Pembrokeshire students Callum Morgan and Stephanie Harris were recently chosen as the county's Gold Olympic Young Ambassadors. Earlier this month Callum - a Year 11 pupil at Tasker-Milward School in Haverfordwest - and Stephanie - who is in Year 12 at Ysgol Dewi Sant - attended a Young Ambassador conference in Cardiff along with their counterparts from across Wales. Here they report on how they are.....
LIGHTING THE WAY TO THE 2012 OLYMPICS
On Friday, 4th November, we set out from County Hall with Sport Pembrokeshire 5x60 officers Wyndham Williams and Matthew Freeman from Sport Pembrokeshire to go to the Young Ambassador Conference in Cardiff.
The conference was to promote sport and the Olympic and Paralympic values in association with the London 2012 Olympics.
We were both representing Pembrokeshire as Gold Olympic Young Ambassadors after recently being selected.
Young Ambassadors are a network of young people aged 14 to19 whose role is to promote sports, the Olympic and Paralympic values - Friendship, Respect, Excellence, Determination, Inspiration, Courage and Equality - and the Olympics itself, while getting young people involved in sport.
It is part of London 2012's Inspire programme and will play a key role in sport for young people during the build up to 2012.
When we arrived every YA (Young Ambassador) was allocated a group, each named after a previous Olympic and Paralympics host city. We were in Team Beijing.
All the YAs went into a conference where Baroness Sue Campbell spoke about the Olympics and the meaning of the Olympics. She spoke about what our roles would entail over the following two years as Gold Young Ambassadors and what it means to be a YA.
Following on from Sue, Olympic gold medallist cyclist Geraint Thomas spoke about his thoughts and experiences at the 2008 Games and about his medal.
After the first part of the conference, we split into our allocated groups to discuss our thoughts in another room.
We were mentored by Olympic athletes: gold medallist weightlifter Michaela Breeze and Paralympics basketball player, Clare Strange. They taught us a lot about the Olympic plans for 2012 and how to go about achieving our aims as Gold Young Ambassadors.
During the conference break we went to the main room where the Olympic Torch was showcased in a stand. We were privileged to have our photos taken with it.
On 19th May, 2012, the Olympic Torch will begin a 70-day relay around the country - including Pembrokeshire - carried by 8,000 bearers. Its arrival in London will signal the start of the Olympic Games.
The Torch's three sides symbolise the Olympic and Paralympic core values of Respect, Excellence and Friendship and its 8,000 holes represents each of the bearers.
One of our tasks for the day in our groups was to create a 40-second street chant promoting the Olympic values to be used by primary schools. Each group composed a chant and at the end we had to present them.
The winning group will compete with all the other winning groups from the other conferences around the UK. Our group did not win but the winning group's chant was good.
It was a great day and we are both really excited about taking on our new roles and coming up with new ways to promote sport and the Olympics within Pembrokeshire.
Caption
Stephanie and Callum hold the Olympic Torch in Cardiff flanked by Matthew Freeman (left) 5x60 officer for Sir Thomas Picton School, Haverfordwest, and Wyndham Williams, 5x60 officer for Pembroke and Greenhill (Tenby) schools
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