On Wednesday March 22 a group of Year 9-13 scholarship students attended a lunchtime focus group with Professor Paul Moon (ONZM) from AUT University and Gael Keren, CEO of Astor Foundation.
Sydney Brandolino said “If I’m being 100% honest, there was more than one reason I decided to go to the focus group discussion on Wednesday lunchtime. I was interested in entering the essay competition, I wanted to hear what Professor Moon had to say about social cohesion, I’m always a fan of a good focus group, and, maybe, I was just the slightest bit enticed by the promise of a free lunch. Though the food was, indeed, delicious, I know that I might be misrepresenting the focus group if all I wrote was a food review.
Throughout this lunchtime focus group session we had the pleasure of meeting Gael Keren, CEO of the Astor Foundation, the organisation that was running the upcoming essay competition, and Professor Paul Moon from AUT, who gave an account of David Levene’s life. David Levene being the man for whom the essay competition was named after.
We also had small group discussions on what social cohesion meant to us and how we would advertise the essay competition to secondary school students, like ourselves. Not to take the obvious bait but if anyone is interested in entering the essay competition, below is a link to the website.”