My very first networking event

Last night I was invited to attend an event in the city held by the Rotary of Perth. My intern supervisor, Neesha, asked me to go along with her and a Bankwest college of hers as representatives of the UNAAWA.

The guest speakers on the night were Micheal Sheldrick, a global campaigner for the End Polio campaign and Heiko Plange, the mastermind behind the Santos Great Bike Ride initiative to help break the cycle of poverty in Perth.  

Having travelled to India in year 10 as part of the Pilgrimage of Hope program during high school (a program run by Brother James of Christ Church Grammar school in which students serve alongside the Missionary of Charity sisters at the homes of destitute, dying and handicapped), and having spent 6 months on a rural sugar cane farm in South Africa teaching English, I was deeply interested in the topic which was being discussed on the night: Influencing leadership to drive change.

As this was my first ‘networking’ event, having to meet people from a variety of different organisations from all walks of life, I was quite intimidated but truly thankful to have Neesha by my side, introducing me to everyone she knew.

I felt a bit embarrassed not having a business card to hand to people upon meeting them (maybe this should be an item on my to-do-list...) and was pleasantly surprised of the reactions I got from people when I told them that I was interning at the UNAAWA in my second last semester of Uni. “That’s so great that you’re getting work experience, doing the things you would do as a PR professional in the real world”.

The evening started off with pre drinks at 5pm before settling down to listen to the guest speakers. Heiko Plange spoke first, telling us about his background, why he chose to work in the Not for Profit sector, and about the Sentos Great Bike ride, an initiative organised by the Rotary of Perth to help fundraise for the St John of God Horizon house or Hope for Children.  This year’s event is held on Sunday November 24^th and offers three rides for all ages and abilities- 10km family ride, 53km challenge ride, and the 98km ultimate ride. The starting point of the ride is in Murray Street Mall finishing at Langley Park.

Michael Sheldrick, the second speaker of the night, started off his presentation by showing  us a video by the Global Poverty Project. The video was filmed in Indonesia and focused on the issue of women’s equality. It was based on real stories, real people, and real events which made it all the more meaningful. Afterwards, Michael told us story after story, about how he influenced world leaders (Bill gates) to raise 120 million to the End Polio Campaign, how he wrote to Julia Guillard and later met with her to discuss how Australia would assist in eradicating Polio, and what daily work life consists of now working between New York, Perth and many other countries around the globe.

I felt privileged to be able to attend such an event and look forward to the many more to come!

The current communication transformation shift

In the set text for this PR internship unit, “Career FAQS: Public Relations” written by Melanie James, it states that-

 “Communication channels are changing and targeting audiences is becoming more complex”.

Upon reading this, I felt a rush of relief. Thank goodness it’s not just me finding it hard to change the ways of an organisation which has been running for many years prior to my involvement.

I attended my first executive meeting the other day, and it was interesting to see everybody from the UNAAWA executive team (about 16 people in total but only around 10 were there) come together to discuss and report their concerns and monthly news updates. As it was pointed out to me before hand, the team is made up of quite an eclectic group of people who come from all walks of life and who are volunteering at this organisation for their own individual purposes.

For example, there is a politician, a geologist, an IT whiz, a South American, a law graduate…

It seems my intern experience with the UNAAWA has opened my eyes to the current transformation shift the area of communications is in, and though this has come up previously in my studies, I was never truly aware of the consequences.

Conversations with various executive members have also provided me with some background to the issues. For instance, because there are a number of different separate organisations which come under the UNAAWA, such as the UN women, UN youth, and UN young professionals’ network, it makes it harder for the UNAAWA as a parent body, to identify who they are communicating to. They have also lost a lot of their school sponsorships due to the establishment of the UN youth, and have noticed that their membership portfolio is ageing- there are far more senior members then there are young.

All of this has great impact on how the organisation should communicate and in what ways. Hopefully my communication audit will shed some light on what can be done to change this, and make clear to all members that something needs to be done in order for the organisation to prosper.