Two days on, 1 day off and still did so much

This week I only managed to do two days since I was sick for the third day. I, however got to work on website content for the events/projects page and help out at an event organised by our organisation, 32dsg.

The events page content is looking good and I am learning to set it out exactly how they want the web designers to produce it. There are so many skills I thought I would never use from university, especially the units that I started off doing in Mass Communications before I changed to Journalism and PR. For example the skills of text wrapping where you format pictures within the text so that the words move according to where the picture is. The understanding I have from ‘wiki’s’ we did in PR corporate and PR International gave me the knowledge to be able to link documents to the page and realise how all the pages will be connected in the end. There are so many little things you learn in university that can help you so much in real life.

The interns were asked to help out at the oZAPP Roadshow event being held in Perth at Spacecubed in St Gorges Terrace. We were told we were going to do the meeting and greeting, give out nametags and information as well as help out with food and drinks. The manager of the event space did not help out all the ‘girls’ all carrying drinks and heavy glass ware up to the room. It was amazing how this portrayal of rudeness can change the opinion of a company hosting an event in this space. 32dsg’s events coordinator immediately said she would never use this space again.

Although there were a few things that were working against this event such as the fact that there was another event straight after ours, in the same space, and that many of the people registered were not on the list for nametags, no one really noticed anything was wrong. The glassware was hired and therefore we needed to take them home but people for the next event were using a lot of them. However, we managed by kindly explaining the fact that this was for a different event. We solved the nametag issue by getting attendees to write their own names on a nametag. Overall people enjoyed the event and we were able to enjoy it too. I think one of the things I noticed was that there is little time for a person organising the event to actually enjoy it. There is always something to do or something to coordinate and therefore you really have to sit down and debrief to realise what could have been done better or what was successful to truly appreciate your efforts.

This coming week I will be making up the extra day I missed because of being sick and therefore I will be able to do a lot more in terms of website content and helping out with the content writing of a clients website that is about to launch in a couple of days.

Until then,

Thanks for reading.

Martine

xxxx

Fashion Festival Week

Last week was extremely busy as the Fashion Icon High Tea finally arrived on Friday 23rd September, so there has been a lot to do in the Networking WA office over the past two weeks. The event was a great success, in preparation, the week prior to the event was a little stressful with a few small dilemmas though nothing that jeopardised the event in the end thankfully.

Receiving all the products and vouchers from companies around Perth for the gift bags and then preparing over 250 bags was very time consuming, then transporting all the bags and decorations to the venue became an eventful few hours!
When it came to decorating the venue we used decorations from Empire furniture which consisted of large black vintage looking bird cages filled with flowers, and tall crystal vases with sand and candles in them. The room was the grand ballroom at Pan Pacific looking out over the swan river set a magnificent atmosphere; the tables in which the guests were seated didn’t have much decoration as it was a high tea so there was beautiful food stands covering the tables with a range of gourmet sweet and savoury foods.

The event ran very smoothly guests arriving at 3-3.30 with a glass of champagne on arrival and then being seated at 3.30 with a performance of Sara MacLiver to commence the afternoon, the five Icons; Liz Davenport, Maurice Meade, Liz Carberry, Nannette Carnachan and Lisa Scaffidi were all very intriguing to listen to and hear about their success stories as well as the times where it become hard for their business.

The food was delicious, a selections of cakes, slices, sandwiches, quiches and many other treats as well as tea, coffee and champagne throughout the afternoon. There was a photographer set up on one side of the room taking photos of all the guests wearing Atlas South Pearls for a bit of fun, as Atlas South Pearls were a major sponsor of the event.

We were luckier enough to be able to receive so many vouchers and prizes for the raffle which was great as so many of the guests were able to win prizes, there was also a $10,000 pearl necklace up for a prize which one very lucky lady got to walk away with. Overall Networking WA were very happy with how the afternoon went.

The other two Perth Fashion Festival events that I got to attend with the other staff at Networking WA was the Myer Luncheon that was at the convention Centre on the 21st September and the Wheels and Dollbaby 25th anniversary on the 27th of September at His Majesty’s Theatre which was fantastic to watch.
I’ve been very lucky to have the opportunity to go to these events and have made so many connections that I will be able to use once I have finished my degree, its great being able to get this hands on experience especially in a great company like Networking WA.

Tess Edwards
14262807