The Press Service International (PSI) young writer program in conjunction with Christian Today saw the Kiwi young writers ‘stand alone’ in January this year, and as from Cycle 7 after the August young writer conference, the international young writers will ‘stand alone’.
The PSI program has Australians, New Zealanders, Internationals, Sport and Senior writers all in separate groups in a 5 Week Cycle. Each group have people behind the scenes such as a coordinators, editors, photo selectors, uploaders and the like.
The Kiwi young writers took the bull by the horns (as it were) in January this year and in effect have been running their own program.
Kiwi young writers ‘team’
Weeks 1-2 Coordinator – Jessica McPherson
Week 3 coordinator – Jessica Knell
Editor – Esther Koh
Photo selector – Kevin Park
Late comers chaser - Rebecca Howan
PayPal - Richard Kwon
Facebook uploaders - Jessica McPherson, Richard Kwon
CTNZ – Tim Newman
This ‘stand alone’ programing has worked very well. The key factor is having the articles come in on their due date. The final outcome is that Esther Koh forwards the finalised articles onto Tim Newman - the liaison between the Kiwi young writers and Christian Today.
International young writers
The idea of the international young writers falling into the same pattern of ‘standing alone’ was an inevitable outcome of the program’s growth and the enthusiasm of the international young writers towards this direction.
Last month the final touches were put on the international young writers ‘standing alone’ with several exciting confirmations.
First, the 5 Week schedule needed re-arranging and this means as from Cycle 7, the Internationals 18-30 year group will move from Week 1 placement, to Week 4 placement. Week 5 has the international young writers Over 31s. This therefore means that as from Cycle 7, the internationals will be in Weeks 4 and 5.
Second, Weeks 4 and 5 – both weeks – both the 18-30 year group and the Over 31s group - will have the same Coordinator and Editor - this simply follows the highly successful Kiwi model with Weeks 1 and 2 combined in the same way.
Internationals team
Coordinator for Weeks 4 and 5 as from Cycle 7 - is South Africa’s Crystelda Naidoo who was the coordinator for the Week 1 Internationals 18-30 years. For Crystelda, it means adding the names of the internationals Over 31s to her list for the reminders for their due dates.
Editor for Weeks 4 and 5 as from Cycle 7 - is New Zealand’s Mussita Ng who was the coordinator of the Over 31s internationals. Mussita is geared up for this role.
Photo selector for Weeks 4 and 5 as from Cycle 7 – is South Africa’s Josh Robbie who has been selecting the photos for the internationals 18-30 group.
Mussita and Crystelda are settling up a private internationals young writer Facebook page and will initiate the uploading each day. They realise that with the internationals covering Weeks 4 and 5, they need an article each day to be uploaded from Weeks 1-3 to keep the site ‘live’. Already some ideas have been aired.
Three groups
The sport writers had always functioned in this way as there was only one sport writer a week. Now with the Kiwis and the internationals following suit – structurally it will introduce to the young writer program a whole new paradigm.
As now with the Kiwis, all new international young writers come through Press Service International as a proven methodology.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children. Dr Tronson writes a daily article for Christian Today Australia (since 2008) and in November 2016 established Christian Today New Zealand.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html