Participating were the four young sports writers – Clayton Hinds from Townsville, Jeremy Dover from Melbourne, Rosie Timmins from the Gold Coast and Wesley Tronson who has returned to Australia after seven years in the UK – along with Christian Today Australia representatives and Well-Being Australia personnel.
Christian Today Australia last December asked Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson, a regular columnist, whether he might expand his contribution to include a daily sports article.
M V Tronson was conversant with writing sports as he wrote field hockey in the Sydney Morning Herald in the late 70s and then for many years The Australian. He is an author of five books on field hockey.
Moreover from 1982 – 2000 he pioneered the Sports and Leisure Ministry in association with Heads of Churches placing chaplains throughout Australia's professional sports, and writing many associated press articles.
When released by Heads of Churches in 2000 to establish Well-Being Australia which largely focuses in athlete respite, he expanded his writing with Well-Being Australia's Press Service International which provides articles for Christian Today Australia and a Wednesday international distribution of Australian Christian articles.
In January 2010 M V Tronson came up with a proposal that Christian Today Australia adopted and by February the daily sport article was up and running, and by March he had appointed four young sports writers to submit a sports article (a day a week).
The 'young sports writers daily model' took off and a mini-conference was called whereby they could come together and meet with Christian Today Australia where they heard first hand the Christian Today Australia philosophy.
There were five important outcomes from the sports writers mini-conference.
First, following the philosophy of Christian Today Australia (a presentation of a world view of daily news from a Christian perspective), the daily sports article has a 'Christian message component'. In reality its fits the well established genre of a sports columnist. Christian Today Australia are working toward steps to establish a separate 'Sport' column in their index to accommodate this important recognition.
Second, this genre of a sports columnist has got a healthy start, the readership statistics are emboldening and there is excitement in the air.
Third, as this is a world first, daily sport columnists, Well-Being Australia has the appropriate contacts in the UK and the USA to see the model develop in the international arena.
fourth, that the emphasis M V Tronson placed on the sports writers being 'young' (in relation to succession for Well-Being Australia) and establishing a 'next generation' philosophy.
Fifth, these young sports writers were each interviewed on the Australian Missionary News IPTV. http://tv.bushorchestra.com/