The last 3 weeks of my Internship I have spent 99% of my
time working on event management/planning. The annual Pre-budget submission and
AGM is an extremely important event on the WACOSS calendar, however with only 3
weeks to go until the event there was very little organised. With so much to
organise in a short amount of time, My director relied on me to work with the
Communications officer to ensure that everything was ready for the day. This
included a range of tasks including drafting invites, promotional flyers, Agendas,
as well as general event tasks such as catering and venue set-up.
My first task was to finalise the list of stakeholders and
public figures to be invited to the event. It seemed like a simple task, but I
soon realised just how important the stakeholders of WACOSS were and how vital
it was that none were missed. The
list ranged from head of government departments, to Ministers, to CEO’s of
prominent WA not-for profits such as Red Cross and St Vincent De Paul. As I
made my way through the list updating contact details for
all the stakeholders all I could think was wow. There were a lot of influential
people on this list, It made me
realise the importance of the event I was going to be working on. It also made
me realise how important WACOSS and its activities actually were, To have
regular contact with government ministers is something many not-for-profits
would strive for. WACOSS is extremely lucky to have such a strong network of
support with its stakeholders to say the least.
These Stakeholders remained at the back of my mind for every
task I completed for the pre-budget submission and AGM. These were important people;
therefore everything had to be absolutely perfect. Having the task of creating
the promotional flyers and invite meant I had to somehow master InDesign within
a few days. In the office all promotional items are made on InDesign, and when
comparing the results with Word documents I can understand why. The
professionalism and creativity of InDesign documents definitely trumps Word. Although
it took me countless Google searches and YouTube videos I managed to create
both an invite and promotional flyer that met the design and content elements
sought after by the Director. Particularly In the field of PR where
presentation is of high importance, learning to use InDesign Is a skill I will
definitely take from my internship and use in the future.
The lead up to the event was hectic to say the least, my job
was to make sure that not one thing was overlooked. Name badges, Catering,
registration lists, Banners, Promo materials, Task lists, VIP bios, you name
it. It was all my responsibility. When
I was first told I was working on event planning for the AGM I didn’t for a
second think that there would be so many different aspects to cover. By sitting
down with the Communications manager and writing down exactly what needed to be
done I realised that there is A LOT of work that goes in to running a successful
event. It was definitely good to step back and see all the tiny things you have to consider for an event to run smoothly.
Most young PR students percieve event planning to be desirable career, full of glitz and glamour. My experience has taught me that it is
far from that. However, having the
opportunity to work on an event, and be in the same room as so many influential
members of the not-for-profit sectior has been an invaluable experience. My main lesson learnt from this is Organisation is they key to success. A successful event will be planned, monitored and executed following a well detailed plan that provides clear direction.
So would I consider working in an events based role in the future? yes. I loved being able to see everything come together, the weeks planning was definitely worth the end result.
