The 2021 Press Service International young writer Awards will be on video after the board of Well-Being Australia endorsed Russell Modlin’s recommendation to postpone the annual conference to 2022.
Russell Modlin is the young writer ministry representative on the Well-Being Australia board and brought his recommendation after weeks of consultation.
The Covid dramas, the border closures and travel restrictions made it impossible for young writers around the nation to plan to be on the Gold Coast on Saturday 11 September.
The Australian Religious Press Association (ARPA) had made a similar decision relating to Saturday 4 September two months ago and the CMS conference scheduled on the Gold Coast for the week after 11 September has also been changed to ‘online’.
The financial loss to accommodation, conference centres, eateries, travel, coaches, rental companies, taxis and others keeps mounting up. The SE Qld Gold Coast and Tweed Heads have no Covid to date and the uproar over the Qld border Coolangatta and Tweed Heads has reached fever pitch. Coolangatta Qld is suffering the worse as the Tweed Shire is reasonably self contained but thousands of employees in the SE Qld region reside in the NSW Tweed Shire.
Progress
The annual young writer Awards are being videoed this weekend - how this might be best achieved is still under review. The video cannot be too long. There are 33 separate 2021 awards.
Russell Modlin and Rebecca Moore the perennial MCs for our annual conferences will do the presentations. Sam Gillespie arranges the award certificates.
They might be read in groups. Such as –
Australian 18-30
Basil Sellers Award
Tronson Award
Theology Award
Youth Development
and so on
New Zealand 18-30
Internationals 18-30
Sport writers’
Australian Over 31s
International Over 31s
Seniors writers (up to 45)
Chairman’s Award
(The Masters writers Over 45s are not included in the annual awards)
Jesse Moore is on the video and then editing the presentations – thus placing into YouTube with the link going to Dr Mark Tronson for distribution.
Other parts
There are other parts to the awards
First, each awardee is sent their award certificate courtesy of Sam Gillespie.
Second, over 5 weeks, articles in Christian Today will be published celebrating the joy of the Lord with a montage photo and their certificate.
These annual montage photos – are photo-shops by Peter Scotland who combine - Awardee, Certificate, Russell Modlin (the presenter).
All this is a mammoth undertaking.
Young writer ministry
Perhaps an ideal summary is from Ian Gillespie (Sam’s father) whose trophy business donates the certificates -
"Glad to help again. The writers are strategically incredibly important.
"The Lord bless them all".