Hi all,
So this is now my third blog and I am about three quaters of the way through my internship at Corporate Sports Australia working on the Chevron City to Surf for Activ. As you all will know, the City to Surf was held on Sunday and so the event we were all preparing for is completed.
I thought in this blog I would give you a rundown in what my internship entailed for the week prior, as well as the day of the event.
From last Tuesday onwards, we were all working long hours making sure everything was completed for the event. We had press conferences to get ready for, media guides to finish, run sheets to complete and of course the Event Expo.
My main job for the week was to make sure everything for the press conference was ready for Friday morning. The press conference allowed the general media to have a 'question and answer' session with a group of elite athletes as well as some human interest stories and of course the ambassadors for the event. I was in charge of organising the event. I had to call the general media to let the know it was happening and see if they would be interested. I then had to send out invites to all media. I had to remind the elite athletes (who were mostly international athletes) that they would need to be prepared for the press conference the next morning. Another part that I had to organise for the press conference, where PR techniques came in handy, was media kits for the general media. The media kits included a copy of the media guide - which had all the necessary background information about the city to surf event as well as media passes. My supervisor and I created a run sheet for the event, making sure it fulfilled all the requirements without going too long overtime.
On Friday morning, I was in charge of making sure everything was setup and ready for the press conference. We realised at 9am that two speakers were not able to make the 10am conference as their flights were changed. This meant I had to do a bit of ringing around to find two other speakers that coudl fill their spots. Thankfully this all turned out okay and we found two other athletes that could make it in the hour time frame.
All in all, the press conference ran smoothly. Although it went a little overtime, all the media who attended seemed interested in all competitiors' stories which ranged from elite athletes from Kenya to the army reserves who were pushing a 2 tonne gun in the 12km course to cardiac patients walking the 4km course.
The rest of Friday and Saturday were spent finishing odd jobs that needed to be completed. I completed a run sheet for the main stage at the starting line and wrote a congratulations news mailer which would be sent out after the event. I also found myself at the Expo with Sam (another intern) working the help desk. The event expo is held at the Perth Convention Centre on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before the City to Surf. It is where all competitors can come collect their race packs and all sponsors can show off their merchandise. Some 30,000 people come through the doors over those three days so it is a busy event. I was on one of the 5 help desks aiding people with registration and geography queries.
Now to the big day,
Sunday was the City to Surf where we saw 42,000 people race in 7 different categories - the marathon, half marathon, 12km run, 12km walk, 4km run, 4km walk and 4km wheelchair. I was the PR & Media Assistant for the day which meant I was situated in the media tent in between the finishing line and the first aid station. On the day I was first point of call for our 20 TAFE volunteers who would catch the winners of each event and bring them into the media tent for photographs and interviews. Prior to the event, I had allocated the volunteers into teams who had approximately 4 competitors each to find, catch, tag and bring into and look after in the media tent. Each team had a run sheet that said exactly where they were supposed to be and when The volunteers did an amazing job which made the day run very smoothly. The tent was never too busy or frantic with everyone knowing where they were supposed to be and when. We did have an incident, as you all would have heard, where unfortunately a half marathon contestant collapsed at the finish line and was later pronounced dead. Sam, the other intern, and I were both there when it happened. We very much had to use the issues and crisis management skills we had learned to make sure the event still ran as smoothly as possible while dealing with the situation. I had to try and keep all media away from the incident without being too forceful. This I found was a difficult task in itself as something like this, as horrible as it was, is newsworthy and lots of the media wanted to capture it. I had numerous calls in regards to the incident from media outlets where I had to be very careful with what I said. Other than that, it was great to see so many people having such a great time. We have had lots of people comment on how good the day was and how well organised it was, which is always a nice feeling.
I feel like this is getting way too long now. Sorry to cram it all in one blog, I just haven't had any time earlier to write separate ones! Everyone's internships are sounding amazing! It just makes me want to do work experience for a full time job!
Until next blog,
Georgia Stewart
14754951
Bentley Campus
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