This is a tribute to an influential Australian Christian - Ramon Williams (1931 - ) Christian media distributor. In 2013 The Australasian Religious Press Association took great pleasure in honouring Ramon Williams with a “Special Citation for exceptionally meritorious service to the Christian community, and specifically to Christ".
That is only the half of it - this latest wonderful tribute is after The Australasian Religious Press Association (ARPA) in 2015 honoured one of their Citation holders and greatly revered member, Mr Ramon Williams and an ARPA Guetenmberg Award winner in 1987 - with their new $1500 Youth Scholarship – aptly named: The Ramon Williams ARPA scholarship.
This “youth award” has been a long time in coming and I have been doing the running on this for some time now. At the time New Zealand ARPA board member and Vice President Julie Belding wrote to me saying:
“You’ll be glad to know that the ARPA exec has taken your pleas to heart and we are taking concrete steps to attract younger people to ARPA. Under 35s in fact. We’re offering a $1500 conference scholarship to one young writer, and offering half-price registrations to the others who may be staff members or associate members.”
ARPA member then from Christchurch, New Zealand the former CMS editor Sophia Sinclair and the 2016 chief editor for Press Service International (young writer ministry) wrote:
“Well done for championing the cause of the younger generations. The cost of an ARPA conference is just overwhelming - and when I think of what I would get in return for such a financial outlay it's ridiculous.
“On one hand I see that the older members would have a lot to learn from younger members, but younger members would also have encouragement from older members too - if they reached out a bit more! Personally I think ARPA has a thing or two to learn from your style of mentoring and encouragement of generation y and z!”
Sophia Sinclair the current President of ARPA - in 2017 won this fabulous ARPA award, the Ramon Williams ARPA Scholarship.
ARPA Honour
In 2015 the Australasian Religious Press Association, established in 1974, was pleased to announce a youth scholarship package named in honour of Ramon Williams.
Ramon has been involved with ARPA since its foundation, and was awarded the Gutenberg Award in 1987 and an ARPA Citation For Outstanding Service To Christian Media in 2013.
As the founder of Worldwide Photos Ltd, he has contributed in a magnificent variety of ways to the ministry of the Church in Australia, especially through the provision of photographic material, Christian stories and photography.
Ramon Williams Citation
Meanwhile ARPA four years ago honoured Ramon Williams with the ARPA Citation For Outstanding Service To Christian Media in 2013. There was not a dry eye at the APRA presentation as everyone knew of his astonishing pedigree.
Ramon has been a source of great personal encouragement for many Christians in the media and a source of much encouragement for younger members in their developing ministry. This includes me over 40 years.
A previous article provides the remarkable history of Ramon Williams missionary service and his Christian media phenomena – I would encourage everyone to read it with interest – it takes in an amazing 72 years of front line ministry.
http://christiantoday.com.au/news/ramon-williams-a-hero-of-australian-christian-media.html
Ramon’s son Keith wrote to me – Mum and dad are in a nursing home.
Dr Mark Tronson - a 4 min video
Chairman – Well-Being Australia
Baptist Minister 45 years
- 1984 - Australian cricket team chaplain 17 years (Ret)
- 2001 - Life After Cricket (18 years Ret)
- 2009 - Olympic Ministry Medal – presented by Carl Lewis
- 2019 - The Gutenberg - (ARPA Christian Media premier award)
Gutenberg video - 2min 14sec
Married to Delma for 45 years with 4 children and 6 grand children