John Penny

After the Nov 6months at St Gregs

After the Schol I taught as a monk at Rosalie,Kogarah, Kieta with Dan McEwen( before the civil war)
Parra Marist and then 6 years at St Vincents- I enjoyed it all especially Kieta and the Boys Home

I left the monks in 1981 and taught At De La Salle Ashfield , then 5 very active yrs – good fun-at Benedict Community School I took over from John Moulds and Geoff George followed me.
I was the foundation Deputy at Emmaus at Erskine Park for 7 yrs- the early yrs were good fun.Met up with Steve Esler out Penrith way.

I then came to Marist Ed Centre with Bill Selden as my boss and when he took study leave Bill passed the baton to me some 10 yrs ago and this has been good fun- I had to get some Quals in Counselling so eventually after 8 yrs study/ supervision I was able to register as a Psychologist - some of this was useful especially some family counselling courses at UWS.
I also did Edcation at Sydney Uni and RE at ACU so Uni of NSW is the only uni I missed -in all I have attended
Macq Uni across more than 30 yrs- slow learner !

I have been married, to Bernadette, since 1983 and have 3 boys 22, 15, 13 and a daughter 11 – so I will have to work for a few more yrs –with the kids lots of Rugby/hockey - not much cricket not much Study either . I have seen Col Coles at Rugby a few times


I played hockey and cricket until mid 30's and have done a lot of canoeing trips over the yrs with schools, boys home and now my own kids - mainly to Barrington River near Gloucester
Br. Sevard taught us canoeing and canoe building - Tony Burrows and myself got it going at Kogarah. Frank Hough was on one of the Br Sevard Trips in 1974 to the Barrington and Mick Prest and Darryl Slater came on some trips as did Mick Galvin and Geoff Kellly and Mick Jones with St Vincents.

Also, Raf Garafano came on a ski-ing trip with Benedict Community School in the mid 80’s

These days I love golf and play as often as I can - some trips to Murray , Mornington and TAS . I had some time o/s and was lucky to get a game at the old course at St Andrews !