My placement journey so far

Hello Everyone, I thought it was about time I wrote something, I have been so busy with my internship and other work, I feel so bad that I simply haven’t had much time to get on here. So as they say there's no time like the present!

Firstly before I get into the nuts and bolts of whats been happening, I should introduce myself. My name is Alyce Pilgrim, PR 393 is my final unit I am completing before I graduate… so I am very excited to be putting my PR skills to the test in the real world so to speak.

After the initial freak out, sheer panic and desperation of what seemed an eternity to find an internship (I am sure I am not the only one out there to experience that) I happy to say I am completing my internship at Telethon Speech & Hearing (TSH) in Perth, Western Australia.

Now my journey there started off quite interestingly…
I initially began my intern journey at Therapy Focus and thought I would do TSH simultaneously, and perhaps do two internships at once. At first glance Therapy Focus seemed more exciting- after all I did get to meet the Prime Minister of Australia on my first day there!!


However after a few weeks, I decided to focus fully on completing my internship at Telethon Speech & Hearing, and give Therapy Focus a miss. It was a somewhat tricky decision to make. As eventful as meeting the Prime Minister was, the work at Therapy Focus seemed more publicity based and I believed it was not something I could sink my teeth into and get the most out of my internship experience.

Needless to say I am happy with my decision. My first few weeks here at Telethon Speech & Hearing have been quite interesting too. The first few days were an introduction to the company and systems. And my jobs consisted mostly of updating data bases and calling organisations, companies and clients. I am happy to report that my responsibilities have increased as the weeks have progressed and I am loving it.

So, to give you a bit of a back ground- Telethon Speech & Hearing is a not- for-profit organisation that teaches children with hearing or speech impairments to listen and speak. The centre is based in Wembley and employs a team of highly qualified specialists to ensure the kids have the best level of professional assistance and advice available.

As part of my internship I have been placed in the Public Relations and Marketing department.
My main focus is working with the upcoming Loud Shirt Day. Loud Shirt Day is national fundraising and awareness campaign held on Friday May 14th. It’s a fun day that organisations and schools can be involved in and raise money for a great cause. By wearing their loudest and brightest shirt people in WA can help raise funds for speech and hearing impaired kids in our state.

So far I have been lucky enough to be able to design and implement a communications strategy for Loud Shirt Day. The main focus of this strategy is to increase registrations of the participants that take part in Loud Shirt Day and therefore increase awareness of the event. So far, I have been feverishly coming up and assisting with new ways to generate press coverage for the event.

My highlights so far include being part of the Loud Shirt Day photo shoot with Perth’s Nova 93.7 breakfast radio host Nathan Morris. Nathan, has come on board as this years Loud Shirt Day ambassador. He has designed a one-of-a-kind t-shirt for Loud Shirt Day that will be auctioned off on eBay to raise much needed funds for the occasion. His shirt is being displayed and can be viewed at 78 Records until it goes under the hammer.


So far, I have had the opportunity to write a few press releases to do with Nathan being a part of the Loud Shirt Day activities, these have been run in local community newspapers. One of my ideas to generate new coverage for Loud Shirt Day was to tweak a few press-releases to highlight the fact that Nathan is from Kalgoorlie and therefore create an opportunity with media in that rural area. Consequently the story was picked up and run by the Kalgoorlie Miner- a market that had not been reached before.

One of my other tasks has been creating and maintaining facebook and twitter sites for Loud Shirt Day. After researching Loud Shirt Day on the internet I discovered that there was both a facebook and twitter page dedicated to NSW Loud Shirt Day, yet no West Australian version. Creating the WA sites has been a fun way to created buzz about Loud Shirt Day, by adding pictures, videos and updates it has had quite a positive response so far.

Feel free to check out the following sites and be part of Loud Shirt Day, your support is greatly appreciated.

For information on Nathan Morris’ design and to place bids, head to:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250626241406

To follow Loud Shirt Day on twitter
https://twitter.com/loudshirtdaywa

Or be a fan on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Loud-Shirt-Day/113511368664147?ref=ts

Until my next post,
Alyce