WORKPLACE, FIRE and the ROAD AHEAD

Completing my internship at the Confederation of Meningitis Organisation (CoMO) was a great opportunity where I had many new experiences and learnt a lot about social media and what it feels like to have a job in a non for profit organisation.

Reflecting on my time at my internship it was great to learn what it feels like to work in an office and with a close-knit team of workers. Through university we undertake group assignments where we have to work with different people and the experience from that was definitely influential in meeting knew people at my internship and working with new styles of working.

I learnt that it is very important to edit your work, and that communication is the key to success. I am happy with the work I produced and the overall experience. It was a positive time of learning and I look forward to being in a full time position.

On my last day there was a fire! Understanding the workplace is such an important part of working. Throughout my degree I was taught about working with different cultures and in different environments however I never realised how important it is to understand this. I completed my internship at the CoMO which is located in the Telethon House for Child Research. Often they have fire drills to ensure everyone knows what to do when there is a fire. Unexpectedly the fire alarm went off one afternoon and we assumed it was a drill, however there was actually a real fire in the car park. It didn’t take long for the fire department to contain the fire so we could all resume work. This was quite an exciting though scary part of my internship because had the car that was on fire blown up or spread to the building there could have been quite some damage as the building is a high risk area.  I learnt that even if you think it’s a drill you should get out because you never know what could happen if there is a real fire.

After learning many new things throughout my internship it has now come to an end. The question now is where to go from here? University prepares you for the workplace providing you with the knowledge but now it’s up to me to find a job. It’s now time to get on the road and find a path I want to go down for my future career.

-Alyce

Shake and Sign

World Meningitis Day was held on April 24 2013. It is a global annual event that raises awareness of the disease. This year the Confederation of Meningitis Organisations (CoMO) spent the day at Perth City Murray Street Mall alongside their organisation member the Meningitis Centre, raising awareness of the need to get government recognition worldwide to put prevention vaccines into their National Immunisation Programs (NIP). This was the first time the organisations had held a booth in the city.

The day was a new experience where I had to step out my comfort zone and go up to people and ask them if they knew about meningitis and would they be interested in signing the petition to help prevent meningitis. This proved to be a bit of challenge as some people are against vaccines and some people think you’re trying to sell them some sort of product or take their money and therefore ignored me. Some people were the opposite and were willing to sign the petition and were happy to be provided with information about the disease. I also had to shake the donation tins during the day which also had its challenge as I didn’t want to make people feel like they had to donate. Despite the challenges of shaking tins and signing the petition it was a fun day out of the office and a great opportunity to get the message about meningitis directly into the community.   

Our target on the day was parents and grandparents with young children. Balloons, stickers and brochures where given out on the day. I was surprised by how successful the uses of balloons were to gain attention from children and to draw in parents.

The Meningitis Centres ambassadors Brett Sheehan father of a survivor and survivor of meningitis Adam Selwood attended the event to assist in getting people’s attention and share their experiences with the disease.  Survivors of meningitis and their families and friends also attended the event.  This created a great atmosphere where many parents, grandparents and even young people were provided with plenty of information about meningitis, signed the petition or donated to organisation. It was great that it was school holidays so there were plenty of parent and children around the city.

The event was covered by channel 10 news on the day where they interviewed Adam Selwood and Brett Sheehan. It was great to get to have this media attention.

It was a great opportunity to see how a non for profit organisation engaged with the community and raised awareness.  I would say it was a successful shake and sign event.

-Alyce