In preparation for Open Day I was assigned the task of creating a diplay of media clippings from PMH's history. I had to gather the news clippings which entailed getting files of clippings from the storeroom and bringing them up using the Public relations department's trolley. I had to go through them selecting the most interesting ones and mount them, which involved cutting and pasting and labelling them. I had to bring up the display board from the storeroom and assemble it. I also had to make up a theme and decide on some colours and make decorative kites to fill the empty spaces on the display board. All this is to illustrate that PR is a very hands on career and is not all important phone calls and meetings with executives, it can involve mundane things like cutting out paper kites for decoration at an event, which is what I was doing.
It was slow and repetitive but I was just grateful for something to keep me occupied. And passers by began to admire the display days before the event, older staff memebers recognizing memories they had been involved in or children they had met in the pictures I was tacking up on the display board.
It was interesting to see the many successes that the hospital had behind it.
The day itselg f was another affirmation of the legacy of PMH, guests were many and the highlights were a speech from the Premier of WA and the cutting of a huge cake. I was mostly in one of the side rooms with other volunteers blowing iup balloons which were being handed out to the public. My fingers were chaffed from tying balloons by the end of the day but those are the trials of a PR intern.
One interesting thing though was that some of the balloons we were blowing up had Princess Margaret Hospital's 100th anniversary and some had Leighton written on them cause Leighton was a sponsor of the event but we were being told to blow up more of the PMH ones by the PR manager, some of the volunteers were from Leighton though and declined to follow PMH's PR officer's order , continuing instead to blow up Leigton balloons.
I found it interesting that the PR officer has to know every single detail about their event, including the details that are printed on the balloons!
Monday after the event the office was a-buzz with feedback but not all was pleasant. In the thank you speeches the Executive Director in charge of Nursing Facilities was disgruntled that she was not acknowledged. She stopped by the office and asked who had drafted the speech, promptly expressing her dissatisfaction when the PR Manager admitted to writing it. It was awquard to be in the office at that moment and it was upsetting for Melissa as well but she discussed her options with Kim and decided to send out a thank you email to all staff expressly acknowledging the Executive Director's contributions and also send her a personal thank you and apology for the mistake.
It became clear how important it is to note down everyone's roles in a campaign or event. That is something I hope I never fail to do.
On another day the Fremantle Dockers visited the Leukaemia ward handing out balloons to kids and signing posters. Their charity red kite was filming the visit and PR Officer Kim was finding it difficult to keep up woth their cameras. The issue was consent of the parents for their children to be on camera. PMH has a strict policy that everyone filmed or photographed must sign a consent form so this needed to be done, preferably prior to filming, however red kite's film crew was beginnign the filming before Kim could ask the families in the wards. She resorted to running ahead of the camera crew asking permission first and stopping the crew where the families had declined. It was heartwarming to see the happiness the Dockers brought to these sick children though, what a treat it was for them.
I was working on some more articles for Kite tales and needed to interview the Aboriginal Liaison officers for one of them, it was difficult to get an answer from one of the ladies and it took a few follow up emails to finally set up a time to come down to their office. Persistence is something one has to be skilled in apparently, I also had to take a photo of them for the article.
Getting there and meeting the ladies I was nervous and wondering if I seemed professional but they didn't even know I was an intern and the eliviated my nerves, I just acted friendly and confident and they seemed to believe I was a real live PR person, and because they had to talk about themselves and knew they'd be in a magazine they weren't really focussed on e anyway, which helped.
I was feeling more like a member of the team and more tasks were coming my way, which made time towards the end of my placement fly by quickly.
Jamira
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