Health Promoting Schools' Committee, comprising staff and students

May 2009

The Health Promoting Schools' Committee was very pleased to learn at the end of the Easter holidays that it had been successful in its application to the National Heart Foundation for a Gold Heartbeat Award for the School Canteen. Columba was the first Secondary School in Otago to gain the Silver Award and is now the first to gain the Gold Award, with the only other Gold Award in the province having been awarded earlier this year to St Patrick's Primary School. We are very fortunate to have Mrs Magda Marx as our Catering Manager and it is her commitment to producing healthy, tasty items for the Canteen and responding to students' feedback that has steadily improved the quality of what is offered. Public Health South is so impressed with her work that they included an article on Mrs Marx and the Columba Canteen in their August Newsletter last year. Our decision to maintain the changes made over the past few years in the Canteen in spite of the government relaxing these requirements also helped with our Gold application. The Award is to be presented in assembly next Tuesday by Mrs Jo Arthur of the Heart Foundation.

It was very pleasing to note the Year 10 students' healthy appetites for healthy food at their recent Camp in Doubtful Sound. In accordance with the Board of Trustees' Healthy Eating Policy, we have eliminated two minute noodles and instant soups from school camps and were very grateful to those parents who sent along home-made soups. We are still concerned, however, at the number of students in the Intermediate and Secondary Schools who are bringing instant noodles for lunch. While we recognise that this is an individual choice, we urge parents and students to check the list of ingredients that go into these and to note the fat content of the noodles themselves. The Health Promoting Schools' Committee is currently preparing for Columba's first Healthy Eating Week, from the 25th to 29th May. Activities planned include speakers, cooking demonstrations, competitions and special dishes in the Canteen.

Jenness Riethmaier, Chair of Columba’s Health Promoting Schools’ Committee

Since the start of this year the School Canteen has been operating from the servery in the dining-room of Bishopscourt, a move which the Canteen Manager, Mrs Magda Marx, describes as “absolutely fantastic”.  It has been a lot easier for the Canteen staff to keep food warm and has meant an even greater number of the items sold can be prepared in the Boarding-House kitchen. 

Columba College is now in the third year of following the National Heart Foundation guidelines for all food and drinks sold in the School Canteen and also as part of sports fund-raising.  We are very fortunate in having access to our own commercial-grade kitchen which gives Mrs Marx a lot more flexibility in designing and preparing the Canteen menus.  Her daily specials are becoming increasingly varied and the menus are printed and distributed every three weeks.  Because these items have been selling so well, she has been able to keep the prices at a very reasonable level.  For example, a recent special menu included Baked Potato with filling ($2.00), Spaghetti Bolognaise ($2.00), Panini ($2.00), Quiche ($1.50 and Chicken Filo Parcels ($1.50).  In addition, there is home-made soup every Monday for $1.00 a cup and the boarders are getting a hot lunch twice a week as a change from the packed lunches they make themselves on the other days.  Another very popular item for students who want a small, cheap warm snack to supplement their own lunch is the cheese and spaghetti toasties which still sell for only 50 cents.

The new swipe card system of payment has also made the service of food more efficient and faster and eliminated the handling of money by the Canteen staff.  It is good, too, to see a good mix of girls from Year 7 through to Year 12 using the dining-room to eat their lunch and chat.

The College is very fortunate to have Mrs Marx as Canteen Manager and we thank her for her unfailingly cheerful, positive manner and her enthusiasm for searching out new ideas to provide variety and sound nutrition in the dishes she prepares.  She also welcomes feed-back and recipes or suggestions for additions to her menus from parents and students and supports  initiatives of our Health Promoting Schools’ Committee, such as the snack packs put together for the male staff to observe “National Men’s Health Week” this week.  Staff and students would all agree that, as with the move to the new Canteen and also having the dining-room to lunch in, Mrs Marx herself is “absolutely fantastic”.

Following are examples of menus from the School Canteen.

Ms Jenness Riethmaier

Chair, Health Promoting Schools’ Committee at Columba College

School Canteen Price Lists: