Last week was a highly busy one in the VWA offices, being that it was National Volunteer Week it meant that there were a number of things happening all at once. All the staff were working incredibly hard, with most focused on the National Volunteer Week Gala Dinner and Volunteer of the Year awards night. This meant when I arrived at the Offices bright and early on Monday morning, things were already in full swing.
The main crux of my work had already been completed with the collaboration of the Communication Plan for the Volunteer Profile over NVW, so I was simply expecting to be spending the week completing odd jobs and tasks that had been put on the back-burner. However, never let it be said that internships are predictable - and so I was approached soon after arriving to see if I would like to go and man the Red Ribbon table on Murray Street. For those unfamiliar with the Red Ribbon project, over NVW Volunteering WA amasses signatures from all across WA from volunteers, and people who want to simply say "Thank you" to volunteers as well. On December 5th which is International Volunteer Day, the ribbon will be then wrapped around Government House. Pretty cool huh?
It was a very interesting, and also humbling experience working those few hours and having to approach complete strangers to ask them for five seconds of their time. You can really get to viewing a telling snapshot regarding the full scope of human perspective doing something like that, which can be both uplifting and disappointing at the same time. Ultimately though, I really got a lot of getting out there and talking to a range of different people - and my assumptions would be that during the time I was there, we would have easily collected between 100-125 signatures which was pretty great!
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| Denise Bertilone manning the Red Ribbon - 13/05/2013 |
Wednesday was however the most important of the days during NVW, culminating in not only the Gala Dinner/Awards Night but also the launch of the GoVolunteer Volunteer Profile which is what I have been working on with the Services team at VWA. To see all the hard work our team had put in during the 2 months I had been there, and past that was really uplifting and felt a perfect way to wind down towards the end of my internship. It was a real pleasure to also be able to celebrate the triumphs of a lot of hard-working people in our community, and even managed to inspire both my partner and I to consider new volunteering opportunities.
That's it from the PR Journeyman on my 3rd post, however please keep following me to the end of my internship with my next post which will highlight the closing of my last day! Thanks all, and good luck to any who might still be finishing.
