The “Dear Future Self” competition is a totally new competition for our Club, run in association with Canterbury Christ Church University. Through it we hope students will engage with current issues or structures and use their imaginations to think how these issues or structures may have changed in the future, communicatiing their thoughts to their future selves in a message that they imagine would be sent at a specified future date.
Brian Dobinson, who helped to devise and organise the competition, is in regular contact with a number of local schools on behalf of our Vocational Committee. When telling Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School’s teachers about the new competition he was surprised when technology teacher Bethany offered to let her students create the design. Brian accepted the offer – though perhaps with some nervousness!
Each student was given a copy of the competition rules and was tasked with designing a suitable, eye-catching poster; the student had to come up with the concept and add in other design elements and text. The range of designs that the youngsters came up with featured futuristic buildings, rockets, light bulbs, clocks, eyes, binoculars and telescopes. Layouts all differed and there was varied use of colour and fonts. “We were delighted to offer to help the Rotary Club of Canterbury design the poster for this new competition,” said Bethany, adding “I’m very pleased with the ideas that the students came up with – all while working at home without my supervision.”
Brian circulated the designs to a number of others involved in organising the competition to select the one that would be used in the competition’s publicity; it was a hard choice! In the end, it was student Jake Leggatt’s design – showing a bold, futuristic space scene with rockets and buildings – that was selected, but all of the designs received praise. One of the selectors, Julie Reza, commented “It was lovely to see such an imaginative range of posters; it’s quite remarkable how very different the design ideas were. We are very pleased that Bethany offered to help us. Well done to all who came up with a design!”
Each of the students will receive a nominal “prize” for their efforts in submitting a design; Jake’s design has already been incorporated into the final competition poster and will be seen over the next few weeks and months in many secondary school & sixth form college noticeboards right across Kent, Essex, Sussex and Surrey (the deadline for entries to this competition is 30th April 2021).
To find out more about the “Dear Future Self” competition, click here.
We are also running an Innovation Competition which has separate rules and deadline. For further information about that, click here.
Picture: Composite image of the poster designs. Top row (L-R): Designs from Alexander Sidnell, Amara Leeming, Jack Reed, Javier Gladstone Contioso. Bottom row (L-R): Designs from Hannah Richards, Ellie Reed, Tom Oliver and Reuben Dale. Far right, slighter larger, the winning design from Jake Leggatt. Picture credit to the individual students/Rotary Club of Canterbury.
