The Final Update

Hello PR393's

There is only two weeks left of my internship at Magenta which i will be spending in a fulltime role as Office and Admin Co-ordinator. Renee who's role it is will be away for the next two weeks so my Boss thought it would be a good learning experience to try and take on Renee's job. I was hesitant at first because i had no experience in a reception or office co-ordination role but my understanding of the team, clients and the day to day runnings at Magenta gave me confidence that i could excel at the role.

The two weeks proved extremely busy and it was a hectic juggling act between working fulltime, still fulfilling my tasks as part of my PR role in the company and completing my other university studies, but i am alot richer thanks to the experience.

Time management - The number one skill i learnt during my whole internship but particularly during these two weeks. I found this article which i thought was very relevant and a great reference to my current situation. CLICK HERE

So with reference to the tips the article gave me i started my day by writing a list of the tasks i needed to have completed by 5pm (Hopefully). A mental list isnt good enough, write a HARD COPY! i cant tell you how good the personal gratification gained from being able to violently cross off tasks you have completed is. It also shows you are getting things done!

I often also felt overwhelmed when sitting on reception, i would be suddenly bombarded with requests from the PR team for support while still answering phone calls and carrying out general office duties. Theres is where tip #2 comes into play, prioritise, prioritise, prioritise. When given a task that wasnt on my list at the start of the day i used to look at the importance of the task and the deadline given to me, i would then calculate how quickly i needed to attend to it. I would crack down on the assignments that had hard deadlines and order the other tasks accordingly.

A PR report that you are given 4 weeks to compile at University needs to be compiled over night in the real world. Everything has a deadline and all projects are time sensitive and when you dont deliver it is the client who pays for it.

One of my jobs as office co-ordinator was to construct and amend the weekly agenda and action plan. Every Tuesday morning the whole team would have a meeting and we would go through this weekly agenda. The agenda detailed the Client, the action (task), the person responsible and the deadline. I would seek feedback from the meeting and update the agenda accordingly. The weekly agenda acted as the road map of tasks that needed to be completed for the week, i thought it was extremely effective having a visual calender outlining each persons roles. It also made it simple for me when people would ring enquiring about certain clients or campaigns to know which PR officer was dealing with which clients and i could put the caller through to the correct person.

On my final day at Magenta one of our Melbourne clients was hosting a Fundraising Soiree, the team had been working hard on planning the event and locking in media coverage leading up to the event over the period of my internship. As one of my roles on reception, i was checking and updating the RSVP spreadsheet daily and was also responsible for liasing with the clients Marketting Manager regarding extra invites that needed to be sent out and following up RSVP's.

  (Images from event, Ambassador Jodi Gordon, DJ Didier Cohen, Cheese and Champagne table)

I have since completed my internship at Magenta and cannot explain how invaluable my experience was. I learnt more on a practical level than i have during my degree, but found the theory learnt during my degree was extremely relevant within my role at the consultancy. My intership definitely confirmed that PR is what i want to do once i have completed my degree at the end of this semester.

A huge thank you to the team at Magenta, what an inspiring group of creative individuals!
Goodluck to the rest of the PR393's still completing internships and congratulations to the ones who have finished, im sure you all enjoyed your time in the 'real world' as much as i did.

Tess x

R U OK?

Hey everyone,

Just another blog from me! I'm at Hollywood Private hospital helping out the marketing department and on Thursday 16 September it was R U OK? Day. You may have seen the ads on television with the lovely Hugh Jackman as the spokesperson for it. It is a national event that promotes the prevention and discussion of suicide around Australia. It is a day to remember and ask your colleague, friend or family member "Are you okay?" The idea behind it is to get people talking to one another and to realise that sometimes just one question and some kind support can make the world of difference to someone's life.
On the day, the HR team at the hospital held a sausage sizzle for the staff and sold reusable coffee cups along side for a gold coin donation. I think we managed to raise around $300 for the day.
I offered to take photos for any publications around the hospital they would want them for as I dabble in photography and love any excuse to whip out my fancy new camera.
It was wonderful talking to all of the staff who came down to support the cause and make them do silly poses with the cups for
the photos.
Here are some pics of the R U OK? cups:

Today was also really great as my supervisor told me that if I can write up a media release for her we could try to get some media coverage for it. It is for two nurses who received awards for all of their great service at the hospital. It will be very exciting if something happens with that. I better brush up on my press release skills!

Anyway, I have been having a wonderful time just enjoying the experience of working in their office and really appreciate the amount of work and trust that they give me. I am starting the next edition of the Zing highlights which will be out again next week and am dabbling in a bit of the events side by helping the coordinator sort out poster designs. So overall it has been a good start to the week.

I hope everyone else is going well and good luck with your reports!

All the best,

Kate Millar
13643087

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