Last few days... offered a job!

Super excited about this being my last post, I can now start writing this huge report! I honestly don’t know how in a few thousand words I can describe what I’ve learnt and explain what I’ve done it doesn’t seem to serve the experience justice. To say the least I have done way more than I thought I would or could do and I’m so stocked with the whole time at my prac place Gymnastics WA.

During my time over the semester I have designed and written a sponsorship package, written many media releases and liaised with many local media personal, organised photo shoots and liaised with some well-known journalists and set up a webpage and produced a heap a news bulletins, just to name a bit.

The coolest stuff i've done laterly has been organising media. I've been the Media Officer at GWA since the start of term and have built great contacts, the event I'm involved with is recieving coverage from The West Australian and Not Another Footy Show, and I'm in talks with Foxtel and Channel 7!

What I have learnt has been through doing and its pushed me out of my comfort zone which has challenged me. Working at GWA where they don’t have a public relations person meant I had to jump right into the deep end and apply my knowledge of the skills I had learnt at uni in theory into practice.

The hardest thing for me to overcome was learning through doing and the mistakes I made because I prefer to learn by watching first. This meant I learnt through my failures and by the things that weren’t great, which was a reality check for me, in that in the real world you won’t be told what you’re doing well necessarily only by the things that need improving.

The greatest improvement for me has been my writing, I honestly struggled to write a media release at the beginning of my Prac, now I can write one in 5 minutes no problem. I knew before my work experience that I was well spoken in person but I found this hard to translate into text, this has been something that I’ve defiantly improved with.

I have seen firsthand a well-run organisation that doesn’t utilise the benefits of public relations and have seen how quickly it has benefited from someone implementing public relations techniques. Through my experience I have learnt so much (cliché I know) and have surprised myself. I surprised the event partner too, he offered me a job!

So goodbye blog and good luck to everyone with their reports

Peace out trouts

Pressures on in the gym

Day 15

Dear Bloggers

I have now been at my placement at Gymnastics WA for 5 weeks (3 days a week) working within the role of Media Officer. During this time my role has been to produce a sponsorship document that will attract one $10,000 sponsor and six $5,000 sponsors for a new event run by GWA.

I am finally now only one day away from printing the document with the document folders and papers selected! For most of this time i have been so looking forward to the final print day as i have spent countless hours sitting and staring at this document making edit, after edit, after edit.

What i have learnt from making this document will be invaluable. I've learnt things so simple as paper quality, to my own writing style and how that works for and against me in different context and I've had to conduct myself as a key speaker in meetings, and liaise with the event partner.

What i have found hardest about producing this sponsorship package has been the continual edits and changes to the document that I've had to make as a consequence of my supervisor being away for three weeks at the Olympic Games during which time the Director was busy handling a Club in meltdown. I realise however that it's just part of business that people will come and go and things will come up that are more important so its important to not take the lack of direction personally, more so as an opportunity to show initiative.

During my time at GWA i have also written a stack of media releases in relations to the new event I'm most involved with and other GWA competitions. A story is soon to be written in the Guardian Express for an upcoming event for which i initiated with a media release and then organised a photo session. (Lesson from that being make sure the athletes wear a t-shirt with sponsor logo! Obvious i know, however i managed to forget)

So now the pressures on! The package is finished and i have to sit back and see if it attracts some sponsors.... SO NERVOUS

My next job is getting started on contacting the major media outlets in Perth, to get this new event some good publicity. I've started with a website page for the event which has been daunting as I'm definitely not a creative person with design. I have found some relief through researching and comparing other website event pages, for which I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the Internet.

If anyone has any tips about website design check out http://gymnasticswa.asn.au/?ID=25466 and please give me some feedback!

Thanks

Kim Nettle