I’ve never written a water polo match report! & The end of my internship

Time files and this is my final post for PR 393 on my work placement at WA Water Polo.

The highlight of my internship was definitely working at the 2012 FINA World Youth Water Polo Championships in the media team as a media coordinator. It was a highly exciting and challenging position at the very same time, as I had to write match reports, assist with news gathering and publishing and provide the social media content for the tournament. I had to work under large amounts of pressure, as I had to observe the water polo matches and complete a match report within 45 minutes of each game. I was definitely out of my element as I’ve never analysed water polo matches previously and I had to quickly learn how to do that effectively in order to do a write up on a match. This gave a taste of what it would be like to be sports journalist, working for large international sporting events. I was also tasked to update all the social media platforms that included Facebook and Twitter. It was certainly different from working in a office environment, being more fast paced and exciting as reports had to be written and published shortly after matches. I also had the opportunity to interview players for flash quotes that were to be included in the match reports. My match reports were immediately published on the official FINA World Youth Water Polo Championships website right after each match and it was exciting to know that my work was being read by many people following the tournament all around the world.

In my earlier post, I provided updates on planning the Final Night Function that was to be held at the end of the championships for the participants of the competition. It was a successful event that ran smoothly from the beginning to the end (except that it rained a few hours before the function started and the ground was wet and soggy, but that did not prove to be a major problem) and I was relieved that there were no major problems or issues that came up on the night of the function.

Overall, I definitely had a great internship at WA Water Polo. Despite being challenging at times, I feel that I had plenty of opportunities to put the skills that I have learnt in my public relations units at Curtin to practice during the course of my internship. It was a great experience and I am confident that it has prepared me for a public relations related position in the future.

Deva

Event planning at its best!

My work placement at WA Water Polo has been progressing really well and I have really enjoyed working with the staff members. It only got more exciting and interesting as at that point, the 2012 FINA World Youth Water Polo Championships was drawing closer and I was tasked to be in charge of several aspects of the event. The FINA World Youth Water Polo Championships was an international tournament that was held in Perth at Challenge Stadium from the 1^st to the 9^th of December and it included youth water polo team from 24 countries that came together to compete for top positions in the competition. WA Water Polo was in charge of coordinating the entire event and as such, I was given the opportunity to work on the event.  This was my very first time being involved in an event on international scale and I was very excited to be a part of it. Multitasking was an important skill I had to perfect, as there was so much to do at any one point in time. I was involved in contacting social clubs in Perth and sending out invites to these clubs to be apart of supporting teams from their home countries at the tournament. At this point, I realised that work does not simply end when you leave the office. As emails would be replied and sent after office hours, I was definitely expected to keep up and respond to queries and attend any work related matters after office hours. Besides working on the tournament itself, I was also tasked to work on the Final Night Function, a celebratory social evening for all participants in the competition to mark the end of the tournament. A volunteer and myself were the event planners for that function and we in charge of all details pertaining to the event. It was definitely a challenging task, especially for two people planning an entire event. Every aspect and detail of the event had to be looked after and most importantly, not forgotten. From the booking of the venue for the function to sourcing entertainment such as renting a booth and hiring a dj and purchasing drinks for the night, it was definitely a busy few weeks leading up to the final night. I learnt the basics of event planning and how to prepare and ensure that all needs for a function are met and at the same time, create a contingency plan to ensure that a back up plan is in place in case of an last minute change in plans.

Stepping up to the task!

My first few weeks at WA Water Polo were very eye opening and interesting, especially when I initially found out that I was going to be working in a small office that comprised of only two full time staff members. I was anticipating my internship to be challenging and very stressful due to the lack of manpower in the office. Dale, the CEO and Tibor, the competition and development manager helped me to settle into the office and covered the basics that I needed to know. As there is no dedicated PR practitioner at WA Water Polo, Dale handles most of the media, communications and PR related tasks. My first few tasks at the organisation included starting from the basis. I was involved in creating a Facebook page for WA Water Polo and regularly updating the page. Also, I began to put together a draft sponsorship proposal that was to be sent to another department to be further worked upon. The most exciting task for me was working on a new edition of WA Water Polo’s newsletter, “Top Corner” that has been out of publication for a few years. It was interesting process to gather information and do write ups for the newsletter as I learnt much more about water polo, its players and how the game functions. The creation of the newsletter definitely put the skills that I learnt in PR Techniques to the test! Nonetheless, the end product was an informative newsletter with updates on scores for games and write-ups on current and future events for WA Water Polo.

As my work experience progressed, I realised that working in a small organisation with only 2 full time staff members is challenging and exciting at the same time. The main advantage is that staff members handle every aspect of running the place by themselves. However, this also poses several problems as, at times, the work load may be too much to handle and the staff members are required to complete several different tasks at one go, including areas out of their expertise. As such, often, additional volunteers are brought in to help out with certain tasks. Comparing my experience to other bigger organisations that I have interned with, I realised the main differences in how they operate and how workload is handled and divided. This made me anticipate and prepare for my upcoming tasks at WA Water Polo.

New Challenges, New Experiences

Hi everyone. My name is Deva and I’m currently in my final semester of my Mass Communications degree. This will be my first blog post for the unit.

Last year, I completed my placement at WA Water Polo. Being a person that doesn’t really play much sport and having no prior knowledge on water polo, I figured that doing an internship with a sports organisation would present a good challenge for me. Unlike AFL or rugby, Water Polo in Australia isn’t a particularly big sport and has a smaller fan following compared to some of the others. WA Water Polo is a small not-for-profit sporting organisation that is the peak body for the sport in WA. The organisation consists of a small team of 2 full time staff, the CEO and the Competition and Development Manager. I knew that working in a small organisation would be highly challenging and a good learning experience at the same time. At WA Water Polo, a member in the committee handles the media and public relations and there is currently no dedicated communications/public relations department. As such, on occasion, the full time staffs at the organisation also handle certain aspects of communications. On my first day, I was briefed about the current communications and public relations policies and was tasked to help out and further develop certain areas within them. Tasks included carrying out basic communications needs for the organisation such as creating a Facebook page for updates to more challenging activities that involved helping to draft out a sponsorship proposal for tournaments and creating a newsletter. Besides media related tasks, I was also asked to be involved in planning and executing upcoming events for WA Water Polo. I felt that the opportunities that were presented to me at WA Water Polo covered several different aspects in public relations and communications and even areas beyond those. I also learned more about the sport itself and even got several opportunities to interact with staff members from other sporting organisations to learn and understand how they operate at a state level.  Most importantly, I learnt that despite the lack of knowledge or experience in a particular area, it is always important to have a positive learning attitude and be willing to put in as much effort as possible.