Getting out of the Office! Meeting Time!

Day 13 of my internship at the WAEC. After all the research and writing up a proposal, we finally got the chance to be involved in a meeting!

Today’s meeting was with Murdoch University, we met the Senior Executive Director, Steven Dickson and some head of departments. We were there to discuss about early voting on campus.

The meeting went on for 45 minutes, the topics we discussed include;

•          Are they interested in the project?
•          Day(s) (3 days, 1^st -3^rd March 2017)
•         Time
•    WAEC marquee is 8am – 6pm
•    Main peak hours on campus are 10am – 2pm
•          Location (Bush Court)
•          Key issues
•    Parking ( from 4.30pm onward parking is free for the general public)
•    Security (Campus has 24/7 security)
•    Promotional materials cannot be distributed outside the Marquee area (from candidates).
•   Communication Channels (Social Media)
•   How many students are there?
•    900 teachers, 3000 parking bays, 1000 others = 5000 students/staffs on campus during the 3 days

At the meeting, we first introduced ourselves as interns and the main spokesperson for the WAEC was Justin, supervisor of the early voting on campus project. As interns, we were just sitting the side listening, but during the middle of the meeting, when they talked about communication, Ed had a chance to speak out, and he talked about the communication channels and how this is promoted out.

This meeting was a great chance to see how a meeting works although it was quite informal and was just like a chat.

This meeting helped me gain experience on how to communicate with people in a meeting, and what things we should consider. The most important thing is to be prepared and know what you need to say.

By listening to Justin speak, I have gained knowledge on how to host a meeting with clients which will help me in the future.

I have found the presentations we have done in other units (Cross-Cultural Communications, Media Relations, etc.) to be very useful because it helps with speaking and passing on messages in front of people.

This is the first time I have been in a meeting and representing an organisation. I was nervous to speak and was a bit shy. The things I want to improve after the first meeting is to not to be shy and afraid to speak out. My goal for my next meeting is to speak out!

I can’t believe after all my research and calling people, we actually got to go and join the meeting. It was a great experience!

I love working at the WAEC, and am starting to worry about this internship coming to an end!