Young Writers’ Presentation Evening

This year there were four sets of Year 6 students competing from each of the local Primary schools, namely Annecy, Chyngton, Cradle Hill and Seaford Primary.  Each school was invited to submit up to four entries in the form of prose or poetry on a preselected theme for adjudication by our panel of independent judges.

The theme this year was ‘Peace’, which produced some very creative and thoughtful writing, especially in the light of current events.

Paul Vaesen, Chairman of Seaford Rotary Youth Services Committee, addressed the assembled audience with an overview of the projects and work undertaken by the Seaford Rotary Club for the benefit of young people in the town, including the Young Writers competition.

Mike Allen described the competition in further detail setting out the various stages leading up to the presentation of certificates and prizes and introduced the judges.  This year as there was an equal number of Prose and Poetry entries, it was decided to award first prizes and runner up prizes for both categories.

The judges had also commented that the standard of the work produced by the students was very high and all sixteen of the individual entrants fully merited the certificates that were presented to them by the Young Mayor Erin Franklin.

The names of the winners and runners up of the competition were then announced before the judges Lynn Lawson and Ben Messer (unfortunately the third judge Paul Allen who had organised the judging process was unable to attend due to business commitments) read and commented upon the winning poetry and prose entries.

The Mayor Olivia Honeyman was asked to present the cash prizes and certificates to the winning student and runner up.  The winner of the Prose prize was Midgley Sanders with Oliver Wright winning the Poetry prize.  Both the winning students of the Poetry and Prose competitions attend Cradle Hill Primary school.

 Club Vice President Mandy Davis (in the absence of our President Ann for health reasons) presented teacher Mark McCaughan from Cradle Hill school a cheque to acknowledge their success.

The runners up were both from Seaford Primary school with Esme Harkness receiving this prize for Prose and Lily Atkins for Poetry.

All of the students are to be congratulated for taking part in this creative and rewarding competition and we hope that they gain greatly from the experience and will continue to enjoy writing as they progress through life.

It was particularly pleasing to record that every one of the sixteen entrants with their parents/guardians and teachers attended the evening and that more chairs than anticipated were required to be set out to cater for such a large audience.