First time co-organizing an event

Hi, fellow friends and lecturers. Let me introduce myself.

I’m Chen Hau Yung, I am known as Jacky and I am currently interning at a company named Interhill Group of Companies in the Corporate Communication Department.

Let’s get things started

When I joined this company there is another intern named Nduaguba Amauche Francisca and she is finishing in this month.

Interhill Group of Companies’ motto is ‘Committed to People’ and for the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), there are three different areas of CSR. The three areas of CSR includes Education, Women Empowerment and Environment. In the education part, there lies The After School Project.

The After School Project is a project where each and every month, the company will spend two to three hours educating the unfortunate children that has no parents or are not able to go for education due to their current financial status.

The benefits of interning in this company is that we are able to come up with ideas and organize our own event with the children. Francisca then came up with the event named ‘Dare to Dream’. I’m sure this event seems familiar, and yes Francisca did post about this event in the last few post.

The After School Project’s vision is to create a brighter future for the needy children with affordable and passionate academic learning experiences.

Francisca's event educate the children by maximizing their creativity and also improving their communication skills.

In the event, my duty were emceeing, arranging the event date, gifts buying and arranging the refreshments.

Found the creative side of the children

Group photo of the two winning teams of the drawing event

Challenges & Lessoned

Emcee

First of all, this is my first time emceeing. I nearly freaked out when my supervisor told me to emcee. After composing myself, I went out there and started talking and entertaining everyone including the children. Francisca told me that I performed well and looked calm, but I was nervous the whole time! This is the first time meeting the kids and the caretaker; as an outspoken individual, handling such event by emceeing and gathering the attention is very different. I am agitated at first but throughout the event, I learnt different communication skills. During the event, audience are consist of the children and caretaker, therefore attention grabbing topics are easy. There are times where the audiences are not focus, sometimes being silent is a very powerful in a lot of occasions(especially emcee). 

Arranging the event

Contacting/get in touch with the person in charge is quite a hustle for me as I am not familiar with their schedule and three out of five times the person in charge of the events and activity is not available. Here, I learnt how to adapt and arrange events accordingly as I have never arrange anything with a stranger before.

Francisca - The organizing person

The poster that's done by Francisca and me

The children are very proud of their work of art

Overall, the event is a success. After a few days, there are people called us to express their interest in joining us and cooperating for future events this also proves that the exposure level of the event is well maintained. 

Last but not least, from this event the important thing that I learnt is always be prepared for any unforeseen circumstances and embrace the moment. 

Chen Hau Yung
15655945
Curtin University Miri Campus.

Hypothetical Crises

Hi everyone, I apologise for the delay in uploading this blog, due to some personal issues I had to take some time off. I only just started again this week and it has been pretty busy at the MS Society, with multiple news stories emerging about innovative treatments that are not funded by the Australian Government. It has left Taryn (my supervisor) very busy preparing news releases and statements incase they are needed. 

This has led to my current task of creating a crisis communication plan. The plan will contain possible crises, media releases available on request if there is a crises, the steps the organisation must take to handle the crises, and a statement from either the CEO or General Manager. It hasn’t been an easy job creating a hypothetical scenario with a media release and statement to follow, as I am not aware of the extent of the scenario and how much information will be needed. I don’t have a previous template to go off so it is proving to be a challenging job, but once it’s completed I will be able to check a new area of PR off my list. 

Everything I have learnt at Curtin feels as if it is all coming together, whether it be creating a media kit, writing letters from senior management or creating a social media plan, I finally am using the skills I have learnt in my degree and expanding on them each day. I believe that by the time I graduate and have finished my degree, I will be ready to enter the work force in PR. 

Thanks for reading! Gabby

Final Reflections- Next Stop:The real World

This week was my last week at WACOSS and I couldn’t be any more grateful for my time here. 10 weeks has flown by and I’m happy to say that although at times I have felt overwhelmed by my workload, I have enjoyed every minute of my time here.

Completing my internship at a not-for-profit has been a very rewarding experience for me. Not only have I had the opportunity to work with people who have extensive experience in the not-for-profit sector, but I have also met many government ministers and directors of not-for-profits in WA. This networking has provided me with numerous contacts who generously offered I contact them if I am looking for any similar work in the future.  This networking came directly from my work in event management at WACOSS and has helped me gain my first contacts within the industry. 

I have also gained an understanding of the role Public Relations plays in an organization. Particularly the role of PR at WACOSS is substantially different to the role of PR in a consultancy, or multimillion dollar company such as Woodside. The PR work I have completed at my placement is also very different to any strategies I have worked on at Uni. At WACOSS the main form of PR is that of stakeholder engagement, managing the internal communications of the organization, and building relationships with both members, and others in the Social Service industry. This work in stakeholder engagement is in turned linked to the funding WACOSS receives from the government. Having a strong, well perceived organization with a large support base creates favorable circumstances when applying for government funding.  This idea of funding is one that is not an issue in other organisations; however, it is a strong factor when considering PR efforts in a not-for-profit. Taking this Angle into consideration when approaching my PR work here has proved to be challenging, yet also a great learning experience.

At WACOSS PR is not the core function of the organisation, it works as a supporting role to the policy teams who work on social issues in WA. I found this to be a good learning experience in the way of me gaining knowledge across a range of areas. As well as understanding the PR dept of WACOSS, I have also gained knowledge into the sector as a whole and how PR can help the individual departments to achieve their own objectives, despite the fact they were not directly PR related.

My student placement at WACOSS has cemented my love of public relations and proved to me that the industry is definitely something I want to pursue once graduating. More importantly it has taught me that the relationships I form now will be with me throughout my career and making a good first impression can be an invaluable starting point. I have learnt a range of new skills from my time at WACOSS and can’t wait to get in to the industry and learn even more. Although I have loved working in a not-for-profit , the next area I wish to pursue is consultancy.

I hope everyone has enjoyed their placements

Good luck!

Bri