Last Blog Post!

Hi! I am in the middle of editing my report and I am so glad everything has come to an end! All i want to do now is just be assignment-free and have some time to sit down and prepare for my finals. This semester has been tiring and YES i cannot wait until it is over!

So my internship with DFBC has finally ended! And I am so glad they are still going to use my fundraising ideas after I left the club. Another Junior Badminton Tournament would be held in December in Langford and other ideas would be still going :)

So these 20 days have been, well quite enjoyable. As my work is fairly relaxing. Most of my work is to provide creative ideas that would attract people to come and have fun and of course, donate :p I was also asked to look for sponsorship and it was tough at the beginning because you have to convince people to actually take money to support a club they have never heard of, you have to make them trust you and believe that there is going to be a PR returns for their donations.

It is hard though to have the courage to go up to people and ask them for sponsorships. Luckily people I met are friendly. I also email-ed some of the companies and was lucky enough to get replies from most of them.

I guess I would still be helping DFBC as long as I am in Perth as I am not going back to Malaysia any sooner. I love working with them because we have the passion for the same thing- badminton! And it is hard to find what you love as a job so yea I guess I would continue staying in the club if they need me.

I also enjoyed challenging myself and come up with different and special fundraising ideas that no one has ever thought of. And I most certainly love it when my supervisor liked my ideas too.

Anyway I wish as I am staying with DFBC, they would give me a chance to do something outside of fundraising and sponsorship. Maybe writing media release? As writing isn't what I do best as well. Might have a talk with my supervisor soon and I hope he would consider my suggestion.

Okay time to go back to my assignment! Good luck everyone! :)

THE INS AND OUTS OF PR

My first impressions of public relations in professional practice were of a positive nature.

Since I'm working in a non for profit/charity based organisation [Cancer Support WA], I was very appreciative of the warm welcome I received from the entire team. In particular the PR, marketing and fundraising volunteers who I deal with on a regular basis.

They were quite willing to offer me advice and assistance where necessary. Some of the various tasks I have learnt so far include the following:

•      Learning to use the CRM and Mailchimp email databases.
•      Creating contacts lists and segments of corporate and local sponsors
•      I also had to create a collective thankyou email letter and send it out to a group of sponsors for a previous fundraising event.

Writing media releases: I was given the opportunity to write up a media release for the charity event "Concert under the stars: Divalicious."

It was sent off the Fremantle gazette. This was due to the fact that one member of the singing duet grew up in Fremantle. 

CONCERT UNDER THE STARS: DIVALICIOUS

CSWA Charity event I attended at North Cottesloe Primary school.

I made sure the donation tins were being passed through the audience, and I also assisted with post event pack up. 

I also contributed my spare time to assist with fundraising events/activities by:

·         Collecting and distributing donation tins across Fremantle

·         Attending charity events to help monitor during and pack up after

·         Sold raffle tickets for a car competition in my local shopping centre where I work.

In the time that I have been in this internship, one of the main lessons I’ve learnt is skill management. It’s become clear to me that in order to have a successful career in PR and marketing, you need to have a willingness to also learn less media related skills, i.e.: administration/clerical work, graphic design. There’s more to it then writing media releases and fact sheets. 

Natasha Scekic 

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