Settling in

Hey all,

My name's Camilla and I'm from the Curtin Bentley Campus. Im currently a little under half way through my internship at the Department of Environment and Conservation in the Public Affairs office and I've got to say, so far so good!

I've now settled into a semi routine and have found a little niche for myself. All the girls that I work with are really lovely and welcoming of me and when I initally started here were really nice in trying to find jobs for me to do.

Nowadays though I have several things on the go (how exciting!). I am currently working on two projects, one for my boss, an individual assignment he gave me when I started that could be a 'continuous project' as it initally seemed that I would be doing lots of little things. For this project he has asked me to write a report on the past few months media releases, analysising the coverage they got, who picked them up, why the picked it up, what worked and what didn't. It's a really interesting project and I was quiet enthusiastic about it initailly, however as time goes on the enormity of it kind of scares me. As I started in December, I chose to analyise the months of October and Novemeber. In each of these months DEC released approx 15 statements... some of which generated over 15 inquiries or follow ups.. each of which i need to assess, read, work out the angle etc etc etc... some of the articles are just straight cut and paste with a new byline, whilst others can be completly irrelevant or on a different track which then leads to more questions. AH! Let's just say i'm pretty sure this is something I could spend the whole internship doing. And as I want to turn in a good report it is rather worrying. Paper work and electronic files are EVERYWHERE. eeeppp.

In other news, my other project is one which i'm really enjoying and which all the other girls I work with find sooo boring and pity me for. It's possibly the novelty of the task but either way i'm making the most of it.

So what is it?

Well, in my second week one of the ladies asked me if I could draft up a media release announcing the start of an annual project (Tidy Towns). So I started the draft, and then got sent a bunch of archival footage as it turned out this year was their 40th anniversary. So then my release breif got changed to a release on the history (basic) and the start. Then things changed again, and they decided to have a launch party. As I had read all the archival stuff I was invited along, and as one thing has lead to another, we have written up a complete communications plan for the year. We're liasing with the Tidy Towns workers so organise the launch, which fingers crossed, will have the Minister for the Environment opening it, I've drafted media releases(MR) for calls for memoribilia, announcing the launch, writting backgrounders, also I'm currently attempting to write a Ministerial Statement (epp!) as well as contacting some magazines for possible feature story placements.
For each magazine the angle of the story has to be different, and now that we have worked out the angles I'm attempting to draft feature stories.

So wow. What started off as a single MR is now a whole lot bigger!!

What I find most daunting though is that all the people here used to be journos... so they all know how to write, and how to write well. Me on the other hand... well I always felt I would do more event based PR as I love organising, and lists and the like, so I was never too bothered about my release skills... this internship is definately being a test for me.

One of the things said to me by the girl in the cubical next to me has been a god send though. In regards to writting media releases she said, "I never worry if it's not perfect, the chain of approval that it goes through, and the amount of times it gets changed, what you send out is never what you started with." Most reassuring indeed.

Anyways, that's it from me now!