Launch day

Last week was my first event/launch since starting my internship. On thursday the 12th of Sepetember United Way (where im doing my placement) collaborated with Dyslexia-Speld, Midland CLAN and other organisations to launch an early literacy campaign called 'Paint the Swan READ' to encourage parents/gaurdians to read to their children from birth because kids are coming to school without literacy skills.

The launch was held at Centrepoint shopping centre at Midland. Local schools and day care centres were onboard with the launch and came along for the day. At the launch we provided entertainment with songs and our mascot Red the Super Reading Roo, creative activities such as drawing, colouring in and making your own library bag. Also when parents were ready to go they were able to get a package and some books to put in their childs library bag and grab a sticker for a free fruit cup and sausage sizzle.

The launch was well planned in the sense that they had everything ready to entertain the children but there was no structure. The volunteers for the day didnt stick to their jobs meaning people didnt know what some activities were because there was no one their to guide them and trying to maintain photo request forms was difficult.

As children were coming in we were trying to get parents to sign a photo request form so we could take photos for the media. The media had agreed to publish a story if we provide a backgrounder, photos and consent forms. As we got busier with an influx of kids it was harder to control who had signed and who hadnt. Also the daycare had insisted that we cannot take photos of their kids which meant there wasnt alot of photo opportunity since they were the main attraction and the mascot was associating with them the most.

The even should have been organised better in the sense of photo opportunities and we should ahve liased with the daycare centre before hand to get photo consent forms because then we would have been able to get better shots for the media.

All in all it was a good day but it was a little hectic having that many kids in one confined space.