Article 8 for the Dawlish Gazette by Vanessa Ryley, writing for Dawlish Against Plastic. 25th June 2020
Go Green Fest Story Competition
Earlier this year I wrote for the Gazette about the ‘Go Green Fest’ that Dawlish Against Plastic was hoping to hold with support from Dawlish Town Council and Sustainable Dawlish.
The festival was due to be held on 26th July, a date which is rapidly approaching. Sadly, along with organisers of many other summer events, we had to make the difficult decision to cancel ‘Go Green Fest’ as soon as it became apparent that the Covid 19 crisis would not be over quickly. We hope to hold the event in July 2021 and will confirm this as soon as possible.
However, one element of our plan for this year’s festival has survived!
Part of our planning has involved the organisation of an illustrated writing competition for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 students. We are offering prizes with the combined value of £100. The competition is entitled ‘Caring for Our Planet’. The story and illustrations can be in any written medium, cartoon, poem, comic strip or essay but the written content should not exceed 500 words. It will be judged equally on the story and the illustrations. Further details about the competition and the terms and conditions can be found on our website: https://www.dawlishagainstplastic.org.uk
Many pupils at Dawlish primary schools will remember author Ellie Jackson visiting their school to talk about and read from her books ‘Wild Tribe Heroes’. The stories are true and were written to teach children about environmental issues in a positive and inspiring way, so we were very excited that Ellie agreed to judge our competition entries for us.
The original closing date for entries was July 1st but because of the extraordinary circumstances we have now decided to extend the date until the end of the summer term, Thursday 23rd July.
Entries should be delivered to: Go Green Festival Story Competition, The Manor House, Old Town Street, Dawlish EX7 9AP or sent to: dawlishagainstplastic@gmail.com All entries must include, name, age, school and contact details and entrants must have parental permission to enter.
We hope that, despite all the hardships and difficulties associated with lockdown, our young people will be inspired to give the competition a go and give older generations an insight into how much they care and understand about our fragile world.