Final days, Trip to the River and Writing for Narelda

I can't believe I've finished my internship at Central. I feel like I have come a long way from when I first started at the end of 2013. My final few days as an intern has seen me do some of the most interesting and fun work I have done. Period.

Starting from the top, I was asked by Mike to take some photos and do a blog story for Central about the Sculpture Walk at Deep Point in Melville. The Sculpture Walk featured former Central student, with some even taking out prizes. I first though great, I get to do another story, but nothing to exciting. Little did I know I would be trusted enough to use a company car a drive down to Melville and take photos and thoroughly sort the story out for myself.

At first I was excited to be given that level of trust by Central and staff not only to do the story completely solo, but also use the company car. Then I felt a lot more anxious as I gave it more thought, what is my photo’s are no good? What if I crash the car? Of course none of what I feared actually happened. I sussed out the car and made it down to the sculpture walk and really enjoyed going around taking photos and formulating the story and the angle in my head.

The trust given to me by the Central staff really made me feel part of the team. The story itself was fun to write, but what meant the most was being accepted and trusted enough to be able to do the story solo and use a company car; certainly not what I expected at the beginning of my internship.

To read the story I wrote Sculpting Success, about the Melville Sculpture Walk please click the link.

The last major project I took part in as part of my internship was the Central Student Awards Night. This night involved all Central department awarding outstanding achievements in their various fields as well as overall student winners. This was a lot of work, like Left of Central but of a very different sort for me.

My task for the awards was to write the student award winners blurbs to be read out on the night. This involved writing individual paragraphs for each winner from a four page document on each. The task sounded easy but condensing all the information down into one paragraph that accurately describe their achievements was more difficult than I gave credit. I didn’t want to simply copy and paste a template filled with clichés and the same slightly re-phrased buzzwords. Eventually I got into a rhythm of writing these blogs and felt more comfortable doing them.

Lisa, supervisor for this task ended up being pleased with what I wrote got me to proof read and add in my part to the MC script for the awards night. I was shocked to get a task of this importance, but I gave it a try and soon got into the swing of it. At first I found changing my style of writing from blogs/ media releases to a speech for an awards night quite difficult. It had to be clear and succinct for the reader and interesting for the listener and was a completely different structure to what I had written before.

Learning that the MC for the Awards night was Channel 10 news presenter Narelda Jacobs gave me a real buzz. Simply knowing that something I had written was going to be read out by a house hold name like Narelda was a great feeling. Seeing it read out at the awards night a week and a half later was even better, especially since it all ran smoothly and my words were a success.

I am glad to report that my time at Central is not over. Kenley the head of the marketing team has offered me a position in the team on a part time basis to help them out and continue to give me experience. This is great news for me; I have had a great time with both the work and more importantly the people at Central. The opportunities they have given me and how welcoming they have been made at Central my time a real pleasure. I’m really excited to keep working with them.

Though this is the end of my internship it’s only the beginning of my time at Central and in PR. I have met great people, learnt new things and got a taste for what the PR industry holds. I can’t believe this is my final blog so from me, thank you Central, especially the marketing team and see you soon.

Writing with Mr Malkovic and whats 'Left of Central'

The three weeks of ‘Left of Central’ have been very busy for me and the Central marketing team. Since the Launch party there have been activities, music, food and events on almost everyday that need to be coordinated by the marketing team.

I have been spending a lot of my time at helping out Leanne the events coordinator, anyway I can with setting up, packing up and any job in between to try and make each day run as smoothly as possible. I have found this part of my work experience fun, rewarding and hard work. The best part of being involved in the events was physically seeing the work you do transform a space into something people really enjoy. Often I found at the end of a day I would watch people use the space or be entertained by an event and think I helped make that happen.

During the ‘Left of Central’ I was also I was given the title of ‘Night Supervisor’ which basically meant packing up the street each day or after each event was finished. Apart from the heavy lifting I really enjoyed this opportunity and the responsibility given to me. It gave me the opportunity to use leadership and organisational skills. I has head of a team of people who packed up the street each evening and I directed them as to what needed to be done and the best way to go about it. I think I did a good job managing this task because the pack up became more and more efficient throughout the three weeks developed a rapport with the people I worked with.

The only time my patience was tested was packing up after the movie night on a Friday. A group of drunks walked through where we were packing up and jumped on all the bean bags, ran off with one of our trolleys and were generally an all around nuisance. I was very irritated by this but soon came to realise this is probably part and parcel of working in events and tried to busy myself in other areas while the drunks got bored and left.

to see what Left of Central was all about click here

It was easy to forget that even though ‘Left of Central’ was on there were still other things for the marketing team to do. In the last week of ‘Left of Central’ the marketing team and I were invited to take part in a writing workshop with former 730 Report journalist Tony Malkovic. I was pretty intimidated going into the workshop; I didn't know what the expectations were for writing and feared I wasn't up to scratch. I was soon put at ease though because the workshop was very inclusive and ended up being probably the best learning experience for writing I have ever done. I was practical, concise and didn’t get caught up in the ‘rules’ of grammar or punctuation but rather focused on ensuring that Central has a consistent style and we communicate as concisely and effectively as possible. The two main things I took out of the workshop were to try and use an active voice and avoid using to many adjectives, instead find a good verb. Although this may sound dry and dull it has helped me to make my writing far more engaging and easy to understand.

It saddens me that there is so few days left of my internship. I have been learning so much about what goes into a PR role and how to improve my skills I fear I'll end up forgetting some of it. I think the challenge now will be deciding what I enjoy most and trying to focus on that one thing. At the moment though I don't have a favorite part but enjoy doing a little bit of everything, from event preparation to writing press releases and blog stories.

Until my next and final Blog

Steaf

Helping to make 'Left of Central' right

Since I last spoke to you I have had a very busy, exciting and exhausting few days...

Over the past week or so I have spent a lot of time at Central in preparation for 'Left of Central' which is a three week trial for an activation of Museum Street to make it the heart of the Central campus, like a university campus. The project is part of the greater city link project to re-connect the CBD with Northbridge. Over the three weeks Museum St will feature: bars, bands and international cuisine as well as showing of the student talent and courses on offer at Central.

In the week before the Launch Party to open the three week trial. I was busy helping the team out wherever I could. Mostly this involved either tasks to promote 'Left of Central' or tasks to ease the pressure from full time employees.

The amount to do in the lead up to 'Left of Central' was enormous and with the greater urgency of a looming deadline I found I was given more opportunities to do tasks unassisted by Mike or the rest of the team. For instance I sent out emails and/or communicated to a large number of websites and social media pages about the promotion of the Left of Central. This included Perth Now, We Love Perth On William and X-Press to name a few from a the media mailing list. For this task I had instructions at the beginning of the task and told where to find the resources but worked pretty well unsupervised throughout.

I found this task quite daunting seeing as though this was a hugely important part in promoting our event. I had never done a mail out before and since I did not have a Central email account I was concerned  my efforts might be ignored. Fortunately Mike allowed me to use his and after a long few hours I managed to mail out to all the relevant people on the list. The most daunting though was calling The West Australian Newspaper editor Stephen Bevan to pitch him a story. It was tempting to claim that I worked for Central for the sake of a better chance of the story being published, however I refrained from that ethically questionable option and instead told him I was doing an internship and I think we have a story for him. I'm glad I refrained because in the end he was happy to look at my story and soon sent it through.

I also got to try my hand at events both in planning and running an event. In the two days leading up to the launch party I worked with Leanne who was in charge of putting the event together. I assisted her in writing invitations and informing distinguished guests about the event, including Perth Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi, and planning how to use the space. The set up for the Launch Party was one exhausting day, transforming a largely unused street into a potential campus hub. I worked all day setting up marquees, bars, tables and chairs and basically putting it all together and by the end I was so tired I could hardly stay up for the party. I had a great time though and found it so rewarding seeing the space transformed and people enjoying it and knowing I helped to make this happen.

So far I am really enjoying the variety of work and experiences i can contribute to at Central and can't wait to see what the next few weeks hold.

talk again soon

An Anxious First Day

Hi all,

I started my my internship in the Central TAFE marketing team late last December but I wanted a few days under my belt before I did my first blog. The Central marketing team is in control of all the communications internal and external for the college and it ranges from press releases to events to social media and advertising. I was looking forward to my internship at Central because it has such a broad range disciplines I could try my hand at.

I was feeling very nervous before the start of my first day, as i rode the bus I remember thinking, "am i prepared for this?", "what if I'm just no good?" and "how big of a shock am I in for?". Soon after I arrived however I was feeling better, I was introduced to the rest of the team and their specialty roles and then my supervisor Mike told me i was in for a treat. My first day would be out in Subiaco for the Central design exhibition.

On the drive over Mike explained to me the importance of having a number of skills in a PR or marketing role. Photos for instance have become a much larger part of Mike's job than he ever thought and being able to take a good photo is vitally important, especially with social media. He explained that today he would lead the discussions with the designers while he taught me both how to take a good photo and how to conduct an interview.

I was very grateful for the gentle first couple of hours to allow me to settle in and feel a bit more at ease. The advice and tutoring given to me by Mike was invaluable and soon I was out by myself taking photographs at the creative industries students exhibition for the Central blog. This was a little daunting but my confidence soon grew and I was enjoying trying to use the skills and strategies Mike taught me with the artists and their pieces.

Before I went home Mike gave me some advice on writing to bear in mind for the next time I came in. His advice was to always, in any professional writing ask yourself whether the word adds anything, whether it is necessary? Good writing is succinct, easy to read and becoming a less and less common skill. Advice I think I can use for all my writing.

For me the most exciting thing about my first day was seeing the photos I took be uploaded onto the blog and contribute. I was so pleased and excited I couldn't wait to do more and learn more the next time I tried my hand being a PR person.

Until next time,

Steaf