Stakeholders- it's about pleasing everyone.

It has been a while since my last post, but I thought I should update everyone on what has been going on at the Retirement Village Association.

For the past few weeks we have been pretty busy with two events- Demystifying Retirement Living and Operational Intelligence. The first event was a seminar for prospective retirement village residents to gain information about different villages and the industry itself, whilst the second was for village managers and officials to learn about budgeting. The two events gave me a great chance to see both sides of PR within the industry as well as gain industry knowledge from both sides.

The weeks coming up to the Demystifying Retirement Living seminar I was able to be involved with all the planning of the event. The small tedious tasks such as calling people who registered their interest and confirming their attendance, making show bags and name badges were all on the top of my to do list. Throughout this time it made me realise how important it is to prioritise tasks and be efficient with your time. I have found so far that nothing is overly complicated (task wise) yet usually extremely time consuming. Though both seminars where highly successful, I did learn that no matter how much you prepare little things can go wrong and instead of dwelling on these things you should learn from them and move on.

I have be so amazed how relevant the stuff we have learnt is within the industry. I am loving being able to put my writing ability in to practice. I have also realised how skills such as time management and prioritising are imperative within the industry.

I am quickly learning that a member based organisation means you have to try your best to please everyone which quickly results in being stretched in a hundred directions and often PR is under regarded. As I am working with the regional manager and national membership manager, her time is split between advocating the industry, increasing membership and maintaining relationships with prospective residents, members and industry specialists and the list goes on. No two days are the same, which is both exciting and exhausting. Every key stakeholder that the RVA has identified wants something different from them, not to mention every member- though working for a simultaneous belief- want something for themselves. So in this case, I think PR is about pleasing everyone to the best of your ability whilst still trying to keep the business objectives at the fore front of your mind. It's not an easy task