After weeks of working on the Media Peace Awards, I was invited to work at the Awards Ceremony, celebrating and meeting incredible Journalists and human Rights Activists from all over Australia. This was the most amazing experience I have ever had because it has shown me that it is possible to combine my love for International Development and Communications.
The Media Peace Awards is the UNAAV’s larges event and is part of their Awards Programs which recognises journalists and producers whose work has contributed to
human rights and social change. The winners of the MPA were announced at an
Awards Presentation Dinner at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne. It was hosted by Michael Rowland, the host of ABC News Breakfast and attended mainly by media professionals from ABC, Channel 10 and SBS.
As an incredibly high profile annual event, one of the main goals for UNAAV is to raise awareness of their organisation through the networks of people they meet at the dinner and through the publicity and marketing before the event. It is heavily sponsored and supported unlike their smaller events and so, it was extremely worrying to find out only a week before the event that tickets were selling slowly and numbers were low. Last years event was very well attended and it seemed like many Journalists this time around couldn't afford the tickets or many of the news outlets were no longer sponsoring their Journalists to attend.
This prompted all the interns and myself to reach out to all of the Public Relations Consultancies in Melbourne as well as our network of partner organisations to help spread the word and get more ticket sales through email and twitter. As hectic as it was, we were able to get quite a few more attendees only two days before the event!
On the day of the awards presentation dinner, I arrived at the Hyatt Hotel and helped my team set up the stage, the awards, tables and VIP room. Guests arrived within two hours and my job was to welcome the VIP gusts and network with the crowd. Luckily, I was given a booklet with the pictures of all the VIP guests just so I wouldn't accidentally get their names wrong and this was so handy!
We also helped with the coordination of stage and timing with the running sheet we had prepared a few weeks before. This was imperative as many of the speakers talked overtime (despite being briefed) and no one can anticipate how long the winners speeches will be. Luckily, we were back on schedule and continued with the awards and the amazing three course meal.
At the end of dinner, I mustered up the courage to speak to a few amazing Journalists that I had been eyeing all night. I went over the Steve Pennells from The West Australian, Matt Moran from Channel 10 and Jim Carroll, the Director of SBS World News! It was so amazing to meet such incredible Journalists who deserve all the recognition in the world because their stories is what Journalism is about and although it sometimes seems lost in the mainstream media, its so good to know there are Journalists that are still so passionate about human rights issues and social change.
Once the dinner was over and our Executive Director, Patricia had closed the ceremony with a speech, it was our job to hand out the Certificates to all the finalists as well as a copy of the media release of the winners announced. To my surprise, I was approached by Matt Moran and invited to the after party at Gogo Bar with all the Journalists. I quickly told the other interns but unfortunately, they all had to go home straight away.
I figured this night could go one of two ways: 1. I could get really left out because I was the only intern among all these really awesome Journalists or 2. I could network, mingle and hear some amazing stories from these Journalists. I went with 2 and hoped for the best.
I arrived at the after party and was immediately offered drinks and had the most amazing chats with even more Journalists including, Sarah Abo from SBS and camera man, Paul Walker from Channel 10. I was also so happy to find out that not only did Steve Pennells and Matt Moran attend Curtin University, they also know my Journalism Tutor, Russell Bishop!
It was such an incredible night and I left the after party with the most eyeopening realisation of how far networking can take you. If I hadn't spoken to the Journalists at the dinner, I would've never had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people and potentially open some doors in the industry for me. This internship has definelty improved my networking skills and shown me the importance of communications in almost every situation.
The next morning, I quickly checked twitter and it had been running wild all night! UNAAV had received the most retweets from the whole year with Journalists and media outlets reporting on last nights event. Also, just when I thought things couldn't go any better, I received several tweets from the Journalists I had met that night, with many of them congratulating me on the events success and wishing me all the best in the future!
This event was the most perfect end to the most life changing experience. I hope to utilise the skills that I have learnt from networking at such events and use them to help me in my own personal and professional growth.
Most of all, this experience has helped me understand that we are our own greatest advocates and in an industry where its very much about who you know, rather than what you know - the best way for success is convince at least one person why they should invest in you. And if that means appearing confident or being completely honest with your awesome capabilities for one night, thats a decision that can ultimately change your life.
