Terrible Teeny Tiny Pamphlets

With over 150 employees housed at the Fremantle Dockers (FFC) headquarters, the place can get a little busy and crowded at times! It never ceases to amaze me how many different operations and agendas are occurring within each separate department (and that’s just the administration and operations side of things!). As explained previously the FFC is split in to three distinct organisational areas. These include Administration, Operations and Football. Being in the Marketing and Events department I am interning within the Operations area. The Operations area includes 3 distinct departments: Events/ Marketing, Communications and Community Development. Putting it simply Operations are the doers or the implementers of strategy, whilst the Administration are the planners of strategic PR goals.

Myself being classified as a ‘doer’ or as the Events Coordinator said in other words a ‘worker bee’, I have realised the Events/ Marketing department work extremely hard. As part of my experience I have done absolutely everything you could think of that an intern could possibly do, plus more! Stocking fridges UPSTAIRS (this involved strenuous traipsing up and down hills and stairs with cartons weighing in excess of 7 kg each, wearing a dress and blazer I might add- would not recommend this!), attending to 78 children plus their parents for afternoon tea at a children’s football clinic (not as easy as it sounds), visiting a Major flgjghk (honestly had the most complicated name in the world that I could not pronounce) at the Fremantle Army museum to provide him with hundreds of tickets for his members and much, much more. All and all a highly colorful array of tasks that have taught me the great importance of appreciating the lesson in every opportunity thrown your way. Positive thinking is key to this!

Following on from my colorful array of tasks a huge part of maintaining any role within Events includes being excellent at time management, highly organized and having very high self-confidence. As an Event Coordinator so many people in various different departments internally and externally are relying on your organisational skills and pro-activity and the pressure can become pretty pressure cooker high at times! The best way I can describe dealing with such pressure can be summed up in just a few words:  do not doubt yourself for a second. The second you doubt what time you have booked the venue or if you actually did order the 200 gluten free, vegetarian, low fat canapes for the function correctly, is the moment of your downfall. On my first few weeks at the FFC I was in charge of counting all of the marketing collaterol in the hundreds for the Game Day corporate dining rooms. Not listening to my own advice at all I immediately began to question myself on how many hundreds of teeny tiny little pamphlets that I had counted out for each room. Disastrous thinking set in and I ridiculously nearly convinced myself that all of my counting had been flawed and that the dining rooms in Patersons would not run with my poor numerical skills to blame! It’s safe to say that Patersons stadium survived my horrendous counting skills and overactive brain that Game Day and has continued to function on the consecutive Game Days where my counting became much more self-assured in the end.

So on that note a few words of wisdom. Trust yourself, trust your team and for peats sake trust your counting skills!

Like Clockwork.

Hi Everyone,

Elliott Telfer Back again for his 4^th and final contribution to the PR Internship blog! Elliott Telfer is currently employed by RugbyWA/Emirates Western Force on a seasonal paid internship in Events. Elliott Telfer is referring to himself in the 3^rd person because he has been required to do so in the last four days of his internship. He has been required to write the run sheets for the remaining five home games (a full timed plan of how each game/event will run, right down to the amount of sausage rolls in the match day photographer’s room). This Saturday night, the Force take on the Reds in what will be one of their toughest, most exciting challenges yet, and the whole event will be running according to Elliott’s plan.

Whilst writing a run sheet, not only does Elliott have to guesstimate how long the 150-odd individual tasks will take over the course of the day, but it has match up to that of the venue and television schedules. Furthermore, he has to assign himself and his fellow staff members (most of whom he hasn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting) mundane tasks that no one wants to do. Each day at the RugbyWA office, he meets with different departments from within the organisation to negotiate how they want the event operating, unfortunately he can’t let everyone get their way.

The typical run sheet has three columns, one for ‘Time’, ‘Activity’ and ‘Responsibility’. The Time column outlines when an activity must occur, not sooner, not later, but dead on the stipulated time. Activity outlines the task to be completed, for example a task Elliott is allocated for every game is “Final Check of Team Line-ups. Changes relayed to Media Manager, Fox Sports and Lloyd Events.” Under the Responsibility column is the duty in which this activity has been assigned to, for example ‘Telfer’ is printed as the responsibility for the activity above. If anything is unclear, or a task doesn’t get completed because it wasn’t stipulated on the run sheet, its Elliott’s head on the chopping block.

So, for all those that are so kind enough to read this, if you do not hear from or see Elliott following this Saturday’s game, and you happen to hear of an error in the game. Elliott Telfer’s has most likely been decapitated by his superiors. However if you do hear about him following this (and he is alive), everything would have run like clockwork and he will live to see another day.

Elliott Telfer extends his greatest gratitude for reading his past four blogs, they have been a lot of fun for him to write and he has thoroughly enjoyed sharing his experiences with you all.

Best of luck to you and your Internship.

Elliott Telfer (in the 3^rd person)

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The Count Down!

#2 The Count Down

I have been organising Perth Fashion Festival since June and all of a sudden the Opening Night event is tomorrow!

As one would assume, the office is exceptionally frantic today, as it has been for the past week or two.

We have a few people who are more tanned than usual from appointments last night and racks of clothes lined up, not to mention a crazy store room full of volunteer passes, giftbags, posters etc.

My tasks as of now are mostly finalising run sheets, emailing these to the necessary people, organising parking for government members who are attending our events, sorting out my schedule with my manager and lots more 'logistical' things.

The key to keeping sane and organised amongst the maddness is writing and ticking off lists I have discovered. My manager also often emails me with a task in the subject box so she doesn't forget to tell me. I can keep these in my inbox so I am always reminded and don't forget it. We also have a few drop box folders that we share to keep documents in one place we can both access/update/cross reference. Our system seems to work well. 

Needless to say, I am very excited and admittedly a little nervous. I can't wait to see all my hard work unfold and 'watch our industry come to life'. I just hope it unfolds successfully!

I will try to blog during the Festival if I can, otherwise I will recap once its over.

Erin