The Press Service International (PSI) "young writer" program with Christian Today has seen some major leadership developments for this new year and it is a joy to my heart to see such.
These new roles have been developed to ease the pressure on me and bring on into leadership these Generation Y young people in the PSI program.
These positions are: the Week Co-ordinators, the week collator and editor, a Sports Writer coordinator, the Australian / New Zealand Leadership Group planning the 2015 annual awards conference, and someone to introduce the PSI program to new young writers.
Sophia Sinclair
Sophia Sinclair has taken on the serious task of collating the weekly articles, editing them, giving each a date for publication and sending the week's articles to Christian Today on the Friday of each week for the following week.
Moreover, Sophia is an Australian Religious Press Association award winning professional editor (CMSNZ) and before that a journalist with the NZ National Broadcaster. Sophia has recently written the official book on the history of New Zealand CMS (Church Missionary Society). Sophia also writes as a PSI Christian Today Columnist. Last week Sophia and husband Andrew is starting a theology degree at the Sydney Missionary Bible College while Sophia maintains her professional areas with PSI and caring for baby Guy.
Weekly Co-ordinators
The PSI program has the young writers set in "weekly groups" of 15. Each young writer sends in their article on a Tuesday to their week co-ordinator. This co-ordinator does a first edit and then forwards them on to Sophia Sinclair on the Tuesday night.
Week 2 - Russell Modlin
Week 3 - Laura Veloso
Week 4 - Natalie Chu
Week 5 - Sophia Sinclair
(Week 1 is the Internationals week and I co-ordinate as these young people are all over the place in time zones and in some instances, English is a third or fourth language).
Belinda Croft
Belinda's new role is to correspond with all the new young writers coming into the PSI program. Belinda has a proforma letter and new young people need to confirm to Belinda by Email they have read the introduction and all are on the same page.
All new young people for the program come to my attention in the first instance and then those names are sent to Belinda - becomes the face of PSI. Belinda answers their questions and deals with any recalcitrant!! These are those who before even becoming part of the PSI program, know how to run it better, bigger, faster, deeper, higher, wider ......
Belinda is skilled at handling such experts, Belinda was a bank officer, now a mum of three, and husband Russell works with children and is studying.
Leadership Group
The Australian / New Zealand Leadership Group met at Tweed Heads on 12 September last year prior to the annual awards conference setting out an agenda for the PSI young writer program and - published in Christian Today.
Russell Modlin – Sunshine Coast (Chair)
Jeremy Suisted – Cambridge NZ
Laura Veloso – Melbourne
Wesley Tronson – Gold Coast
Sophia Sinclair – Christchurch (now Sydney)
This Leadership Group is meeting again on 21 March in Sydney to plan the 1 August annual awards conference. Joining them will be Sam Gillespie one of the young writers and the link to the venue (Petersham Baptist Church).
Russell Modlin is a school teacher on the Sunshine Coast, married to Belinda with three boys, served on the mission field in central Australia for four years and is the young writer representative on the Well-Being Australia Board.
Jeremy Suisted trained as a youth pastor and with a $12,000 scholarship is doing his Masters in Hamilton NZ.
Laura Veloso is married to John with three boys, they have engaged in innumerable short term missions to the sub-continent and the South Pacific. They are youth leaders at their church in Melbourne. They have recently returned from such a short term mission in Fiji with Melbourne young people.
Wesley Tronson is a bank manager on the Gold Coast and prior to 2011 spent seven years in Manchester England playing soccer and in banking. He writes a monthly sport article for Christian Today on the EPL (English Premier League). Some of his articles get republished onto English Football Supporter Club web sites with astonishing readership.
Sophia Sinclair as detailed above.
Videos
Belinda Croft and Laura Veloso produce and narrate the young writer conferences' videos, and although the topic is highly specialised, they get remarkable viewing. Belinda and Laura are sisters and are well grounded in video production.
There are other young writers who get involved such as Josh Hinds with the Christian Article Registry Depository (C.A.R.D.), Jeremy Dover with the Australian Missionary News IPTV as an interviewer and we're looking at others with leadership skills from both Australia and New Zealand for additional roles.
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.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html
