It's all over!!

Hi guys,

This is my final blog for professional practice and what an experience it has been. Rocky Bay has been an excellent work experience placement for me. The lovely team of ladies at Rocky Bay showed a lot of faith in me by giving me a lot of responsibility. A lot of the work I did revolved around media relations and the promotion of some of Rocky Bay’s various events.

I have been doing some research into the not-for-profit sector and found an interesting article about employment within the area. I found a study that stated the not-for-profit sector was unable to attract and retain employees because there wasn’t enough money. This is not something I disagree with. The study went on to say those who do go into the industry, are driven by the mission of the organisation they work for. In my opinion, I would rather have someone who required some training but was completely dedicated to the mission of the organisation than someone who was just there for the money.

Its particularly rewarding to see your hard work paying off. For those of you who don’t know, Rocky Bay is a service provider for people with disabilities. Much of what the PR and Marketing Department does goes directly to the clients and maximizes the quality of their lives.

If I do go into a career in PR I couldn’t say if I would go into the not-for-profit sector or the corporate world. I do however know that starting out in the not-for-profit sector would be an excellent grounding for anyone wanting a career in PR. I’ve only been at Rocky Bay for four weeks in total, but the experience I have gained will be invaluable for the rest of my career.

Good luck to everyone in your future endeavors.

Marketing + PR

Hi everyone,

This is my third blog and I am coming towards the end of my placement at Rocky Bay. So far it has been a thoroughly rewarding experience. Despite my desire to pursue a career in journalism, the experience I have gained so far has been invaluable. For today’s blog, I wanted to discuss something that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with my placement but does have an overriding impact on many jobs in public relations.

A large majority of industry PR jobs (or at least the ones I have come across) are not straight down the line PR. What I mean is that they are tied in with another aspect of business, most commonly marketing. In my opinion I think this can be a danger to PR as a profession as people can commonly take for granted the importance of PR as an individual function to an organization.

It can be even more dangerous when PR is simply a secondary function in a marketing department. What happens to PR if that marketing department becomes redundant? Is PR simply thrown into the mix? The issue here is that in many marketing departments, particularly in charities, the performance of the department can be measured through how much money is raised. PR on the other hand can be much more difficult to measure. Unless you come from a PR background like many of us do, public relations can often be overlooked in its true value. This can also be tied back to many CEOs coming from business backgrounds where all that matters is the bottom line.

You may or may not agree with me but I would love to hear your opinions nonetheless.

Thanks guys,

Ben

Event management- more than meets the eye

Hey guys,

Ben here with my second post. Today I wanted to talk about events management, fundraising and speech writing… all of which I worked on for a fundraising event for Rocky Bay. The particular event I was working on was called the AHG (Automotive Holdings Group) corporate golf day. The golf day has long been one of Rocky Bay’s major fundraising events. What makes the event even more fantastic is that it was the initiative of AHG managing director Bronte Howson. Bronte’s vision was to raise $1million in 10 years. With this year being the eighth year, AHG and Rocky Bay could see the potential for that target being reached in 8, as opposed to Bronte’s previously envisaged target of 10 years.

My first day at Rocky Bay saw me attending meetings with Joondalup Resort representatives and the AHG PR team. As a first day, I could not have asked for anything better. Firstly the networking was an invaluable experience. Secondly and more importantly was the sense I got of how much work goes into an event like this.

Over the coming weeks, my role was based more on the publicity elements of the event. Many of the ladies I work with have a lot of experience with marketing and fundraising but not as much with publicity and promotion. My roles included developing and improving the media contact list as well as writing a press release promoting the event. I would also be involved in further meetings with the AHG team regarding the auction on the night, which allowed me to meet the MC and auctioneer on the night, David Christison. David is the former news director at Channel Seven and also presented the sport for a number of years. Being from a journalism sided PR background, the chance to meet David was very exciting… again the networking was great.

One of the more exciting assignments I was given in organising the event was writing a speech for the CEO of Rocky Bay. Given that I am only doing 1 day a week, I was effectively asked to write a speech for the CEO on my fourth day- daunting but very rewarding to have the team put their faith in me. My expectation of what would be read out on the night was something that drew on what I wrote but wasn’t essentially my words. To my surprise, the CEO did in fact read out my speech. To this day it’s probably the most satisfying moment of my internship.

All in all the event went smoothly and we did hit the $1million mark by raising more than $180 000 on the night alone- the most raised in the events eight year history.

Until the next post,

Ben

In-house V Agency- Whats the best path?

Hello all,

My name is Ben Hennessy and I’m doing my work placement at a charity group called Rocky Bay. Rocky Bay is a not-for-profit organisation that provides disability services to more than 1000 children and 500 adults across Western Australia. My initial decision to approach Rocky Bay was the fact that they were a not-for-profit company and would essentially appreciate any help they could get. This relationship would be mutually beneficial to both parties because it means I would be given more responsibility, which as it turns out I have.

I am just over half way through my placement at Rocky Bay but I am only doing one day a week. Only doing one day a week has had its positives and negatives. On the positive side, I have had the chance to work on a number of projects because I have been there over an extended period. One the negative side, it has been difficult to get stuck right into projects because by the time I come back a week later the assignment has passed. This hasn’t always been a huge problem as Rocky Bay’s PR heavily revolves around event management and fundraising, which requires several weeks of extended planning.

 I have to say I am grateful to the team at Rocky Bay for their support and showing faith in me by giving the responsibilities they have. In concluding this post, I wanted to ask what everyone else thinks on the issue. Having spoken to a number of fellow PR students, many have gone out trying to get work in established PR firms and agencies. As students coming to the end of our university degrees, are we better off going for smaller in-house jobs to fine-tune our PR skills?

I look forward to your responses,

Ben