I am nearing to the end of my placement at Corporate Sports
Australia and am starting to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment seeing
WA’s largest community sporting event come together, knowing that I was a part
of it.
It is a surreal feeling as a student seeing press releases
you have written published in media such as the Sunday Times, local papers and
PerthNow.com.au.
On Friday the 9th of August as event organisers
of the Chevron City to Surf for Activ, Corporate Sports Australia held a registration drive in the middle of Forest Place. The aim of the event was to drive more registrations by
creating a festival like atmosphere and promoting a 10 per cent saving on
registration fees when registering in person on the day as well as prizes.
The registration drive took place from 12pm until 2pm, which
is peak time in the city on week days due to the public moving about over the
lunch period. Our event sponsors such as Chevron Australia and Jett’s Fitness
and 'Perthonlities' were present on the day.
To create a buzz Jett’s Fitness held a fitness challenge for
our 'Perthonalities' including Clairsy, Shane and Kymba from 94.5’s The Big Couch,
the Medibank Road Trip Trio and event ambassadors Sally Ayhan and Tim McMillan from Channel 9.
The strategy was successful as many people watched and took part in the event activities, the Chevron
Cheerleaders also were successful and keeping the energy high at the event.
A competition was held via social media encouraging the
public to take photos with our promo boards and post them on Facebook
captioning it ‘#CTSJOURNEY’. After we had set up, before the event officially
started, myself and my fellow intern Laura were required to engage the public
and encourage them to take photos. I found this difficult, as I wasn’t entirely
comfortable with going up to people as they made me feel as if I was a nuisance.
After a few rejections I then realised that I needed to take notice of the
different customer segments.
I then started to look at people’s body language, I chose
not to target those who were walking in a fast pace as I felt they were in a
rush and knew they would not appreciate my interruption and groups of people dressed in business attire as I was unable to
tell if they were in a casual or formal discussion. I also chose not to target older people for example grandparents as
they don’t fit into the demographic that regularly uses social media.
Once the event was in full swing I was stationed at the
registration desk to take registration forms and payment. For me, the rest of
the event involved answering questions and engaging with those who were
interested in participating.
Much to my surprise, I found being posted at the
registration desk very interesting. The majority of in-person registrations
were for the 42 kilometre marathon, which I was not expecting due to the months
of training, required to complete a marathon. I assumed that these competitors
would have registered months ago. I was then informed by the Race Director that
a lot of a marathon runners register at last minute to ensure they don’t
register and then injure themselves during training.
I also found it astounding to see the different types of
people registering; the Chevron City to Surf for Activ really is an all ages
event. On the day I registered people such as 4 year old children who were
running or walking with their parents to 65 years old + individuals who were running
the marathon, this really put my young and abled 20 year old self to shame.
The countdown is now
on for the Chevron City to Surf for Activ with only 7 days to go. I encourage
anyone that hasn’t already registered for the event to register as it is going
to be a great day and is for a great cause.
Stay tuned, as my next blog will be all about my experience
on event day!
Thanks,
Stacie
