With my fancy new suit jacket and my sling back heels (which I quickly changed into just before entering the office after the long walk from the train station) I felt the part of a public relations intern and knew it was going to be a day filed with fun and learning many new things as well as putting everything I had learnt in my last three years as a student into action.
My internship is at Lifeline WA which is located on Murray St in the city. For those of you who don’t know much about Lifeline, it is a not for profit organisation who specialise in suicide prevention and community wellbeing.
Lifeline WA aim to generate community wellbeing through telephone counsellors, providing a service that supports fathers and their children after separation or bereavement, education and training programs and the HelpMe Campaign which addresses the negative stigma associated with mental illness.
After a quick introduction to the CEO Amanda Wheeler and all the other employees for Lifeline the work started. Lifeline WA have an annual ball at the start of the year which raises vital funds, so almost all the work I would be doing would lead up to this massive event.
So during my first week I was working alongside Ros Worthington who started the HelpMe campaing, Ros is an inspirational woman who made it into the women’s hall of fame and is the founder of the Breast Cancer Care WA. I worked with her on a social media campaign that linked her with the outside world and linked the outside world with her. We started accounts on LinkedIn and updated the already existing Facebook account and I showed her how to use her accounts and write information about herself on her profiles.
For those of you interested in looking at these accounts here is a hyperlink http://au.linkedin.com/pub/dr-ros-worthington-oam/16/458/6b7.
During my first week I also had meetings with Ros about auction items for the ball and started calling around to verify auction items and collection times as well as cold calling businesses to see if they wanted to donate something to our ball.
At first I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be doing enough public relations with all the planning and fundraising going into the ball. However as the first week ended and I reflected back on my time, I realised that out in the real world you will sometimes be expected to cross over into other sectors and use your expertise in public relations to help you in whatever work you undertake.
As you can see there has been a lot going on in the first week alone and it is awesome to have responsibility thrown at me from day dot.
I would love to hear from other people who are working for a not for profit organisation and how they are finding the public relations sector and if it is linked in with other sectors such as fundraising, marketing and events.
Hope you’re all having a wonderful time.
Jessica Dreier
14270952 Bentley Campus
Showing posts with label Black Diamond Ball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black Diamond Ball. Show all posts
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
Black Moment at the Black Diamond Ball
The pm shift started at 5.45pm where I jumped straight out of the car into the registration desk.
I had 20 minutes to get ready for the night which started the evening of a little frazzled on my behalf- but as the VIP’s slowly arrived for their special pre-drinks in the silent auction area overlooking the bell tower from the PCEC- everything seemed to slow down.
From 6-7.30 I was on the door greeting the guests and designating them to their correct table number and afterwards I moved up the stairs to the start of a golden walkway. The golden walkway carried you to a French Riviera themed photo opportunity past a live mannequin sitting in the middle of a table offering drinks to the passing guests.
After the photo opportunity the guests follow the golden carpet again to the right through a black curtain into the silent auction area where they find that the golden carpet is actually the train of another live mannequin.
Once the doors opened at 7.30 for the main event the guests are transported into a Golden Garden of Eden as they walk through the ballroom.
The quick run through of the evening-
Big Bass Heart beat- dancers fight their way from the shadows as Jade McRae sings “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera
MC (Kymba Cahill from 94.5) greets the guests- explains the significance of the themeing of the evening.
Speech from CEO Amanda Wheeler- speech from the heart and head, ran over time- just a little bit too long.
Speech from Ros Worthington- from the heart, asks for pledges, gives publicity for 14000km walk that two survivors are undertaking for their son that committed suicide. Lights go down and each guest has a candle that they light and everyone has a moment’s silence.
The formalities are punctuated with clips from ‘survivors’ and has the whole audience rivoted. (The most interesting thing I found was that the way the team had put the evening together it was not depressing or dark- more ‘looking for the light’)
After formalities the live auction is run- the silent auction are is closed off and the brochures collected.
The Black moment of the night was what is now known as RaffleGate- I was told to RUN to get the raffle tickets as according to the schedule the Governor was on stage and ready the pull the winners out of the raffle bucket. When I reached the room the Fundrasising coordinator was already in the room trying to get the bucket but the lady in charge was not letting that happen. I can’t remember the exact conversation but the general gist was that the lady was going to report the Events Manager to the Licensing and Gaming authority as she was acting ‘illegal’. This argument was overexcited as the Manager had just run in and grabbed the bucket without realising, the lady in charge of the raffle tickets was bullying the staff and abusing the volunteers as everyone was panicked to get the raffle tickets on stage as the MC was already stalling with the Governor on stage. Finally the matter was ‘solved’ by the CEO coming out of the event to calm the lady down.
This was not something that i had expected to see on the night as everything else was running 100% as it should. I taught me that relations in the workplace can be nasty (I had not seen anything but niceness at Lifeline in the duration of my placement) and that workplace bullying is a serious issue- and it was quite scary to see the extent to which some people go to in order to show their dominance over others. I was a bystander on the night who received some flying shrapnel but many of the other girls got worse that I did.
The raffle tickets eventually got put together and the Governor was asked back up on the stage.
As the raffle was the last matter of the night- Stratosfunk followed and led the guests to the end of the event.
Throughout this event I learnt that something will go wrong and I learnt a valuable lesson in workplace bullying. The evening was wonderful to see as it showed off 3 months of work that I had done to help make the night look as fabulous as it was.
VISIT LIFELINE WA ON FACEBOOK TO SEE PHOTOS OF THE EVENING.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lifeline-WA/142814429118128
Amber Carton
Bentley Campus
13956659
I had 20 minutes to get ready for the night which started the evening of a little frazzled on my behalf- but as the VIP’s slowly arrived for their special pre-drinks in the silent auction area overlooking the bell tower from the PCEC- everything seemed to slow down.
From 6-7.30 I was on the door greeting the guests and designating them to their correct table number and afterwards I moved up the stairs to the start of a golden walkway. The golden walkway carried you to a French Riviera themed photo opportunity past a live mannequin sitting in the middle of a table offering drinks to the passing guests.
After the photo opportunity the guests follow the golden carpet again to the right through a black curtain into the silent auction area where they find that the golden carpet is actually the train of another live mannequin.
Once the doors opened at 7.30 for the main event the guests are transported into a Golden Garden of Eden as they walk through the ballroom.
The quick run through of the evening-
Big Bass Heart beat- dancers fight their way from the shadows as Jade McRae sings “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera
MC (Kymba Cahill from 94.5) greets the guests- explains the significance of the themeing of the evening.
Speech from CEO Amanda Wheeler- speech from the heart and head, ran over time- just a little bit too long.
Speech from Ros Worthington- from the heart, asks for pledges, gives publicity for 14000km walk that two survivors are undertaking for their son that committed suicide. Lights go down and each guest has a candle that they light and everyone has a moment’s silence.
The formalities are punctuated with clips from ‘survivors’ and has the whole audience rivoted. (The most interesting thing I found was that the way the team had put the evening together it was not depressing or dark- more ‘looking for the light’)
After formalities the live auction is run- the silent auction are is closed off and the brochures collected.
The Black moment of the night was what is now known as RaffleGate- I was told to RUN to get the raffle tickets as according to the schedule the Governor was on stage and ready the pull the winners out of the raffle bucket. When I reached the room the Fundrasising coordinator was already in the room trying to get the bucket but the lady in charge was not letting that happen. I can’t remember the exact conversation but the general gist was that the lady was going to report the Events Manager to the Licensing and Gaming authority as she was acting ‘illegal’. This argument was overexcited as the Manager had just run in and grabbed the bucket without realising, the lady in charge of the raffle tickets was bullying the staff and abusing the volunteers as everyone was panicked to get the raffle tickets on stage as the MC was already stalling with the Governor on stage. Finally the matter was ‘solved’ by the CEO coming out of the event to calm the lady down.
This was not something that i had expected to see on the night as everything else was running 100% as it should. I taught me that relations in the workplace can be nasty (I had not seen anything but niceness at Lifeline in the duration of my placement) and that workplace bullying is a serious issue- and it was quite scary to see the extent to which some people go to in order to show their dominance over others. I was a bystander on the night who received some flying shrapnel but many of the other girls got worse that I did.
The raffle tickets eventually got put together and the Governor was asked back up on the stage.
As the raffle was the last matter of the night- Stratosfunk followed and led the guests to the end of the event.
Throughout this event I learnt that something will go wrong and I learnt a valuable lesson in workplace bullying. The evening was wonderful to see as it showed off 3 months of work that I had done to help make the night look as fabulous as it was.
VISIT LIFELINE WA ON FACEBOOK TO SEE PHOTOS OF THE EVENING.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lifeline-WA/142814429118128
Amber Carton
Bentley Campus
13956659
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The Black Diamond Final Countdown
The week before the iinet Black Diamond Ball date was surprisingly calm. Normally when you organise- or think about organising- an event on the scale that this ball was you generally think of phones running off the hook, things not being completed and people running around like headless chooks.
Apparently the first event was similar to this scenario back in 2010 however the organisers this year mentioned that they felt calm right up to the guest registration on the night.
The final days included organising and putting the final touches on the silent auction area (spearheaded by myself and another intern), making final pickups of vouchers and mannequins, and helping Jane, The Queen of Theme, to organise and make up the themeing for the night.
Friday involved a full day trip to the PCEC to deliver all the Lifeline goods for overnight storage and easy access on Saturday. The great thing about Friday as well was that everyone was so organised that we got to go home early!
Saturday started at 9am at the PCEC with a whole band of volunteers to help with the setup of the ball. This included placing BDB programs, iinet pens, VIP leaf name places, Lifeline paraphernalia and the table centre pieces.
The Theme for the BDB was a Golden Garden of Eden with the specialty centre pieces being made to represent trees which symbolises life- suiting the vision and mission of Lifeline that each life is precious.
There was a silk aerialist performing throughout the night draped in gold silk and a small white costume. Guests were lucky enough to have glasses of Moet poured by the aerialist as she twisted down from the ceiling.
As the organisers had aimed for 1000 guests (this is how many there were in 2010)- and there were only 500 bought for the night- the Queen of Theme created a chill-out zone in front of the stage where guests could talk to Lifeline telephone counsellors.
Everything was done by 3.30pm and the last job myself and another intern had to do was count the place settings and chairs. This only took about 30 minutes and just as we were collecting our gear to go home and get ready for the event- the flower shop called and asked whether anyone was going to collect the flowers ordered for the MC! We were designated the pickup job which meant that with travel time we only had 20 minutes to get ready for the biggest social event on the Lifeline calendar.
We arrived back at the PCEC at 5.45pm, just in time to take our place on the meet and greet table to register the VIP’s which were arriving early for specialty drinks and canapés.
The Themeing of the Silent Auction area which was spearheaded by myself and another intern (right).
This picture represents 4 of about 65 auction items on display.
Amber Carton
13956659
Apparently the first event was similar to this scenario back in 2010 however the organisers this year mentioned that they felt calm right up to the guest registration on the night.
The final days included organising and putting the final touches on the silent auction area (spearheaded by myself and another intern), making final pickups of vouchers and mannequins, and helping Jane, The Queen of Theme, to organise and make up the themeing for the night.
Friday involved a full day trip to the PCEC to deliver all the Lifeline goods for overnight storage and easy access on Saturday. The great thing about Friday as well was that everyone was so organised that we got to go home early!
Saturday started at 9am at the PCEC with a whole band of volunteers to help with the setup of the ball. This included placing BDB programs, iinet pens, VIP leaf name places, Lifeline paraphernalia and the table centre pieces.
The Theme for the BDB was a Golden Garden of Eden with the specialty centre pieces being made to represent trees which symbolises life- suiting the vision and mission of Lifeline that each life is precious.
There was a silk aerialist performing throughout the night draped in gold silk and a small white costume. Guests were lucky enough to have glasses of Moet poured by the aerialist as she twisted down from the ceiling.
As the organisers had aimed for 1000 guests (this is how many there were in 2010)- and there were only 500 bought for the night- the Queen of Theme created a chill-out zone in front of the stage where guests could talk to Lifeline telephone counsellors.
Everything was done by 3.30pm and the last job myself and another intern had to do was count the place settings and chairs. This only took about 30 minutes and just as we were collecting our gear to go home and get ready for the event- the flower shop called and asked whether anyone was going to collect the flowers ordered for the MC! We were designated the pickup job which meant that with travel time we only had 20 minutes to get ready for the biggest social event on the Lifeline calendar.
We arrived back at the PCEC at 5.45pm, just in time to take our place on the meet and greet table to register the VIP’s which were arriving early for specialty drinks and canapés.
The Themeing of the Silent Auction area which was spearheaded by myself and another intern (right).
This picture represents 4 of about 65 auction items on display.
Amber Carton
13956659
Friday, June 24, 2011
Lifeline WA #1
Hi Everyone,
I started my professional practice with Lifeline WA after the work experience opportunity was posted through the PRSC to work with the organisation, to help with primarily the iiNet Black Diamond Ball.
Lifeline WA is part of the national Lifeline network: the leading provider of suicide prevention services in Australia.
Lifeline WA is a not-for-profit charity organisation that relies heavily on creative fundraising events and strategies for funding.
In April however, Lifeline WA was granted $500,000 from the West Australian government to recruit and train telephone counsellors for a crisis line. You can follow the link I’ve added to read further on the funding from the State Government. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/8238086/funding-boost-for-lifeline-phone-support
Lifeline relies on marketing and public relations to promote awareness of the organisation, and currently in the lead up to the iiNet Black Diamond Ball I am working with the Events and Marketing and Fundraising Departments to help raise awareness.
‘Lifeline WA and Perth based Internet Service Provider, iiNet, have joined forces to raise awareness and vital funds for West Australians in need at the inaugural iiNet Black Diamond Ball on Saturday, 16 July.' To read the press release follow this link. http://www.lifelinewa.org.au/whats-happening-2/
I am currently working with a small group of other work experience students to help organise the Ball, undertaking different tasks each day for the two days that I am there a week.
In my next post I will outline the tasks that I have done, the tasks that still need to be done and the difficulties or simplicity of completing each.
Amber Carton
Bentley Campus
13956659
I started my professional practice with Lifeline WA after the work experience opportunity was posted through the PRSC to work with the organisation, to help with primarily the iiNet Black Diamond Ball.
Lifeline WA is part of the national Lifeline network: the leading provider of suicide prevention services in Australia.
Lifeline WA is a not-for-profit charity organisation that relies heavily on creative fundraising events and strategies for funding.
In April however, Lifeline WA was granted $500,000 from the West Australian government to recruit and train telephone counsellors for a crisis line. You can follow the link I’ve added to read further on the funding from the State Government. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/8238086/funding-boost-for-lifeline-phone-support
Lifeline relies on marketing and public relations to promote awareness of the organisation, and currently in the lead up to the iiNet Black Diamond Ball I am working with the Events and Marketing and Fundraising Departments to help raise awareness.
‘Lifeline WA and Perth based Internet Service Provider, iiNet, have joined forces to raise awareness and vital funds for West Australians in need at the inaugural iiNet Black Diamond Ball on Saturday, 16 July.' To read the press release follow this link. http://www.lifelinewa.org.au/whats-happening-2/
I am currently working with a small group of other work experience students to help organise the Ball, undertaking different tasks each day for the two days that I am there a week.
In my next post I will outline the tasks that I have done, the tasks that still need to be done and the difficulties or simplicity of completing each.
Amber Carton
Bentley Campus
13956659
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