#4: Time flies...

Hello guys,

Time flies!

Without realizing, it is the end of the semester again.

I believe you all have enjoyed and gained a lot of precious experience from your internship as much as I did. 

Although my intern period with Miri City Council is short, I miss my time there dreadfully already. The staff there are so fun to be together with, the office is always fill with jokes and laughter.

In this post, I am going to post up some photos taken during my last day of internship with MCC. Hopefully I can meet up with all these interesting good fellows again in the future!

A group photo with other interns at MCC with the Mayor.

Receiving souvenir from Mr Tay and my colleagues. 

When my last day was going to end, I was given this big book and asked by my colleague to write my feedback.

...and guess what, I have found my lecturer who has taught me in my first year in this book also! :D

The book is filled with interns that come from different universities from every corner of Malaysia. It is fun to read what others have wrote and glad to see that all interns seemed to like MCC as much as I do.

From the internship, I have learnt a great lot from my supervisor and colleagues. The precious experiences gained shall never be forgot. Here are a few tips I have learnt:

• Never be afraid to ask questions - I am a very timid person and I tend to talk as little as possible. Yet, by doing so won't do any good especially when you are given a task and you really wish to do it as good as possible! There is no wrong in clarifying your tasks again and it is always a smart choice to ask if you are in doubt, instead of just do it as you 'think' the way it should be done.
• Smile - A smile is an international language everyone can understand. By putting up a friendly smile on your face, you might help to brighten other's day!
• Take note on important things - When you are being assigned on something important or being briefed on something, take your pen and write it down on your notebook. You will never know, it might come in useful someday! I am glad I took note on things I think it is important as the notes have helped me a lot in doing my internship report.
• Build up good relationships with people - Supervisor, colleagues, security guards, visitors of the department... anyone! I think we should start networking right now as we can learn a lot of knowledge and experiences from these people before we stepped out into the working environment. 

That's the end of my final post. Hope you all are doing fine with your internship job and good luck in your report! ;)

#3: Picture talks

Hi guys,

As promised on my previous blog post, there will be more photos in this post. As pictures talks better than words, I decided to update you guys about the Councillor's monthly meeting and Meet-the-People session through photos I have taken using my camera phone. Hope you guys enjoy the pictures! 

Saw the standing lady in the picture? She is one of the officer in PR department. She was distributing meeting materials to the Councillors.

Now.. we are at the Councillors meeting room. Not everyone has the opportunity to sit in this room witnessing the progress of the Councillor's meeting you know! Do you noticed that everyone is wearing a blue tie? Do you know why is that? :)
The second man at the left is Miri's Mayor, Mr Lawrence Lai.

The standing man in the picture is my supervisor, Mr Tay. He was checking with the Mayor on the meeting materials before the meeting starts.

These are the Councillors of Miri. Look at their piles of meeting materials! The materials are prepared by PR department as well.

After the meeting has finished, the reporters from various media outlets took the chance to clarify their questions with the head of PR department and the Mayor.

The Meet-the-People session banner shows the details of when and where it will be held. It is hanged at the corridor of the One Stop Centre so the public can easily catch attention of the banner.

During the session, each department would allocate some representatives to receive complaints, suggestions and requests from the public. Each complaints would be taken care and the complainers will get update on their matters.

I am honour to be able to represent PR department and I have also recorded a citizen's request for help on his cracking wall due to the blocked drainage. He seemed so nervous and helpless while making the request that I can't help comfort him a bit by having a small chat while taking down his information. The man walked away with a satisfy smile on his face after he saw that I had record everything.

From the session, I have learnt that listening to your clients is very important. It helps you to build up good relationship as they feel that they are being listened and their voices are essential to the organisation. Apart from that, it helps to enhance an organisation's reputation as well. By listening carefully, you might get to learn an idea which can help to boost up the organisation's services that makes everyone satisfy, a win-win situation.

Have you ever experiencing the satisfaction of just listening to someone's complaints during your internship period? Let's share! =)

Cheers,

Keekee

#2: Days at Miri City Council

Hi all,

Today, I am going to update you guys on the roles of PR department in Miri City Council and my daily routine at the department.

Basically, the PR department has five main functions in Miri City Council:

1. Managing the complaints from the public

- The department receives complaints, requests and suggestions from the public everyday. The complaints can be about the problem of stray dogs, blocked drains, uncollected rubbish, unlicensed hawkers, public nuisances and any other issues that might influence the cleanliness and image of Miri. PR department will then make copies of the complaint and send a copy to relevant departments to solve the problems arise.

2. Organising public relations events

- In order to achieve Miri City Council's vision of becoming a green resort city, MCC has held several campaigns such as "Say No to Plastic Bags" and "Say No to Styrofoam" and events such as "Miri International Jazz Festival" with the aim to promote harmonies relationship between the Council and the commu nity through interactive activities.

3. Publishing

The Public Relations prepares press statement for media outlets in order to grab attention of the public on the importance announcements made by the Miri City Council. Moreover, press statement is prepared if there is any big events such as the Miri International Jazz Festival to create awareness as well. Moreover, the department is in charge of publishing the news magazine, Berita Seahorse too. It is published irregularly and for internal circulation only. The content includes announcements, big happenings organized by MCC, message from Mayor as well as some interesting information.
4. Secretarial
- The Public Relations Department functions as secretary for Counsellor Meeting by following the guidelines which have been set up in the Public Relations’ Procedures Manual. The public relations officer will have to prepare relevant information for the meeting as well as record the meeting minutes and send it out to the Counsellors for references.
5. Information resource centre
- The department is responsible for keeping records of information relevant to the MCC as well. The public relations officers will read through the newspapers everyday to see if there are any complaints, suggestions and requests made by the public in areas which the MCC is liable to be in charge of. If there is any news related, the officers will cut down the piece of news for references and records. Additionally, announcement or news about what has been done by MCC which is published in the newspaper is important as well as it helps MCC to keep a record on the happenings.
Furthermore, the department also keeps a record of the complaints made by the community so that the officers can refer back to the records when citizens call in to follow up with their requests.

Everyday, I started my day by recording the complaints made by the community into the complaint forms. Then, the complaints is categorized to see which department or section in Miri City Council is liable to be in charge to solve the complaints.

Besides, I also helped to do numbering and filing. By marking numbers at every piece of papers and write down the particular at the front page, it helps the officers to refer back to the papers effectively and efficiently.

Furthermore, I have also managed to help my supervisor to draft two press statement during my days at MCC. I have to say I felt really nervous when I received the request to draft the press statement as this is the first time I applied what I have learnt in PR units previously into the real life. I am glad to have learnt how to write media release and the tips in writing a good media release as it has helped me in drafting the press statement. 

My work pile

In the 22-days of attachment with MCC, I have learnt the importance of managing a good relationship with the stakeholders in an organisation. For example, MCC has received a great amount of complaints regarding to the uncollected rubbish in August. If the issue is not solved, the community's anger will rise to a higher level and this will cause bad wording about MCC that ruins the reputation of MCC. To solve the problem of uncollected rubbish, MCC will have to follow up with its contractors and push them in order to be extra careful as not to left out any rubbish bin uncollected. If a good relationship is built among MCC and its contractors, I think it will help MCC in better managing the rubbish issue as the contractors will feel more attached to their client and might find a way to solve off the problem in shortest period.

In next post, I will be talking about two monthly activities I have participated, with more photos~!

Stay tune!

Best regards,
Keekee

#1: My first day at Miri City Council!

Dear PR bloggers,

Hello all! I'm Keekee from Sarawak Campus. I have started my internship at Public Relations department under Miri City Council (MCC) since 1 August 2011 and I have to say I really enjoy my time there!

Due to the lack of public relations department in Miri, I have spent more than 3 months searching for a suitable placement to start my internship. It is a great luck of mine to have MCC kindly accepts me as their intern under the Public Relations department and has been very considerate in my appeal to start the attachment only in the afternoon of Monday as I still have a morning class in the morning every Monday.

Let me start by introduce MCC to you all before I start to share my experiences gained at MCC.
Miri City Council is established under the Local Authority Ordinance and started the operation since 1933 under the name as Miri Town Board and is renamed as Miri City Council at the year of 2005. MCC is committed to manage council's resources efficiently and deliver quality services to the people.

Logo of Miri City Council

Leading by the Mayor, the Miri team of Councillors has comprised Deputy Mayor and 25 Councillors. Apart from attending meetings to formulate Council's policies on its direction and operation, the councillors meet tge people regularly and have dialogues as well as give talks about council's projects and programmes, organize community services, explain Council's direction and policies. Suggestions, requests and feedback about Council's programmes and projects from the people are often take into consideration and action by the Council.

On my first day, I was given a tour at the Public Relations department by my supervisor, Mr Tay Boon Pang. I was introduced to the friendly employees in the department and also briefed on how the department functions. The PR department plays 4 major roles in MCC: managing complains from the public, conducting public relations activities, issue media releases and recording the meeting minutes of Councillors. Then, I was guided to a table which was specializing for me and Mr Tay gave some reading materials such as MCC's yearly reports and strategic plan to me in order to let me have a better understanding about MCC. I have learned about MCC's organisation structure and how each department functions by reading the reports.

My reading materials

Moreover, I am given a name tag as to state that I am a practical student of MCC under PR department.

Pelajar Praktikal stands for Practical Student while Seksyen Perhubungan Awam means Public Relations Department. These two phrases are wrote in Malay language as Malay is the national language of Malaysia.

My name tag

I have to admit that i feel really nervous when I first stepped into the department. Fortunately, things are not as bad as I expected. My supervisor and colleagues have been very friendly and helpful during my time at the department. Due to my timidness, I dare not to have a chit chat with my fellow colleagues but when I finally took the courage and talked with them to see if I can help them with anything, I actually found that they are quite fun and stress-free to work together with. 

Additionally, I was surprise to see the standard operating procedure as the procedure has make sure that every complain or feedback from the public is being recorded and send to related department for further action. It has always been a negative perception for public that the government departments ignore complains and are slow in taking action. Yet I have see that MCC actually takes notice of every single complain seriously and has try their very best to serve the people in Miri. At the same time, due to the lack of manpower, it takes a longer time for the departments to take action for the complains and feedbacks. This has teaches me to see things from both side instead of just accusing others.

So I guess I will stop by now and update you guys more in my next post. See you! : D

Best regards, 

Yiu Tuong Kee (Keekee)

Miri Campus