Hi again,
I was super busy at the Association for the Blind of WA as I completed my 7th week of my internship. This week was filled with the final preparations for our participation in the Perth Fashion Festival (PFF). As community partners of the festival, Guide Dogs WA are the beneficiary of some of the events, which presented us with a number of tasks and free gifts (tickets!). I learned that the coordination of events is exhausting and stressful - because as my supervisor assured me - you cannot control what other people do, you just have to do the best you can and hope for the best!
Ticket allocation and distribution was one very important task that I was responsible for. Last minute drop outs from confirmed attendees was something I had become familiar with, and replacements were sought to fill the spot. We received tickets on Tuesday, and they needed to go out straight away to our attending clients, as the first event was Thursday night - giving us only 2 days to hope the mail system worked efficiently in! Before posting out all tickets, I photocopied all tickets just in case there was a drama with the post or someone forgot their ticket on the night - this is something i would definitely recommend for event managers, especially if tickets are sold through a third party, as it gives you that extra bit of assurance that your guests can attend.
On Thursday, the first event that Guide Dogs were involved in was held. The Restyle on the Runway event this year featured two of the Associations clients, Erin and Claire McGlew walking down the runway with their respective Guide Dogs. The event was a great success, and the girls and their dogs really did steal the show!! Alot of work was involved in the preparation for such a great outcome, both before, during and after the event. I worked alongside the girls and the organisers of the Restyle event to ensure everyone was aware of running schedules and start up times etc. I also worked alongside PPR, a consultancy public relations firm in WA who is managing the public relations for PFF to handle media enquiries about the girls. In the lead up to the event and after the event, I had to work closely with the girls to organise interview and filming times with media - Before the event, the girls featured in the nightly news on channel ten, and were interviewed by channel nine and Fashion One after the event. I was also responsible for taking photos during the event, and the photos had to be sent back to office so they could upload them onto social media - This task was much more difficult than expected!! However, as I said, the event was fantastic and everyone left smiling, including myself even though I was exhausted from running around taking photos and navigating the girls all day! Below is a link to some news coverage of the event - the last photo is one of the girls on the runway!!
http://www.novafm.com.au/article/perth-fashion-festival-2012-restyle-runway
Next on Thursday, we attended the Morrison rehearsal as we had to prepare our PR Guide Dog Gidgee for the runway! Whilst I personally didn't have much to do, it was good to see the backstage happenings of a fashion show- and I even ran into a fellow Curtin PR Intern whilst I was there! I also took photos of Gidgee rehearsing for the event so we could put them up on social media! All guests who attended the event had a great time and reports about the audio description were glowing!
The last event i attended this week was the Myer Fashion Luncheon - and boy was this a FANTASTIC event. With only a slight hitch in prior to the event starting, where rain was POURING down outside the venue and everyone who had gotten all dolled up was getting SOAKED the event went off greatly! After navigating our blind clients from the rain through the crowds into the venue, we organised the audio description - which was reported to be wonderful by all clients. All our clients had a fantastic time, being blessed by having exclusive photos with Mel B and Kris Smith! Boy was that exciting.
So after a very eventful week, all feedback has been glowing, and all my efforts paid off! I have learnt that organising events is an exhausting business, but provides a buzz like no other!
Thanks! Prue
Showing posts with label Guide Dogs WA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guide Dogs WA. Show all posts
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
The joy of being published!
Hi everyone,
This is my third blog post, and I am just over half way into my placement. I mentioned in my last blog that I had been preparing a media release to encourage members of the community to become Puppy Raisers. After I had gotten approval for the media release by all departments involved, I sent out the media release to MANY community newspapers. After about 3/4 days, I hadn't heard anything from any of the outlets I had sent the media release to, so I thought back to what our tutors had said about media release distribution (I was once again happy that I our tutors are full of relevant and practical information) and decided that I would ring each of the contacts I had sent the email to and follow up, asking if they need any further information. This was a daunting task, especially as an intern because I lack experience and reputation, and I felt like I was annoying journalists by ringing them. However, once I had rung everyone and left messages with them about needing further information or photo opportunities, I realised the importance of this task. Following up with journalists allows us as Public Relations representatives to show that we done all that we can to get our messages out.
Well my efforts paid off, because that afternoon I received an email from the Canning Examiner asking for photos to go with the media release to create a story for their next edition. I was so excited about the response, but knew that I needed to act promptly to ensure they would still use our story. I was so excited and proud when I saw the story in the Canning Examiner Newspaper. It was probably the best feeling knowing that I was the person who had spearheaded this story! Below is a copy of the story that was published.
The radio station 6PR also contacted me to arrange an interview with a 'sensational talent' to go on air for their night program. Again I was pretty pleased with myself, but had to act quickly because I had to find a current puppy raiser for the interview, get them approved by all relevant departments, prep them and let 6PR know their contact details all before 5pm THAT DAY! Again, the interview was a success and went to air the following night!
Finally, another newspaper contacted me back, asking if they could interview and photograph a puppy raiser that lives within their area. After finding a person living within their jurisdiction, I once again sought approval from the departments and contacted the talent. I am still waiting for the next edition to be published to see if the story made it in, but fingers crossed!!
I have learnt that trying to get stories into newspapers isn't just about writing and emailing out media releases. It involves a whole lot of approvals to ensure messages and information is accurate, following up, acting promptly to provide further information and scanning newspapers to see if the story has made it. It may be a full on process, but it's definitely worth it when the media release creates a story that has been published for your organisation. You really feel like you have contributed to the organisation!!
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Officially Correct!
Hi everyone!
This is my second blog post and at this point I have completed my 4th week at the Association for the Blind of WA- Guide Dogs WA (I will refer to as the ABWA). Work has really started to pick up and the importance of ensuring that correct procedures are being followed so that every aspect of work meets official protocol is becoming more and more evident. As I mentioned in my first blog, due to the not-for-profit nature of our organisation there are so many tasks that our team is involved in. This has allowed me as an intern to be involved with a range of different projects from writing media releases for one department within the organisation, to planning events such as the ABWA Open Day.
One of my main tasks at the moment however is working with the organisers of Perth Fashion Festival (PFF), as the ABWA has been chosen as a community sponsor of the festival for this year. This is a fantastic opportunity for the Association in regards to raising awareness, getting our key messages out to the public and raising funds for the Association. Throughout our work with the festival, the importance of ongoing communication and ensuring every aspect follows official protocol has become blaringly obvious to me. This year, clients and Guide Dogs from ABWA are performing and attending events at PFF, and ongoing communication both within the Assoication and with PFF is vital to ensure the safety of not only our clients and dogs, but also to audience members and other attendees to the events. Two of the Associations clients are performing at a PFF event, and due to their vision impairment, my team and I have had to work very closely with the organsier of this particular event to ensure measures are in place to ensure the safety of everyone involved. For example, tactile markers on the fashion runway need to be in place to ensure our clients know where to go on the catwalk and to ensure they don't fall off the platform. When Guide Dogs are performing or attending events, our team must coordinate with the Guide Dog Department and PFF to ensure the safety of the dogs. An example of this is was coordinating with PFF to ensure that a Guide Dog Trainer/Instructor could be present at certain events where Guide Dogs are performing, which was requested by the Guide Dog Department to ensure the safety of the dogs at the event. As you can imagine, there is a lot of back and forth, ongoing communication between our team and various people involved, but this is necessary to ensure that policies and procedures are followed so the event can run smoothly.
The importance of following procedures to ensure work is 'officially correct' has also become obvious when writing press releases and articles. I wrote my very first press release this week, and as you can imagine I was so excited when I got the tick of approval to send away to newspapers and media outlets! The media release was about encouraging members from the community to apply to become Puppy Raisers for the Association - here is the link if you want to have a look http://www.guidedogswa.com.au/resources/puppy_raisers_media_release.pdf. Once I had written my draft, I had to send it through to our communications person for approval of the content, and then to the Guide Dog department to ensure that all the relevant information had been included. This procedure had to be followed to ensure that everything written in the media release was officially correct, and luckily the departments within ABWA are very well connected so this process didn't take long at all! Finally, I had to check with our communications person on the usual procedure for sending out media releases to outlets before going ahead to ensure consistency when dealing with external parties.
One final example of following official procedures was the announcement and presentation of ABWA receiving a grant from the State Government. In what was a very short and small scale event, MLC Donna Faragher, on behalf of the Premier of WA, visited ABWA to announce that ABWA has been selected to recieve funding under the State Government's Social Enterprise Fund. Whilst this was a small scale event, this official announcement needed to be paired with official protocol in regards to Public Relations. This meant that myself, along with our communications representative attended the event to take photos, and to gain relevant information to allow us to write up a news article to publicise the event on the ABWA website. Here is the link to the article if you want to read http://www.guidedogswa.com.au/articles/latest-news/funding-strengthens-social-enterprise.
So, over these past 2 weeks I have learnt that even the smallest of events, announcements or communications need to be met with official protocol to ensure that information is correct. This is important to allow ABWA to continue to engage with its stakeholders on an ongoing basis.
This is my second blog post and at this point I have completed my 4th week at the Association for the Blind of WA- Guide Dogs WA (I will refer to as the ABWA). Work has really started to pick up and the importance of ensuring that correct procedures are being followed so that every aspect of work meets official protocol is becoming more and more evident. As I mentioned in my first blog, due to the not-for-profit nature of our organisation there are so many tasks that our team is involved in. This has allowed me as an intern to be involved with a range of different projects from writing media releases for one department within the organisation, to planning events such as the ABWA Open Day.
One of my main tasks at the moment however is working with the organisers of Perth Fashion Festival (PFF), as the ABWA has been chosen as a community sponsor of the festival for this year. This is a fantastic opportunity for the Association in regards to raising awareness, getting our key messages out to the public and raising funds for the Association. Throughout our work with the festival, the importance of ongoing communication and ensuring every aspect follows official protocol has become blaringly obvious to me. This year, clients and Guide Dogs from ABWA are performing and attending events at PFF, and ongoing communication both within the Assoication and with PFF is vital to ensure the safety of not only our clients and dogs, but also to audience members and other attendees to the events. Two of the Associations clients are performing at a PFF event, and due to their vision impairment, my team and I have had to work very closely with the organsier of this particular event to ensure measures are in place to ensure the safety of everyone involved. For example, tactile markers on the fashion runway need to be in place to ensure our clients know where to go on the catwalk and to ensure they don't fall off the platform. When Guide Dogs are performing or attending events, our team must coordinate with the Guide Dog Department and PFF to ensure the safety of the dogs. An example of this is was coordinating with PFF to ensure that a Guide Dog Trainer/Instructor could be present at certain events where Guide Dogs are performing, which was requested by the Guide Dog Department to ensure the safety of the dogs at the event. As you can imagine, there is a lot of back and forth, ongoing communication between our team and various people involved, but this is necessary to ensure that policies and procedures are followed so the event can run smoothly.
The importance of following procedures to ensure work is 'officially correct' has also become obvious when writing press releases and articles. I wrote my very first press release this week, and as you can imagine I was so excited when I got the tick of approval to send away to newspapers and media outlets! The media release was about encouraging members from the community to apply to become Puppy Raisers for the Association - here is the link if you want to have a look http://www.guidedogswa.com.au/resources/puppy_raisers_media_release.pdf. Once I had written my draft, I had to send it through to our communications person for approval of the content, and then to the Guide Dog department to ensure that all the relevant information had been included. This procedure had to be followed to ensure that everything written in the media release was officially correct, and luckily the departments within ABWA are very well connected so this process didn't take long at all! Finally, I had to check with our communications person on the usual procedure for sending out media releases to outlets before going ahead to ensure consistency when dealing with external parties.
One final example of following official procedures was the announcement and presentation of ABWA receiving a grant from the State Government. In what was a very short and small scale event, MLC Donna Faragher, on behalf of the Premier of WA, visited ABWA to announce that ABWA has been selected to recieve funding under the State Government's Social Enterprise Fund. Whilst this was a small scale event, this official announcement needed to be paired with official protocol in regards to Public Relations. This meant that myself, along with our communications representative attended the event to take photos, and to gain relevant information to allow us to write up a news article to publicise the event on the ABWA website. Here is the link to the article if you want to read http://www.guidedogswa.com.au/articles/latest-news/funding-strengthens-social-enterprise.
So, over these past 2 weeks I have learnt that even the smallest of events, announcements or communications need to be met with official protocol to ensure that information is correct. This is important to allow ABWA to continue to engage with its stakeholders on an ongoing basis.
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