Week Ending 13th May - Very inspired by Vinspired!

This week was totally dominated by the Vinspired awards with "The Power of Stories in Torbay" - Young writers were invited to enter their 500 word short stories with the theme "Changing the World for the Better.

Team v is a new program run by the national charity Vinspired, which gives 18 – 24  year old volunteers who want to encourage positive change in their communities the chance to become effective social campaigners whilst gaining valuable leadership skills. Team v leaders run a variety of projects throughout the country, and their current project was aimed at improving literacy among children through the power of stories, and encouraging children to use their imaginations and have fun with creative writing.

As part of this project Louise Gaubert, Team v leader for Torbay, organised the story writing competition for local children aged 7-11. The ‘Torbay Stories’ competition encouraged local children to let their imaginations run wild. Over the past month, school children across Torbay have been busy writing their stories of up to 500 words on the theme of ‘Changing the World for the Better’. A short-list of eight stories were subsequently judged by myself and two other local authors, Ellen Renner and Myfanwy Cook. 

A talented young writer called Nicole Burns from Ilsham C of E Academy School won the competition and a signed copy of “Warhorse” by Michael Morpurgo. Two other highly commended stories were selected and the awards went to Rueben Renton and James Rowe, who won signed copies of my first children’s adventure book “Bradley Baker and the Curse of Pathylon”, plus there were more great literacy prizes for all the winners.

All three winners of the “Torbay Stories” competition received their prizes during an awards ceremony, which was held at Torquay’s Central Library in Lymington Road on Saturday 12^th May  and I was quoted on the day as saying; "It's a great privilege to be involved in this local incentive for local children and it's also an excellent opportunity to recognise the work that vInspired carry out within our community."

Here are a few of the pictures taken during the event;-

Me and Louise Gaubert (Team v Leader) with the competition winners

Rueben, Nicole and James

Checking out the winning stories in Torquay Central Library

Oh nearly forgot to mention... I wrote another 5,000 words towards my third Bradley Baker adventure "the Pyramids of Blood"... taking the total word count so far to just over 30,000... so all in all, a very successful, productive and rewarding week.

Catch you again same time next week.

David :)