Greetings All,
I hope you’re all enjoying your internship placements. I have thoroughly
enjoyed reading everyone else’s blog posts, and thanks for sharing some really
great insights. I’m approaching the end of my internship at a very fast pace,
which is pretty unbelievable. I have already been at the Department of Mines
and Petroleum (DMP) for a total of 15 days. Since my last blog post, so much
has happened in the interim.
I assisted the Environment Division in launching a webpage for their
Mining Proposal (MP) reform. The content was drafted up by a colleague and was
then finalised by himself and I. Based on feedback we received from Environment
Division executives. Once the content was finalised, we then had to get the
webpage up and running, and approved. The webpage was approved by our Executive
Director of Environment and launched by our Web Content Officer.
However, we are still not happy about the overall appearance of the
webpage. As there are still some minor inconsistencies, such as varying font
sizes. The table explaining the stakeholder consultation is also badly
formatted. Please feel free to check out the webpage. It can be accessed via
the following link: http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/20808.aspx.
You can also provide us with some additional suggestions, if you’d like. I will
be liaising with our Web Content Officer in the upcoming weeks to request these
changes.
This webpage was created in order to provide stakeholders with the most
up to date information regarding the MP reform. So far, we have already added
two important documents for stakeholders to view, the agenda for the Reforming
Environmental Regulation (RER) Industry Briefing Session, and the MP Reform
Discussion Paper. The MP Reform Discussion Paper outlines the proposed reforms
to mining proposals. It also encourages stakeholders to provide their feedback
on the proposed reforms, which is due by the 31 October 2014.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have also been assisting the
Environment Division in organising their RER Industry Briefing Session event,
which is part of the broader stakeholder engagement strategy. This is for both
the RER initiative and the MP reform within it. In the unit Public Relations
Techniques 220, I recall doing some exercises as part of an assignment to
organise a real life event. Although, I believe organising this event has given
me the best experience.
Just like Public Relations Techniques 220, an agenda and checklist was
created for the event. However, I found that these were constantly in draft. By
this, I mean that ideas were constantly being added and scrapped from the
checklist, and that the agenda was often changed around. Events management is
definitely a fluid process to ensure stakeholders have the best experience.
I was also astounded at the amount of work involved in organising an
event, and wasn’t aware of how much detailed thought goes into planning,
especially to get the small things right. For example, when organising the
attendee nametags, I needed to provide a list to our Production and Design
Coordinator outlining the first name, last name and affiliation of each attendee.
Eventbrite allowed me to download an excel spreadsheet that contained only the
first and last names of attendees. This meant I had to manually add in their
affiliations, which took me around two hours.
To end on a positive note, I’d like to say that the event was a real
success. I was provided with some really positive feedback from my colleagues,
who told me I did a great job at organising my first event. I am really
enjoying my time as an intern at the DMP and the experience is very rewarding!
Stay posted if you wish to hear about the feedback received from event
attendees. In my last weeks at the DMP, I will also be finalising my
stakeholder engagement strategy/plan.
Thanks for reading, and once again, I hope everyone’s enjoying their
placements!
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Koch
