FOUR Marks and Medstead Rotary welcomed more than 100 children from the surrounding villages to Four Marks Primary School.

The occasion was the prize-giving ceremony for this year’s Rotary Junior Young Writer and Young Photographer competitions.

The children from Chawton, Four Marks, Medstead and St Mary’s Bentworth primary schools were accompanied by family members, headteachers, staff, governors and rotarians for an evening designed to spotlight talent and celebrate success.

Each year, Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland hosts a number of competitions for young people, including Young Writer and Young Photographer. The competition begins locally, with individual Rotary clubs inviting entries, which are scored by a panel of three judges. The top entry advances to district level. Each district then sends one winning entry for judging at the national finals.

Four Marks and Medstead Rotary organises local competitions in the junior category, for children aged seven to 11.

This year’s theme, ‘Reflection’, offered rich possibilities for both creative writing and striking photography.

Club vice-president Sally Duncan opened the awards ceremony before introducing tournament co-ordinator Lisa Hillan and the panel of judges, all fellow Rotarians.

The lead judge, teacher Helen Allen-Rogers, explained this year’s writing competition and the judging process. The entries are anonymised by the coordinator, with the names, ages, gender and school affiliations removed. The judges score the entries separately and independently, then share with each other their favourite entries. The entry numbers identified by all three judges are the finalists. The entry numbers identified by two of the three judges receive highly commended citations. From among the finalists, the judges then privately rank the entries.

Again this year, all three judges chose the same entry as the winner.

Judge Phil Talbot, a retired headteacher, praised the diversity of approach in the poetry and prose entries. Citing examples from the students’ entries, he gave credit to the their “vivid imagery and imagination”, from the forests of Elsinore, dragons and long-lost mirrors discovered in dusty attics to football matches and reflections in frozen lakes.

Sally Duncan, a technical author, also judged the 187 entries, the most ever in the six-year history of this level of competition.

Helen and Sally then presented the highly-commended certificates and cash prizes to:

n Lucy Charlton, Jack McBriarty & Jessica Hunt (Chawton Primary);

n Grayce Barry, Sophie Fitt & Verity Knight (Four Marks Primary);

n Daisy Mundy & Jack Hayman (Medstead Primary); and

n Ashanti Chiverton, Rose Edmunds, Elizabeth Harris, Caitlin Stevens & Orla Taylor (St Mary’s Bentworth)

The finalists were Orla Gange (Four Marks), Rebekah Anderson (Medstead), Erin Powell (Medstead) and Molly Byrne (Chawton), who were invited to read their entries aloud after accepting their awards.

After much anticipation, the winner was revealed as eight-year-old Mary Vitoria, from Chawton Primary School.

Joined by her headteacher, Dawn Tilley, Mary accepted her certificate and prize. Miss Tilley read aloud Mary’s story about Talulah and the reflection in the well, which many in the audience later described as “an uplifting and inspiring story”.

Lisa Hillan was then able to reveal that Mary’s entry was one of 10 junior entries received at district level, drawn from an estimated 1,500 primary schoolchildren, and that it had taken first place and had advanced to the National Finals.

According to Mrs Hillan, in six years of hosting the local Young Writer (Junior) competition, this is the fourth time that the Four Marks and Medstead winner has gone on to win at district level.

She said: “Such consistent success speaks highly of the calibre of writing and teaching in our local primary schools, and for the talent spotting by the competition judges. “

Next came the awards presentation for the Young Photographers. Rotarian and competition coordinator Mike Sanders described the competition and introduced the judges. More than 60 entries on the theme of ‘Reflection’ had been received, to be judged by professional photographer Ginny Boxall, backed by Rotarians Kevin Malam and Tom Yendell.

The top entries were presented with certificates and prizes by Sally Duncan and Mike Sanders. They were:

n Nikola Snyman (Chawton Primary);

n Kaiya Collins, Noah Collis, Orla Gange, Imogen Hammel, Daniel Laker, Rachel Lewis, Emma Ndongwe, Kiryl Nikishayeu, Henry Shadbolt, Francesca Venediger & Tia Wright (Four Marks Primary);

n Corbin Whapshott & Eva Whapshott (St Mary’s Bentworth);

Special awards were also given to the best individual photographs entered in the competition.

The finalists were Adam Howsego, Bevan Parker and Amelia Rossiter, all from Four Marks Primary School, and the winner of the Local Young Photographer 2017 was Charlie Elford-Pond, also from Four Marks.

There was great excitement also after it was announced that Charlie’s entry had won at district level and that his portfolio of three photographs will go on to be judged in the national finals.

The winning photographs were all on display and, according to Mrs Hillan, “the general opinion was that the children’s efforts were outstanding”.

Mr Saunders thanked Mr Yendell and Jondo UK for professionally mounting all the winning photographs for prizes and display. Mr Yendell is a well-known mouth and foot painting artist.

This year’s Four Marks and Medstead Rotary Club youth competitions, including the Young Musician jointly hosted with Alton Rotary in January, were funded in part by a generous grant from ABF Charitable Trust, the charitable branch of the Alton Beer Festival.

Competitions such as Young Writer and Young Photographer are part of Rotary’s ‘Inspired Programme of Youth Competitions’ to ensure that young people can compete and achieve a personal best at all levels, representing a team, club, school, county or even the nation.