What happens in a space of 7 days

Hello all, I'm Peggy and I've nearly completed 10 days of a work placement at the Multiple Sceloris Society of WA. It's a not for profit organisation that raises funds dedicated to improving the quality of life for the thousands of West Aussies affected by MS as well as research into a cure for the disease.

It's been an interesting ride these 3 weeks. There's quite a bit going on at the moment and I'm lucky enough to have a few interesting tasks and projects to keep myself occupied. I started off my first week doing fairly basic things such as databasing, a spot of proofreading, calling up editors and journalists, emailing and calling for quotes on certain items and envelope stuffing. And if you believe it, putting on a mascots costume and stumbling around Carousel shopping mall hugging and high-fiving little kiddies...more on that in a moment.

One thing I would like to know, did anyone find the mere thought of calling editors from newspaper publications terrifying? I certainly did and I don't even really know why. I have to confess I'm not fond of the telephone, especially if it's to call someone I don't know. Anyway after you do it a couple(like 10!) times you sort of get into the swing of it and lose that self-consciousness. Although I did get a bit tongue tied at the beginning. Oh, another anecdote to tell and maybe this will be a good tip to others. Did you know that some publications operate under one main company and therefore have the same contact details? I didn't so I ended up unknowingly calling the same number 3 or 4 times in the space of an hour, re-introducing myself and requesting to speak to someone in editorial without realising it until the receptionist told me. Ooops. On a side note, people from the regional/country newspapers are really pleasant and friendly!

The MS Society have a readathon challenge launching in June where kids get sponsored to read and the other week I and a couple other volunteers set up in front of Kmart at Carousel to try and raise some awareness and get some kids to register. Let me tell you it aint easy, unless Boskoe's around(he's the MS Readathon's mascot, a bright yellow alien who loves to read). There's something about a brightly coloured, soft, huggable creature that kids just love. When he is around, the number of registrations increase so fast it's amazing.

When it is just us volunteers the job is so much harder, even with the lure of free stickers and bookmarks. The biggest obstacle for me was disinterested parents, naively my approach was to approach the parents first with a friendly "good morning, how are you today? Do your kid/s want a sticker?". What I found so frustrating was that it wasn't an attempt to raise donations, we just wanted a little of peoples' time to tell them about what we were doing. What I finally learnt after countless rejections varying from curt "not interested" to people actually speeding away(one man walked so fast his petite wife actually had to run a little to keep up) or practically sticking against the wall in an effort to avoid me was to go directly to the kids. What kid can resist the lure of a sticker? After that you do all you can to convince them to convince their parents to let them do the readathon.

Now, onto the most bizarre thing I've ever done(for work and in life in general). I donned the Boskoe costume. I waved at, cuddled and high-fived kids(and yes I think I did frighten one little girl, all I did was wave at her and then she was high tailing it out of there). I also found myself popular with teenagers and adults for some reason, one man tried to give me some sort of handshake that I often see males do when they greet each other but I being female just dumbly gripped his hand with my paw, and teens kept coming up wanting a hug and a photo. Let me tell you it is like a sauna in there, not that I've been in one before but I imagine that is what it is like, stifling and hot. Walking was difficult and my hair kept getting in my face. Nethertheless there was an increase in signed registration forms so I hope my contribution helped.

Later this week I'll be going into Subiaco to help set up a media launch for Les Miserable which is a musical run to raise funds for the MS Society. Hopefully I will get to meet some people involved in media as well as some of the cast. I'll update on what happens next week I suppose.

More to come soon, see you later. (Feel free to leave a comment on anything I can improve on or to make reading my posts easier as I am not familiar with blogging).