Events to make the Events

I am starting my blog a little late but at least that gives me more to talk about!

I started placement at the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, working alongside the events team four weeks ago and could not of chosen a better place to do my placement!

Most Western Australians have had some contact with PMH in their lives, whether it is associated with themselves, friends or family. This is one of the main reasons for me to ask the Foundation for a placement opportunity, as I myself was once a patient there. Many associate the Foundation with Telethon, but the foundation is completely separate from large-scale event and is also separate from the Princess Margaret Hospital itself. The foundation is set up alone as the sole fundraising body for the hospital to help acquire donations for future research, maintenance and equipment. Even though it is not apart of the hospital, the team at the foundation work alongside many of those inside the hospital to help reach future goals.

A lot of what the foundation does I found is highlighted in the weekly Monday morning meetings. These meetings help start off the week with what is currently happening at the foundation, what is coming up for the foundation and what the foundation is aiming to achieve as well as continually reinforcing the main goal of getting those donations and funds. Issues the foundation carry always emerge in these meetings, which I will discuss later on. These weekly meetings may seem like another sleep inducing discussion, but to me it is actually the thing that gets me buzzing in the morning, as it is informative and interesting to see what the foundation actually does and what I could potentially help and make a difference in (with a coffee in my hand of course).

Even though there is only four of us in the events team and only one being full-time, the team still appears to be a major part of the foundation as it appears to be the sources that gain large amounts of funding and donations. The events that the foundation creates appear to be extremely successful within Western Australia and manage to acquire well-known sponsors and guests. Events that are established by the foundation include the “Bear By Night Ball”, “Urban Descent” and “Wear a Bear Day”. The upcoming months appear to be busy months ahead for the team as all these major events are placed in the first half of the new year and as PR professionals, we all know there is a lot of planning when it comes to events.

To prepare, the events team (including myself) have been gathering information on past donors and sponsors in hoping to recruit further donations, sponsorships and guests to these upcoming events. The main event we are focusing on at the moment though is the Melbourne Cup Luncheon that is to take place on the first Tuesday of November of course. This included gaining a full page in the STM (Sunday Times Magazine) as shown to the right. It is not as large scale as some of the foundations other events, but it still manages to acquire large donations due some of its affluent clientele. Attracting sponsors and donors for the auction who match the clientele guest list has been at the top of the agenda for us. Gathering information on these past sponsors and donors had included using the foundations database (Readers Edge) as well Excel to dig out this information. This may appear tiring for the eyes, sitting on the computer hours on end searching, but it is all worthwhile and vital! Sending out chain email invitations to previous guests as also been achieved and appeared to be successful. So at the moment I have not been using many of the practical PR tools, but the basic teachings such as networking, professionalism and technical work that have been drilled into our minds is coming into good use.

That is all from me for now, but I shall be back soon for more updates!

Observing the wild world of not-for-profit organistions.

Hi everyone!

My name is Prue Kraft and I am doing my placement at the Association for the  Blind of WA - Guide Dogs WA (Guide Dogs) in the Community Relations department. I have just finished my third day at my placement and already I appreciate the importance and benefits of this placement unit! I know we heard it all in the modules, unit outline and even from other students, but this unit has got to be THE MOST USEFUL experience for me as a budding Public Relations Practitioner.

During my first few days at the Guide Dogs it became very obvious that in this not-for-profit organisation, and I'd assume not-for-profit organisations in general, very few people do a huge mass of work, and staff within the team are thinnly spread between mutiple tasks. But what I did notice in this environment is that everyone is always more than happy to help out where ever they can and get involved in projects to help lighten the load. Further, everyone within the team is very considerate of one another, always making sure everyone has taken their lunch break etc. I think this contributes to the warm, friendly and inclusive atmosphere that exists within this team environment. Not to mention the Association's retired Guide Dog, Gidgie, who hangs out in our office and is always up for a cuddle or two!

Understanding the environment and nature of not-for-profit organisations really enabled me to see the bigger picture behind every task I do while on prac. For example, I spent most of my first day stuffing 500 quarterly Guide Dog News newsletters in envelopes to be distributed to their stakeholders. While the team were apologetic for giving me the task and reassured me that my time on prac wont consist entirely of stufifng envelopes, I was more than happy to help as I knew that 1. this was a vital part of their communications plan and 2. I was freeing up half a day of work for the team to do other equally important work.

My second day on prac saw me delve right into public relations at the Guide Dogs.  First off, I interviewed the Director of Corporate Development on an event he is taking part in. I then had to write the article up based on this interview to go on to the Association's website. At this point the advice of many of my tutors came rushing back to me, with one statement ringingly loudly: "ATTENTION TO DETAIL". While I have written many press releases in my time at uni, it was only now that I fully understood this! I needed this article to be complete, interesting, accurate, and most of all, fit within the style and tone of the rest of the organisation. With these points in mind, it took me longer than usual to write my article, but the hard work payed off because it went straight up onto the Association website!! This was probably the best feeling ... EVER! Compliments from the team and the Director also made me feel pretty happy with myself!

So, if there is anything I have learnt on my first week of prac, it would have to be one of two things. 1. ATTENTION TO DETAIL! and 2. Listen to what tutors say, they really do know what they are talking about!!!