In case you are reading my blogs for the
first time my practical placement is at Shine Communications in Marmion. It is
a small consultancy with really only one member, Ruth Simpson who runs all
operations. One our clients are the Shenton Park Dogs’ Home, whom Ruth does pro
bono work for. It is a great organisation that takes in unwanted dogs and cares
for them until they find their “forever” home.
Since starting at Shine a few weeks ago it
has been my duty to find as many homes as possible for these gorgeous and
loveable dogs by writing stories on each of them in the hope it gets in the
local newspaper, creating awareness about the refuge and hopefully at the end
of the day help get all those lonely dogs adopted.
So far I have written media releases for
and supervised many photo shoots that have ended in stories being produced in
the local paper, which is an absolute great feeling, for both the refuge and
myself.
Over the past two weeks I have been working
on a media release for the Home, which tells the story of a very generous
couple donating $10,000 worth of turf for new exercise runs and grassed areas
at the refuge, which if anyone has been to the refuge it’s desperately needed!
A corporate volunteer day was put in place where many volunteers from Price
WaterHouse Coopers and the community would go to the refuge and help lay out
the turf. I wrote the media release for this and was very lucky when two local
newspapers were interested and wanted to come down on the day for photos and
further information. Being the one who wrote the release, my supervisor Ruth
left me in charge of it all!
If there’s one thing I have learnt from
this it’s that being in charge of a photo shoot is amazing! Especially when you
get to be in charge of one of your old university tutors!
Yesterday when I went down to supervise the
corporate volunteering day, I met the journalists and photographers and to my
surprise my 2nd year journalism tutor David Cohen was there
reporting on the story. It was actually really funny because for once I was in
charge of him and ordered him around telling him what he could and could not do
– absolutely brilliant feeling! I jokingly said to him “Ha! I am now in charge
of you, oh how the roles have reversed” and he laughed and just took it, which I’m
not going to lie, it secretly felt good.
The thing about photo shoots is that you
have to be prepared for absolutely everything, especially if there are dogs
involved! It took many takes for the photographers to get a photo with the
volunteers and dogs actually standing still but in the end some brilliant
photos were taken. Everything went really smoothly which was really great and
my story actually made page 3 of The Post newspaper today, which was such a
good feeling! It’s always nice when you see something good come out of the hard
work you put in. The manager of the refuge also sent my supervisor an email
saying how confident I was and that I am a great ambassador for her company and
for the refuge, which she forwarded onto me, and this made me feel even better!
So far my time at Shine Communications has
been absolutely amazing and I couldn’t ask for a supervisor any better than the
one and only Ruth Simpson! At times it does get hard and I do feel like I
struggle with writing but Ruth is always there encouraging me to just keep
practicing and the more I do the better I’ll get which is absolutely true. I
find that every week my writing is improving and there is less and less for
Ruth to correct!
I must say that everything we learnt in
public relations at university is completely relevant in the industry we have
today. There are times when I was doing assignments and would think to myself,
when would I ever need this in the real world? But I can tell you pretty much
all of my university work has popped up somewhere in my practical placement,
whether it be media releases, writing key messages for clients, organizing
events, contacting journalists, organizing photo shoots etc it’s all there! And
so far - I love it.
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