It's been quite a ride!

Hello everyone!

Today was my last day of internship and I feel quite sad already about leaving Link To Life. This internship has been everything I expected and more. It was a real pleasure to have met the wonderful people that work there.

I have learnt a lot during those twenty-three days and I have also grown as person. I am so grateful to have had my first public relations related work experienced at Link To Life. I was given the opportunity to work on the different areas of public relations: from designing brochures, to the rush and stress of organising and assisting events. Even the most trivial and boring work have helped me in many ways. I can pick up the phone without panicking! On a more serious note, I do feel like this internship has made me into a more confident person.

I remember how apprehensive I was during my first day, and every day throughout those twenty-three, I walked in with more confidence than the day before. Moreover, it was satisfying to be able to finally put into practice what we have learnt for the past two years. Working in class has always seemed easy, but I found out working in the real world is another thing entirely.

I must say, it's been quite a ride! This internship has reinforced my passion for public relations, and I cannot wait to be reentering the working world again. One more semester!

I hope you all had as much fun as I had during your internship.

Have a good night,
Stacey x

Without sponsors, [it] would not be possible.

Hi everyone,

I thought it would be time for some updating. I have been working a lot on redesigning the organisation’s main brochure. This blog will therefore be about my experience while working on drafting and designing brochures.

Selvina, the Programme Coordinator, informed me a few weeks ago that I would be working on redesigning a new brochure for the organisation. I must admit, desktop publishing has become one of my favourite things about public relations, and I was looking forward to designing this new brochure. Considering that I had worked on a first brochure at the beginning of the internship, I was now much more familiar with the application I was using. Somehow, I was also more creative. It took about two separate days to provide the first draft to the Programme Coordinator.

While designing brochures for Link To Life, I witnessed how the approval procedure for public relations materials went. Generally, drafts are sent first to the Programme Coordinator for verification and changes. Once verified, the draft is sent to the President and the other board members for approval. It is only when the President has approved the brochure that publication and distribution can occur.

A lot of other formalities happen during the process of designing brochures at Link To Life. For instance, as it is a not-for-profit organisation, Link To Life sometimes requires people to sponsor the printing of brochures. I had the opportunity to see how the interaction between the sponsor and the organisation has been throughout the whole process. Sponsors tend to be very demanding and have a lot of expectations: for example, during the designing of the brochures, they have demanded changes in the wording of some sentences, a bigger logo on the front page of the brochure, an additional logo at the back...

I found it quite interesting to experience more about the formalities of designing brochures, as well as the involvement of sponsors. Without sponsors, a large part of the activities done at Link To Life would not be possible. This accentuates how important external relations with the publics is, and why organisation should devote more time in building relationships with their key publics.

Stacey x

Small events, big lessons.

Hi everyone,

The semester has officially started and I am now working part-time at Link To Life. These past couple of weeks has been tremendously exciting, as I have had a variety of public relations activities to do.

A few weeks ago I got to assist at one of the organisations awareness talks at a local community centre. When the Programme Coordinator said I would be in charge of assisting the team, and taking photographs of the event, I was thrilled. Events are one of my favourite parts of public relations: from the planning to the D-Day itself. I had the opportunity to witness how Link To Life prepares for one of its awareness talks. Generally, the organisation brings their own equipment, such as projectors, laptops, etc.

Once there, we had to set up a few Link To Life banners inside and outside the building, set up the equipment, organise the brochures to be distributed, amongst other things. I was in charge of welcoming the attendees while Cindy and Javed were preparing for their talk. Once everyone had arrived, the presentation started and I started taking some shots of the event.

One important public relations policy at Link To Life is confidentiality. As such, I was required to only take shots from behind to respect the attendees’ confidentiality during the event.

I found it amazing to be a part of this small event, as it allowed me to prepare for other events that will eventually come in the future. In addition, Selvina mentioned that I would be responsible for choosing the best pictures of the events to have them posted on Link To Life’s Facebook page.

What I have learnt from assisting to this awareness talk is how the latter can help in reaching the organisation’s key publics and eventually raise awareness about the organisation. Furthermore, posting photos of the events on social media allows those who have liked the page to see how Link To Life is helping the community in raising awareness for cancer. Ultimately, it can noticed that several public relations activities may be linked in order to reach out to a greater number of people.

Stacey x

It’s all about learning and that is exactly what I strive for.

Why, hello!

I have completed exactly five days of internship, and I thought a little update would be nice. In this blog, I’ll talk about public relations and working in a not-for-profit organisation as an intern.

I realised I haven’t explained much about Link to Life and what it does an organisation. Link to Life is not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation that provides support and counseling to cancer patients and their families. They have been doing great things in terms of counseling, cancer screenings, awareness campaigns, and offering outstanding help to cancer patients in general. More details on their work can be found at their official website.

Now onto the most important part of this second blog: What is it like working for a not-for-profit organisation? That was definitely something I didn’t know, but it is now something I definitely know. If there’s one thing I found out during those first seven days, it’s that when it is calm, it is very calm, and when it is fast-paced, it is very fast-paced. But generally, there is always something to do, and always someone to help. Working for a not-for-profit organisation makes you a jack-of-all-trades. One minute you’re working on a brochure design and the next you’re making phone calls about the clients’ upcoming appointment. I’ve had to take calls about things I did not necessarily know about, in a language I do not necessarily master, but it’s all about learning more and that is exactly what I strive for.

The thing with not-for-profit organisations is that they do not necessarily have enough funds to prioritize public relations. This is probably why I’ve been told a couple times that they don’t know much about social media, events or editorial, and that it’s always helpful to have someone take care of some of their public relations work. I somewhat felt proud, as a not-yet-graduate, to be asked advice on their upcoming projects. The counselor, Emmanuel, and I met up last Wednesday to talk about the posters he had designed for promoting his therapy sessions at Link to Life and what could be improved. We also talked about upcoming workshops that he plans on organising in April and how he could promote the event. It’s especially in moments like this that you realise just how much is being learnt at university and how to apply everything in real life situations.

I am glad to see how our lectures, workshops and seminars are helping a lot during this internship. We will see how the rest of the week pans out and hopefully I will be posting another blog this weekend.

Have a good night,

Stacey x

So far I'm loving every minute of it.

Before I applied for a placement in a dozen of places, I asked myself what I expected from this internship and how best I could turn my expectations into reality. My first thought was that since this was an unpaid internship required by Curtin, I might as well apply to places where I could help and where I could learn – both professionally and personally. 

When Link to Life called regarding my application, I was ecstatic. I met up with the project manager, Selvina, the next day to talk about how I could help them with my public relations skills and knowledge, and also how they could help me in making my internship experience one I would remember. Selvina and I discussed mostly about the organisation – what they are currently doing and what they want to be doing in the future. After our meeting, I was extremely motivated to work at Link to Life. Later on, we agreed that I would start on Wednesday, February 18^th.

On my way to my first day of internship, I had a lot of apprehension with regards to the work that I would be doing, and the people that I would be working with. I suppose it is only normal for one to be a little nervous on their first day – personally, I find it fuels my motivation to work to the best of my abilities. When I arrived, I was officially introduced to the Link to Life team and we immediately went into business mode. For this first day, I worked with Cindy (Assistant Project Manager) and helped with filling in appointment forms and client details for breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings.

Later in the afternoon, Selvina and I talked about a brochure they wanted to put out in the upcoming months. They wanted me to draft and design a brochure on breast self-examination for the prevention of breast cancer and that was how I was assigned my first big job. If there’s one thing I like, it’s being responsible for things. So, saying I was thrilled would be an understatement. I immediately started gathering up ideas for the brochure. Throughout the day I kept thinking, “Thank God, I learned how to use desktop publishing softwares back when we did Public Relations Techniques 220!” because those skills are certainly helping at the moment.

So far, the internship is starting out pretty well and I’m loving every minute of it. Most of all, I’m looking forward to how these brochures will turn out, and all the other work I will get to do during the next few weeks.

Stacey x

Knowing Your Organisation on a Deeper Level

Hello everyone!

I’m Debbie Goh from Curtin University in Bentley, WA. This is the first week of my part-time internship at Identitywa, a not-for-profit organisation. While I have worked at Identitywa as a volunteer in 2012, I decided to work as an intern this semester to focus on the public relations aspect of the organisation.

Before anything else, let me briefly explain what Identitywa is all about. Identitywa is a not-for-profit organisation that provides support and services for people with disability. The organisation began in 1977 and is one of Western Australia’s leading agencies in this area. Their services mainly focus on supporting the needs of their clients in terms of future planning, finding a home and work alternative. However, Identitywa also makes it a point to attend to the desires of their clients, such as areas in seeking friends and community connections, developing skills for life, and family well-being.

Identitywa’s Communications Manager, Ms Tania Clarke provided me with some materials to have an idea about the organisation, and raised a few tasks that needed attention. The tasks for the week included drafting a few media releases and managing social media content. The organisation is currently implementing a new Strategic Plan from 2013 to 2016, and the public relations and communication area of this plan will have to be on the ball at all times. So, this is great timing for an opportunity to expand my learning horizons in terms of public relations work.

Before I began my placement, I realised two things that I needed to attend to in order to make the most of this opportunity. Firstly, I needed to dispel the I-am-only-a-student mentality. If I want to be ready for work, I have to be mentally ready as well. Secondly, in order to maximise my learning curve with the opportunity of a placement, I had to maximise my abilities as an intern in this organisation. By being capable of completing various tasks, I will be able to learn more, and thus gain more experience. But I was unsure of how I could be as capable as I intended to be. However, I found out the answer to that pretty quickly during my first week.

During the first week of my placement, I had quite a bit of time on my hands, so I felt that the extra time could be used to develop something bigger for the company. So I used that time to get to know the organisation a little more, in hopes that I will be able to provide some kind of input that will be useful in future. The research gave me insight to draft media releases while keeping in mind the organisation’s values, vision and mission. This helped me identify the purpose of the media release. I also came to know about ethics, codes and conventions when drafting media releases related to intellectual disability. I could go on forever about the benefits of research and how is so important, especially in the beginning, but I will summarise it to:

• you understand the organisation better, and therefore you will be in sync with their values, vision and mission
• you will be able to work with increased efficiency
• reduced risk of making mistakes related to areas such as ethics, codes and conventions

Overall, a thorough research in the beginning enables one to be contribute valuable and quality input for the organisation.

My manager was pleased with what I've come up with, which I found encouraging for me to keep giving my best. Before I began my work, my father told me to give my best wherever and for whoever I am working for. He told me, "if you are earning $1, make sure you put in a $3 effort!"

In this week alone, I learnt about the organisation and the importance of knowing the organisation/company I am working for. In the next few months, I can only imagine how much more I can learn. I'm really looking forward to the next few months of my placement!

I hope you all enjoyed reading my post. Stay tuned for my next post!

Regards,
Debbie Goh
15007119
Curtin Bentley