Before starting my internship I have been volunteering to be the Public Relations Lead for a new Literary magazine called dot dot dash.
This magazine is the brainchild of one of my high school friends, and when he casually asked me to do PR for a magazine he was thinking of starting, I had no idea how big the publication would actually be.
Running a PR team of 4 people for me, with no previous real life experience, was such a challenge but one that came with its rewards. I must admit I made mistakes, but also learnt from these and have used them to make myself not only a better leader, but PR practitioner in the future.
My duties as PR practitioner included tasks such as:
-Organising a booth for Curtin Clubs Day
-Organising a fundraiser activity (Hand decorated tote bags, which we sold at literary events and stalls)
-Organising a booth at Harmony Day at Curtin University of Technology
-Filling out forms for printing grants
-Editing sponsorship packages
The biggest task I completed for the magazine was the Issue One Launch Party which took place at the Rosemount Hotel on September 4th 2009.
In the weeks leading up the event I established various media contacts and the magazine received an array of free press in publications such as:
- Xpress Magazine
-Drum Magazine
- Six Thousand Blog (http://www.sixthousand.com.au/stray/dotdotdash-launch-party/#at)
- Canning Times (Cover Story)
- RTRFM (Morning Radio Interview on Breakfast with Barr)
I also had to approach businesses to donate prizes for the doorprize.
I found it to be a difficult task co-ordinating a large group of people to make sure the event ran smoothly as there was 3 rooms of activities on the night. The main room of the Rosemount featured bands, Bar 459 Lounge Area served as an activity room with literary based activities and Bar 459 hosted Spoken Word.
Despite the 48 hours before with no sleep and last minute rush to gather materials, it was a successful night and was worth it. We had 100 VIPS and doorspots in attendance as well as over 300 paying guests. The events co-ordinator from the Rosemount even sent us an email post-event congratulating us on our success.
Through this experience I learnt that there are alot of people who are willing to help you out if you have the right attitude. I had a friend who worked for Xpress and secured me a 1/4 page colour ad for a 50% discount as well as writing many free articles promoting the event in its lead up. I had another friend who worked for a printing company who printed and laminated all our signage for the night at no charge. I had many friends who helped me out with favors like this along the way and I made sure I showed my gratitude to them and did not take any of it for granted.
I adopted an attitude where I had nothing to lose and approached radio stations and other media myself, requesting interviews. The bands also played for a reduced fee as we had established relationships with them. I developed a budget for the event, but as our organisation had little money (we received a $1500 grant from the Curtin Alumni for the Launch Party), I tried to save money where ever I could along the way and as a result we made quite a substantial profit from the launch party.
I think the biggest lesson I learnt was that in life you make so many friends who may help you out in the future, especially in Perth which is so small. I had struck up these friendships without the knowledge of how these people will help me out with my career, but they were more than happy to help me out whenever they could.
I also made many media contacts, who will no doubt come in handy in the future!
Bree Andersen
No comments:
Post a Comment