The 'Panellists Commission' follows on this month after the 'Awards Commission' report for the Press Service International young writer program which functions in conjunction with Christian Today.
The Awards Commission took submissions over several months so as to establish a 2018 protocol as to how the panellists allocate points and the nature of the awards.
It was telegraphed that in October a Panellists Commission would be established whereby some of the issues relating to the nature of the young writer program might be clarified.
These are some of the issues —
Every young writer needs to be marked
Reason: to determine their 'Best Article' for the awards.
Part-time option for Panellists
Reason: we have experienced Panellists who are very busy — they mark three of the five Cycles.
CTNZ republishing young writers articles that originally published in CT Aust
Reason: this is a new market place and it's giving CTNZ a chance to establish itself.
The number of Panellists has been 6, is this too many?
The television show ‘Who’s Got Talent’ usually has three judges. The Archibald Art Prize has 7 judges (sometimes 10 — they get celebrities on board as well). PSI has enjoyed 5 or 6 since we began.
Former young writers as Panellists
The policy to date has been to have former young writers as Panellists — they have been in this place.
To unpick some of these
All articles marked
The 'Best Article' awards were established in 2014 and are a favourite by the young writers to learn what the Panellists considered as their 'best article'.
The problem arose with one panellist who complained they were marking articles that had been tweaked (updated) from a previous article and refused to mark them. This in turn complicated the 'Best Article' allocations.
The Panellist Commission has been asked to clarify this situation.
Part Time Panellists
This has worked well for those Panellists who are extremely busy and instead of marking all of the 5 week Cycles for 6 months has a work load reduced to 3 Cycles. We have Panellists who so enjoy their task they would mark the articles under water.
In 2017 we had four part time panellists.
Australian Panellists — there were 2
International Panellists — there were 2
New Zealand Panellists — there was 1
The number of Panellists
There is history here — in 2013–14 the young writer numbers were small and there were 6 panellists who marked everyone.
As from 2015 four sets of Panellists were introduced — Australian, New Zealand, International and the Sport writer panellists.
We have been blessed to have found 6 separate people for each group. That is no easy task, especially for the Australian Panellists who are marking 4 Weeks out of five in each of the five Cycles being marked.
One question has been to separate the Australian panellists into two groups, one group marks Cycles 1–3 and the second group marks Cycles 4–5. This has only come up due to the heavy work load.
Former young writers as Panellists
In 2017 of the 23 panellists, 11 were former young writers and this trend is set to continue. The Panellists Commission is able to reflect on this.
The publishing Cycles are set out as follows
Week 1 — the international young writers
Weeks 2–5 — Australian young writers
CTNZ — the NZ Panellists mark the Kiwi young writers submitting fresh articles so as not to be confused with previously published CT Aust articles. These are collated in the first three weeks of each Cycle and sent to the NZ Panellists as a collation of articles.
The Sport Panellists have one article a week to mark.
Statistician
We have an Australian and a New Zealand statistician. The Australian statistician receives the marks at the end of each week, otherwise it becomes a bog's breakfast. This has worked well to date.
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
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