It is all about Communication...

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all doing well with your internships and report writing! For me, the last few weeks have just disappeared so quickly, and I can't believe we are already approaching the end of this (and my final!) semester!

It is about time to update on my internship, because as times flies by so does my memory! I am doing so many various tasks and it is so difficult to keep track on it all. What also surprises me is how much more effective I am sitting on my desk at a proper workplace than sitting on my own desk at home writing university assignments. For example, I remember so well spending a week working on my media releases whilst doing PR techniques, but in reality you are expected to just..produce them! - And so you do, because you are not being marked with just a number one person chooses for you, but you are forced to actually think about who you are sending it to, why you are doing it and what the real outcomes you wish for are.

Oh, ok, so I am already wabbling. What I am supposed to write about today is a large event we held a few weeks ago, an event held by the library each year to recognise the best writers in Western Australia.

The event has originally been held only by the library, but this year the Foundation was taken onboard to help plan and organise. But without any formal role in the event, the actual role of the Foundation was a bit confusing, and no one clearly knew who was doing what.

My role in this event was mostly running throughout the actual event and on the day preparations. I arrived early morning and the event was set to start 6:30 so we thought we had more than enough time to wrap gift bags, finalise the name badges, double check the envelopes with the winners, welcome arrivals coming from the other states and so on. But the clock was ticking and time suddenly became an issue for us. We were only just arriving at the event one hour and fifteen minutes before guests could possibly be starting to arrive, and we had yet to organise all the name badges. They were all sorted alphabetically, but as we had received them sorted after first names not family names, we soon understood it would be a problem. We met with the event organiser who gave us different instructions on how to spread them out from what we had received from our supervisor at the foundation, and name badges soon became a huge stress factor..

We ended up keeping them sorted after first names as we would never had enough time to sort them all over again; however, this turned out to be an issue when the guests arrived. With more than 300 RVSP's who all expected their names to be listed after their family name, we experienced a bit of a chaos to being with. However, while you would expect people to feel a bit down after a chaotic start of an event; I don't think this was the case, and the guests seemed to take it with ease and loved the event. I guess a lot of the chaotic scene was seen from the inside, and that the guests did not take too much notice of it.

Throughout the actual event I had a long chat with the event organiser, a very wise lady and experienced event manager and we went through what was done wrong, what could have been done better and possible scenarios. She gave me many tips that I will take with me throughout the journey, and I must say I am glad to have the opportunity to meet so many insightful and inspiring people.

All in all, the event was very successful and we received nothing but positive feedback. Some things went wrong, but they all came from the same issue – Communication. Being more than one unit organising the event (both the library and the foundation) led to confusion about who did what and who had which responsibility, and I finally got to see why every single unit at uni is all about communication....

That was it for now - I have to get back to my report writing!

Hope you all are having a good time,

Nina