Hey everyone!

I’m sad to say that my internship has finally come to an end and the last two months of my internship went by in what now feels like a blink of an eye.

I truly am grateful that I had the opportunity to do my internship at the Shire of Kalamunda as I know that from it, I have definitely gained and expanded my skills in writing, communication, networking and that I have also further developed a stronger work ethic.

From beginning my internship with nerves and questioning my ability to complete work and perform up to the standards required within the Shire, I can happily say that I managed to pull through and performed to the best of my ability.

One of the highlights of my time at the Shire was being involved in the “Vote NO, Save Kalamunda” campaign, reading articles over the local 102.5FM radio station and proudest moment of all, seeing my works featured on the Kalamunda Shire website for the public to see.

I don’t think that I had always fully acknowledged the hard work and understood the effort the public relations team puts in to the operations of a company/organisation. I also didn’t actually realise how much responsibility resided on the departments’ shoulders especially during times of a crisis. However this all came to light during my internship.

Furthermore, throughout my internship I learned that the future of a company or organisation is not only based on finances, productivity and management… But also how well the company understands and communicates with its stakeholders and the public at large – a vital aspect of great importance.

I’ve learnt that PR is critical and essential in conveying messages and information on serious and also less significant issues.

Having the public relations internship as a compulsory feature of a public relations degree is a great idea for the students and I am glad that I got to be apart of it as it truly gives us, the students, a real feel and real life experience of what the future holds for us. And as a result has made me appreciate and value my degree even further.

To the other students who’ve completed their internship – hope you enjoyed your internship as much as I have and good luck for what the future holds!

To those students who are yet to embark on this final journey of their degree – keep an opened mind; make the most of your experience, as there is a lot to learn and good luck!

- Kiranjeet

Amalgamation, voting, protests – it’s all happening!

Over the last few weeks the office has been buzzing with countless phone calls, interviews and emails! And what has caused it is the government’s proposal for amalgamation – reducing the number of local governments from 30 to 12.

The reasons as to why the Kalamunda shire don’t want to amalgamate was because there would be an increase in unemployment, fees and rates and most importantly the identity and sense of community the shire has worked so hard to build will also be lost.

So in an attempt to save the Shire, we started a campaign called “Vote NO, Save Kalamunda!” and decided to run a poll. We needed at least 50% of votes for our voice to be heard against amalgamation to present it to the state government board and the way we thought to reach out to spread the word was through mass marketing material and social media!

We designed brochures, flyers, had balloons with the campaign title on it, t-shirts designed and a whole range of marketing material made for the campaign.

One of my Fridays was spent creating over 80 packages, which included a balloon, t-shirt, brochure and sticker, and mailing it out to all recipients (schools, local clubs, libraries, recreation centers).

Information booklets and voting package were sent out to every household in the Shire urging them to vote no.

On the local Kalamunda Community Radio 102.5FM, my manager interviewed the Acting CEO at the time Rhonda Hardy. The interview was meant to go for only 10 minutes however with the numerous phone calls during the interview and all the questions, it stretched to 30 minutes!!!!

As a PR student, I understood the need for the marketing and how important it was for the residents of the shire to vote no however one thing I wasn’t aware of was the cost of all of it!

Here I was thinking, yeah, OK… conducting a community poll… All they will need is a venue, a couple of booths, some people to mark names down, paper, pens… Similar to what I see when I’m voting for things like day light savings and local government positions etc at the primary school down the road. However it was only after I asked my manager how this poll affected the Shire financially that I was actually shocked. This poll was costing the Shire $40,000 to conduct!

During the lead up to the closing date of the voting, I overheard my manager talking to a collegue saying that they weren’t sure if we were going to get enough votes in and the only thing the Shire can now do is to keep up the public relations and marketing and maximise the minimal opportunity and time we have left.

To cut the long story short, the poll was conducted and the votes were in… Finally after months of talk, countless media releases, marketing material, radio interviews and numerous phone calls, we got the result that we wanted! 80% NO VOTES!!!

Everyone in the office came down to congratulate my manager and our team saying that it was thanks to all PR teams hard work and effort, our message got across to the Shire residents.

I learned that although you may be able to simply post information up online and perhaps make an announcement or two over the radio – it is not always enough. The success of this campaign was based on the persistence and perseverance of the public relations and marketing team because without them, the residents may not have fully understood what the consequences are and what amalgamation could have potentially done to the future of the Shire!

- K