Two weeks ago, I started my internship at the Department of Sport and Recreation (DSR). Before I started, I was feeling kind of anxious as I had no idea what to expect. But my anxieties were laid to rest on my first day, as everyone I met in the Department were so friendly and welcoming. The communications team (where I will be placed with over the coming weeks) is quite small, but they are all especially friendly, close and funny.
The past few weeks have been crazy, and I am learning so much. Amazingly, half of the stuff I have learnt is about filming and photography, which perfectly complements PR. This is due to the fact that my table is right next to the filming crew, so they sometimes take me to different events that they are filming at, such as the NAIDOC Netball Carnival, and I get to see what goes on behind-the-scenes in making a video.
I have participated in the following PR-related tasks so far: media monitoring, writing a media release, proof-reading the reports about their different programs (which gave me a good insight into what the DSR does), and attending their event planning meetings, one of their media events and one of their media ops.
The media event I went to was about the announcement of DSR's new online planning tool for sports clubs. Not a lot of media attended this, as I believe that it had little news value to them. But it was interesting to note that the media, who did attend the event, were only interested in asking questions about the new Sports Stadium at Burswood-this was a completely different topic to what the media event was for. As my boss told me later on, this kind of thing happens quite often.
The media op contrasted to the media event. The media op was about the State government injecting $7.2 million into 47 State sporting associations. It focused on inviting the media to the NIB sports stadium, where around 10 young athletes from local sporting clubs and the Sport and Recreation minister, Terry Waldron, would be there for the media to take photos and ask questions. Unlike the media event, the media op was more focused on the topic. The West Australian published the resulting story: https://au.news.yahoo.com/
(Behind the scenes of getting the right photo)
Every week, the DSR has a performance review meeting with all the different divisions within the department. What I found really refreshing was that, instead of using technology, they used an old-fashion pinboard, pieces of paper and coloured markers to keep track of what each division was up to. I really enjoyed the performance review meetings, as I got to see how the communications team contributed to the overall success of the Department.
I look forward to seeing what else the DSR experience will bring me in the next few weeks.
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