Hi everyone! I hope you all going good with your placement. So now I am half way on my placement with World Vision. I have learnt so much more than just Public Relations. The past week was a very busy week for me. I was helping WV with two big event- Race to save the World and WV stand in Royal Show.
I did more administration work than PR work for the Race. The event went well although the weather was not too good. And now I am doing more paperwork such as data analyse and create a contact list for the Race. I have just finished drafting a PR plan for the Race 2010. Hopefully, I can touch on some event follow-up work soon, then I can share with you later.
The set up of World Vision child sponsorship stand in the farm animal pavilion was excellent I must say (Yes ! I did help for the set up). All the shown materials were so educated. It increases the contacts between the public and I. I am sure a lot of us have seen the child sponsorship stands in the shopping centres. And we tend to just walk pass the stand, however, people who came to the show have completely different attitudes. They are more relax, and open-minded to receive information. Which I think it is a GREAT chance for me to do public relations. So far, I was surprised to see how many families are already a sponsors or donor even not with WV!
Another thing I have learnt from communication skills is “do not mention too much about your competitors’ I mean it is obvious we all know that we should not be talking about our competitors. But somehow, if you are having a casual conversation, you may say something got pick up and damaged the organisation’s reputation. My example is, one lady walked up to me in the royal show and asked a very casual question: “I have heard of World Vision and XXX (another charity), I know both of you are doing some excellent work to help the poor, so what is the difference between you two?” I guess most of us will just answer without thinking too much, plus probably add on some comments about why are we stand out from the other one! However, the girl who worked with me took over the conversation as soon as she heard the question. She is very experienced and she explained to me later because there is a chance of the lady working with that charity or a journalist that if we say something wrong which could harm the organisation’s reputation. I wasn’t intend to explain what the other charity does because I honesty have no idea but it is just nice to learn another lesson.
OK bye for now, will update later!
cheers
Kath
2 comments:
Hi Kath,
It seems like your internship is very exciting and full on! You get to do a lot more stuff than I did such as drafting a PR plan for Race 2010 and helping out at WV child sponsorship stand at Royal Show, guess that was a good fun! Personally, I like to help out in events such as the Quiz Night my organization organized earlier on.
As I was reading your post about how the lady asked you a very casual question, it did not come to my mind that patrons asking questions might be someone who could be a competitor or a journalists. This really shows me that as a PR practitioner for an organization such as yours, we really need to watch what we say in order to avoid any controversial and harm the reputation of the organization.
But anyway, enjoy yourself with your remaining internship days. Take care!
Regards,
Hendro Braristo
Hey Kath!
I remember a few weeks ago you were tying to 'publicise' your race around the world at our pr mid-sem catch up meeting.
Its great to see that your stand at the show was a success. I realised that your observation about how peoples attitudes at an event such as the show are more relaxed and willing to listen and learn. I think people are more interested in learning what the organisation does and getting information instead of being bombarded with being asked to donate to a charity that they might not know about, or perhaps are skeptical of where the money goes!
even though data analysis can be pretty dull, i think your search for contacts for the race would be really interesting!... what type of contacts do you need - like sponsorship contacts?
I think it's amazing that you were able to draft a PR plan for next years race. That's a great thing to be a part of and involved in- and such a good learning experience as well! I actually got to draft a plan for Town of Bassendeans Multicultural Festival, which was interesting as i got to see the variety of dance groups, artsy/craft groups, and cultural variety living in the area. next year do you think you will stay involved with WV? It would be interesting to see how your plan comes into play!
also i suppose thats some really good advice the WV girl gave you when you were asked that question. I suppose with PR you always have to be aware of your organisations environment. Having the right spokesperson really does matter as you figured out!
Being invovled with the stand at the show and the Race must be a great experience and you must feel pretty good especially when you're dealing with a not-for profit!
If you're still at WV goodluck with the rest of your time there!
Courtney
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