PR with a point...

Hi again,

I guess everyone is getting to the end of our internships…how exciting. I hope you have all enjoyed the experience as much as I have. I have only two days left.

As I mentioned in my last post, my main focus at the moment is the organization and planning of a charity Melbourne Cup event.

In January this year, a Margaret River local tragically lost her life to melanoma.

Shannon Blake was only 31, and a mother to two young children.

On her passing, her girlfriends got together and established a fundraiser called The Little Blake Education Fund. Initially the purpose of the fund was to raise money to contribute to the education of Shannons two children, but after more though they decided Shannon would have wanted some of the funds to go to the “greater good” and so they intend to give half to a W.A research centre The Scott Kirkbride Melanoma Research Centre.

As our local community is one of our most important publics, and we thought it would be great to hold our first Melbourne Cup event for a cause so important to the Margaret River community.

For the event we are organizing a fashion parade, DJ’s, and all the traditional Melbourne Cup festivities. It’s interesting organizing an event with an outside source doing a lot of the organizing, and I find I am continually checking up and keeping tabs on what is actually being organized as I’m not doing it myself.

At the moment we are organizing all the donations, prizes, and I am doing some of the promotions and advertising and also press.

Organising this event has made me realize how much I enjoy events, and how much I enjoy charity/fundraiser work. It is great to see that the work you are doing is actually going to have a really positive effect on people, and has “meaning” to some people. I’d love to do more charity work in the future….I may have found my calling.

As well as organizing the Melbourne Cup event, The White Elephant Beach Café, another business in the Gnarabar network, has re launched this week.

We have been busy getting the café ready, recruiting staff and we have done a soft launch kind of approach as people are already excited and ready for the reopening. I actually came up with the idea for an ongoing promotion for the café, in which customers can post a photo of themselves at the café on our facebook page, and go in the draw to have 1 free coffee a day for a month.

I thought this would be a great initative to encourage people to get onto our facebook page, take an active interest in the business, and also it is a reward for our local and frequent customers. My boss liked the idea and wants to run with it, which is great.

OK, that is all from me for today…

If you’re interested in supporting our Melbourne Cup event for the Little Blake Education Fund tickets are available through Moshtix.
You can also “like” their facebook page to stay in the loop J

Till next time….

Demi Wright

14261341

Bentley Campus