I've been published :)

Hello fellow PR prof prac-ers

I'm going to start my blog by expanding on my title and directing you all to this website

On the home page, hopefully you will see a picture of a bear with the sub text "imagine doing 21.1km in this.."

If you click on read more you will be taken to this page where a media release I wrote is word-for-word displayed for all to read.

I must credit fellow Chevron City to Surf for Activ placementee Georgia for putting the story on our press release idea's bank. I came across the words "bear man" (as he has know become known around the office) and thought it might be an interesting story to follow up on. The man's name is Richard Low who i emailed asking to do an interview with and apparently it "made his day". On Friday August 29 I met with Richard in the Murray Street mall to interview him - he was wearing his bear suit trying to generate awareness and donations.

For those of you who didn't follow the links and read my MR here's a quick lowdown on Richard: he's running the half marathon in this year's CTS in a bear suit. It weights 4kgs and was bought off ebay. Richard is raising money for his chosen charity 'free the bears'

When i got back from my interview I got to work straight away and wrote the MR. It has been sent out to our database of media partners and I have gotten word back that their have been further requests to interview Richard further. So basically i'm just pretty stoked!

For more photo's of Richard (including one of him planking) you can visit his facebook page

or to donate visit his everyday hero page

Since my last post in late July some other things I have gotten up to include the writing of many more MR's, finished the designs for the start and finish line arches, written many human interest profiles for the official Perth CTS website, written another charity mailer, created and finalised parking and event passes and answered approximately 1000 emails and phone calls.

This most recent week in the office has been race pack chaos! I have gone home with several paper cuts and safety pin wounds. Race packs contain a registrants race bib, timing chips, bus timetable, clothing service bag and 4 safety pins. Between Tuesday August 9 and Monday August 15 about 30000 race packs need to have been collated and ready for postage so it's been all hands on deck - not to mention the many queries that have come through from people who registered many weeks ago and haven't received their race packs yet (obviously because they haven't been posted)

This past Monday I also attended a meeting with all CTS crew where the race directed Chris ran through the basics that would be taking place from the start of bump in to the end of bump out. It's an enormous task! And good news for me, i'll have to be up not later than probably 3am on event day and won't be going home until at least 4pm - oh the life of events!

Some 'challenging' experiences that I have been through these past few weeks have mostly been to do with communication and ethical practices. A few people we have interview for MR's have quite personal stories and as such I have had to act ethically and edit/omit some rather 'news-worthy' information. Also, with the inundation of daily emails and phone calls from people who do not quite understand everything it can be rather frustrating not to tell them all where to go. Just quietly, around the office a few employees take their frustrations out by using gestures at the computer screen, but of course our official responses have to be understanding and satisfactory. To combat this problem and to save ourselves from ripping our hair out we have implemented a new system of responding to emails - thank god for BCC :)

And just a quick note to leave you on, on how hard it can be to satisfy stakeholders..

All participants of CTS get a free Powerade at the finish line, and we are expecting 40000+ participants this year. Now the naming sponsor of the event this year is Chevron, and they actually requested that we only order and hand out red and blue Powerade. What would your response be to this? Do you tell your naming sponsor and massive organisation that you won't satisfy their request because it's ridiculous, or do you put further strain on your resources and staff and follow through? Be there on event day to see how it all turns out ;)

Hope everyone is having as much fun as I am..

until next time

- Sam Abbot

14284814

Bentley.