Making a dream a reality

I knew straight away finding a PR Internship was going to be challenging, with the amount of PR firms verses the millions of PR students looking for that dream taste of experience I was going to have to work for it. As I live in Mount Lawley I had always been aware and in ore of the PR work and activities that 'Beaufort Street Network' conducted in our area through there imperative branding on large scale events (such as the annual beaufort street festival) and I always thought how awesome would it be to work for this huge company. So as soon as I got the go ahead to start looking for my internship I knew exactly where I wanted to go....but there was one small problem they didnt have an office!

After being proactive and meeting with the chair of the company this is where I started to realise the "REAL WORLD" the big company as I thought was just a small non for profit organisation run by hard working individuals that lived or worked in the community, they didnt have an office nor did they have a large budget all there PR work was done by tired, stressed, busy committee members that wanted to create a better place for people to live, work and socialise in Mount Lawley. Hence when they found out that I was FREE and able to help them in any way they couldnt believe their luck.

To give you a run down; Beaufort Street Network brings together the local residents and the businesses with the main aim to develop a better place to live, work and run a business while having fun. They organise events, art work, sundowners etc in the aim of creating a positive/vibrant Mount Lawley.

My first day was busy, I literally got dumped in the deep end and needed to think critically and strategically to figure out exactly what I needed to do and had to understand their vision. The first big lesson I learnt was in non for profit organisation there isn't always a PR manager or even someone that knows a lot about PR you yourself will need to find the answers to your questions. For example day one they gave me all the passwords to every social media page, website login, creative crops, two dozen, dashboard etc and said 'there you go'... some of these programs I had never used nor did the committee members really have a clue what they were. So first thing I needed to do was research and find out how they work which was very interesting.

By the end of the day my head was about to explode it was filled with the numerous written pages of notes, passwords and new names of people I had met in the office. But I loved every minute I was out in the "real world' using everything I had learnt in Uni and was able to explore, learn, grow I cant wait to see where this internship will take me :) Hope everyone else has found or is enjoying there placement.

Thanks Lexi

Ps here is our website check it out especially if you live in the Mount Lawley/ Highgate area

http://beaufortstreet.com.au/beaufortstreetnetwork/