors opened and the crowds flooded into the hall. The shopping frenzy had begun. Everyone was ready to grab bargains and we had 1,600 tagged items ready to go to a new home.

After last year’s cancellation, smiles were everywhere – the Auxiliary was so happy to once again host our famous annual sale.

We are so proud to be again providing an important recycling service to the entire Snowsports community. The results were incredible! This year’s SWAP was our most successful ever!

In just two hours we sold nearly $70,000 worth of equipment and clothes. Selling 150 Pairs of skis, 200 Pairs of ski boots, hundreds of jackets and gear.

The cake stall was very popular and thanks to many generous bakers, every delicious cake was sold. Special thank you to our cake sellers, St Catherine’s girls, Zoe Hall, Arabella Hall, Georgia Szer, Sarah Marriott and Lily Taylor.

Unsold ski Jackets were donated to ‘Off Your Back’ an initiative started by Toni Joel (Silver ’82). These jackets were delivered the very next day to the Sacred Heart mission and distributed to women in need, keeping them warm.

The preparation, planning and running of this event is enormous, and we thank our wonderful committee and their families for all the tagging and registration (and more) in the week leading up to the SWAP, the Saturday set up and the huge Sunday sale day.

Thank you so much to the St Catherine’s staff for all their support: Ms Meredith Taylor, Advancement Office, Sports staff, Miss Olivia Cody and Mr Tom Crebbin, the Business Office, and IT staff for their help and POS expertise.

Thank you to past parents, Mrs Jodie Cody and Mrs Lisa Steven, for coming back and assisting us. It is a testament to how strong our bonds are within the St Catherine’s skiing community. Thank you to our suppliers EMC, Rush and our sponsor, Teska Carson.

Go St Cath’s!