Alzheimer's Australia WA

Hi all

Hope your internships are going well. This week has been a busy one for me. Alzheimer's Australia WA has a new DBMAS service opening in Bunbury and my supervisor has been very busy working on it. In order to gain as much media attention as possible I drafted up a media release, which was altered many times (receiving a lot of feedback) until we finally had a final copy. I then used Margaret Gee's media guide to find my Bunbury contacts and started ringing around. I spoke with around 4 media outlets in Bunbury and also came across a Curtin Journalism student on my rounds. Overall we had a decent response with 2 outlets agreeing to cover the opening (radio and print).

I have made more progress with my Marketing plan, in addition to the 20 Centrelink offices who have agreed to display our flyers, 4 Carelink and Respite Centres are now on board. I have spent the last couple of days doing mail outs ensuring they have as much information on Alzheimer's Australia WA information available to their clients as possible.

I am now working on the Many Voices 2010 Symposium, which will be held in September. Again I am trying to get the message out there and will be doing mail outs. Even though it can be a very tedious job, it is very beneficial.

As my internship is drawing to a close I have realised that I am not very good at writing up media releases. Yesterday however one of my colleagues (who I share a desk with) was extremely helpful and gave me a hand altering the media release I had written for our election kits. As we went through it I began to understand in more detail the concept of the media release and the structure.

Over the duration of this internship I have learnt a lot. Basic skills as well as new and improved skills. Hope everyone else is enjoying their internship and best of luck.

Deanna