Done and dusted

Hi all, how is everyone doing?

Well this is it, yesterday was my final day at the MS Society. 22 days done and dusted, I did an extra 2 days because I hadn't been keeping count of my days and before I knew it I had gone over 20 days! Seriously, did anyone also feel as if time flew by so fast?

At the end of the day we had a lovely afternoon tea with cake and I got a little certificate of appreciation and a MS broach. It was a really lovely gesture. I'll still be helping out at the Step Up for MS event in June though which I'm really looking forward to. Not loving the 6.30am start though!

So for my final post here I guess I'll just do something along the lines of lessons learned?

Well for one thing, I've learned a few skills I feel will be valuable for almost any job, not just PR orientated.

Using Excel for one thing. From day one of the work placement, using Excel spreadsheet was on the cards, I'd never really used it before but now I don't know what I would do without it. Working in events management really needs clean, easy to read and detailed documents and Excel really is the key.

Mail-merging. It's a small thing but this little skill would certainly be required for any office job.

Telephone calls. I feel a lot better about making phone calls now, I've found out that you really need to know your information and details before you make calls of any kind so that you sound professional, can answer any queries and not waste time getting to the point.

Taking rejection gracefully. From my stint with the MS Readathon stall at Carousel, I've learned that even being polite and non-pushy won't stop people brushing you off. Some people simply don't have the time or energy to stick around to see what you want.

Highlights
Meeting all sorts of really lovely people, including a number of MS volunteers.
Helping out at the official media launch for the annual MS musical.
Sitting in on a meeting at Central Park where event logistics were discussed.
Playing Bosko, the MS Readathons book-loving mascot.

Overall its been a fascinating and eye opening insight into the world of public relations within a not for profit organisation. It's been great to experience how PR is used to generate income and I certainly feel like a better, improved version of me since I began PR393.

Dropping by Perth's tallest building

Hi guys, hope you are all well!

Last week I jumped at the chance to tag along with my supervisors to a meeting with Central Park (Perth's tallest building) where the Enerflex Step up for MS event is to be held in June. Basically it's a marathon up the 1096(53 flights) of the office building where participants have been training (hopefully) these past few weeks and also raising donations along the way. Just looking at the building has me shuddering at the thought of climbing 53 flights of stairs, it's definitely a long way up! If it were me I'd probably get up to 4 or 5 flights and drop...

Anyway, it was a fascinating insight in what is actually discussed in meetings. Basically a lot of talking about logistics and things like placement of stages and posters and banners, volunteers, security, entertainment and so on.

I had thought it might get a bit boring but I actually did find it quite interesting to just sit and listen. Before doing this PR placement, if I had gone to this event, I would have put little thought in the amount of discussion, analysing and work that went on behind it. I would have put little thought into the particular placement of the stage or the type and position of banners, I wouldn't have even noticed the special considerations put into aspects such as needing the staircases to be aired and cleaned out before the event or for finding a method that was the most efficient and effective way to have participants register on the day. I also found it interesting that during the meeting any negative feedback from the previous year was duly noted and considerations made to change aspects of the event to make it even better than the previous year.

On a side note I've been spending the past few days trying to get Enerflex Step Up For MS on every calendar of events I can possibly find on the web. I didn't know it before but Perth really does have a whole lot of things happening every month. Sporting events, concerts, musicals and theatre productions and conventions/conferences. After the report and exams are over I'm definitely going to hop back on the various sites I found to check out what's happening around Perth!

See you later.

Do you take sugar and milk with that?

Hi all, I hope everything is going well for all of you with your placements and/or report writing.

It's been a while but the other week I made a trip into Subiaco to help out at the media launch for the annual MS Musical (Les Miserables). The launch was held at Perth Modern School and was a great opportunity to work outside of the office and away from the desk and computer and to see a bit more about this dimension of public relations.

It was a pretty interesting and eye opening experience, I was basically doing little things such as carrying things to the kitchen (I finally found out what the copious amount of alcohol in the office storeroom was for!), running around campus sticking up posters indicating where to go from the parking lots, sticking up posters of the musical around the venue and making coffee and tea. It might not have been very exciting sort of stuff that I got to do but hey I thought it was a great experience and doing these sort of things is still part of working in events management and in the PR industry. There were some speeches by the MS Society CEO and the musicals director, lots of cast and crew photos taken and generally a really fun, positive, almost celebratory sort of atmosphere.

Is it just me or does it seem like it takes so much more time to organise and prepare an event such as this but when the day comes, it flies by so fast just like that and it's over?

I've also discovered that no matter how much you plan and organise there are still forces outside of your control and things don't always turn out the way you were expecting, for example unforeseen, uncontrollable circumstances (such as, I don't know, a shark attack?) will most definitely steal some media focus from your event/media launch. Nevertheless I did spot a few very professional and expensive looking cameras floating around during the launch.

I reckon the media launch is one of the highlights of my work placement at the MS Society so far. To cap it all off I had a lot of fun, got to try some yummy treats and as soon as I got home dropped into bed for a nap.

Ok, until the next time I post again, stay well!