Press Service International was established in 2005 for Dr Mark Tronson to send media stories to Ramon Williams Australia’s Religious Media for distribution.
In 2008 the then Christian Today editor Szeiling Chan rang Mark Tronson to become a daily columnist (which Mark agreed) and the following year 2009 the new editor David Chang asked Mark to write a second article each day on sport.
That was too much, instead Mark found 5 young people to write the sport articles and this initiated the young writer ministry as other young people wanted to write on other issues - as in Comment writing.
This set off an amazing growth of young people becoming young writers in the program holding our first national conference in 2010 on the Gold Coast (the sport writers). In 2011 the growing number met in Tweed Heads with David Chang giving a thorough overview of Christian Today.
In 2012 as we grew so there were State conferences and in 2013 we held our first international conference in Melbourne with New Zealanders and Internationals.
We grew from 5 young writers writing sport in 2009 to 120 young writers from around the world. In that time we have held annual conferences throughout Australia and in Auckland (2013), Wellington (2014) and Christchurch 2019.
1 July 2022
In Just over two weeks – the New Zealanders and the Internationals fly the coup (as it were) to be self functioning.
This has been coming for a number of years - both groups have been well established – both groups have well respected leadership teams.
New Zealand
President - Josh Taylor (a solicitor from Christchurch)
President’s Consult - Rev Grant Harris - Auckland, a senior writer
Administrator - Mussita Ng - Wellington
Editor - Esther Koh - Christchurch
The Kiwi young writers hale from Auckland, Taranaki, Upper Hutt, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Castle Hill, Pegasus.
Internationals
President - Josh Robbie - South Africa
President’s Consult - Aira Chilcott - Missions
Administrator - Ashea West - New York
Editor and photo selector - Josh Robbie
The international young writers hale from South Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Laos, Korea, Philippines, Canada, USA, England, Zimbabwe.
Week publishing
Christian Today has specific weeks for their publishing in the 5 week cycles.
Week 1 - Kiwi young writers
Week 2 - International senior writers
Week 4 - Internationals and NZ seniors
Week 5 - Internationals Over 31s
Meanwhile the Australian young writers and senior writers and in Week 2 and 3 along with art articles, sport writers spread around the 5 weeks.
Photo - Grant Harris, NZ young writers ‘consult’
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
