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

Goodbye and good luck!

Well the semester is wrapping up and along with it, the PR 393 unit....after letting out a big sigh of relief to get the report finished, I started reflecting on the unit and just how valuable it really has been.

I am really glad that it is compulsory for PR students to complete work experience, I can say for myself that it does build confidence and improve skills before entering the workforce.

I have been at Scitech for close to five months now and in that time I have settled into a public relations role and the highs and lows that come with it. From extremely busy days when the phone doesn't stop ringing to days where you get to meet incredible people - one of my highlights during my time at Scitech was interviewing a PMH volunteer for a Scitalk story. This lady was so incredibly inspirational with the work she does helping kids in oncology wards keep up with school work, it really made my week!

Its also great to read that other students have secured paid positions at their organisations and I am happy to announce that I also have secured a position at Scitech and will be working there 2-3 days a week.

Good luck to everyone for their future endeavours and have a great semester break!

Charlotte

Bentley Campus

PS. I also hope you all get to relax a little bit before exams... Scitech had the launch for their new feature exhibition, Whodunit? tonight which I highly recommend for people who want to take a break from study and have some fun!

The media guide…surely there’s an easier way?

When filling out the intern update form I was struggling to think of a task that I really don’t enjoy and then I got it…media lists. Such a tedious task, yet necessary and vital to a media relations role.

As part of my internship at Scitech, I am required to regularly update the media book, which is in a Word Excel document and consists of metro and regional print, radio and television outlets.

The most important information that is used frequently is the name of the organisation, the office address, postal address, first point of contact, staff names (specifically the Chief of Staff, Manager and journalists) and contact numbers. So all these components of information need to be found easily through the internet, media guides, or other sources.

Scitech currently subscribes to 'Margaret Gee's Australian Media Guide', a quarterly publication consisting of contact and general information for a wide range of media outlets from all across Australia. I had heard about this publication during previous PR units and had always thought that it was the best source…until now.

Even though it is probably the best available, it still has some flaws, which to someone having to use it every day, become very evident…

1. The Media Guide is not free.
2. As a quarterly publication it does not give the most up-to-date information. Office location, postal address and first point of contact usually stay the same over time but journalists and staff are continuously changing, and it is important for PR practitioners to be aware of these changes.

For example, just last week I had an altercation with out-of-date information. There are two newspapers in the X region, the ‘Y News’ and ‘Z Echo’ (sorry for the vagueness!), and recently a reporter contacted me asking for pictures for an exclusive story. We had it this journo’s name under ‘Y News’ in our media book and therefore sent the pictures to her email address at that outlet. The next day she contacted me expressing that she had not yet received the pictures and when I asked her to again confirm her media outlet, I realised that she had switched outlets to ‘Z Echo’ – an update that had not yet made it on to the Margaret Gee Media Guide. So not only did we (most likely) annoy the journo by not sending the requested information asap but we practically gave their direct competition their exclusive story on a platter…not good!

As well as being available in print format, Margaret Gee’s Media Guide is also accessible on a website however, this contact information is also not updated regularly on a bi-weekly or monthly basis.

So I guess the point I’m trying to make is, couldn’t there be a better way of storing media information and making it accessible to the public?

Charlotte

Bentley Campus

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines

Hello everyone,

It has been a while since my last blog so I thought I would give you a quick update on my internship at Scitech…

I have now been at Scitech for close to six months and during that time my level of involvement in PR tasks has certainly increased from the basic media book updating and media monitoring to overlooking projects and generating publicity for whole departments.

Recently my supervisor went on a two-week holiday and during her absence I was approached by the Scitech CEO with the task of gaining publicity (specifically an interview with ABC radio) for a project run by Scitech in collaboration with Rio Tinto. This was definitely a task that my supervisor would normally handle so at first I was a little overwhelmed but then realised it was a great opportunity to have a first hand insight into what my supervisor’s job entails.

The Scitech and Rio Tinto project called ‘Beijing Bound’ is a year long process, which involves regional high school students partnering up with Rio Tinto research supervisors, to create their own science research project. The projects are judged and the students who claim the top two spots are flown to Beijing with their Rio Tinto supervisor, to take part in the international Beijing Youth Science Creation Competition.

So after doing a bit of research on the project and talking to various Scitech staff involved, I wrote up a media release and sent it to the media contacts at ABC North West, as both the students chosen for the Beijing trip were from the Karratha region. The next morning at 9am I received a call from the morning show producer at ABC North West, wanting to do an interview with both the students in half an hour.

A bit frazzled from only just waking up (as it was my day off from Scitech), I realised that it was still a school day and both the students would be in class so getting them ready for an on-air interview in less than half an hour would be problematic…

After a stressful few minutes of trying to convince the school receptionist that this was important enough to pull the students out of class, and that I needed the science teacher to call me asap, the receptionist finally promised that she would pass the message on. Getting close to the deadline given to me by the ABC producer, I finally got in contact with the science teacher, explained what the interview would be about and organised for the students to be let out of class.

The interview lasted about seven minutes and despite the frantic organising beforehand, it went off without a hitch. Initially I wasn’t too sure how happy the ABC producer was with me about the interview being set up very close to the deadline but in the following two weeks she conducted another two interviews with the students (and Scitech staff who accompanied them to Beijing) so I realised that close deadlines are just part of a producer’s job and nothing more.

There were a few instances similar to this whilst my supervisor was away which confirmed two important things about media relations and how they will affect me if I choose this as my career:

• Even though media relations is all about deadlines it doesn’t necessarily mean stress – I just have to be more organised!

Gaining publicity for regional activities (tours, school visits, etc) is my number one priority and these are all activities which I can easily be made aware of prior to the event and therefore get well underway on before the deadline.

However, when it comes to impromptu tasks (like the media requesting an interview, information or pictures) I need to prepare for anything that may be thrown at me. For the above case, I could have talked to the school and science teacher before contacting ABC North West to get a direct contact number and to make them aware that an interview may be conducted with the students at any time.

In terms of other tasks, I am now taking home any relevant information with me on a USB stick, so if I am contacted by media whilst out of the office, I can still send them any info or pictures that they require.

• The first point of contact needs to be available 24/7

My mobile is definitely not ‘attached to my hip’ - I don’t take it everywhere and if I do, it is usually on silent and in my bag. Since putting myself (instead of my supervisor) as first point of contact on all of my media releases, I have been more aware of having my phone on me at all times and have had to let go of the ‘if you don’t know the number, don’t pick up’ way of thinking.

So despite having occasionally felt like I was being ‘thrown in the deep end’, achieving the assigned tasks has been extremely rewarding. Although there have been a few mishaps along the way, these all add to the experience and are necessary for me to be aware of in order to improve and prepare for the next task.

I hope everyone’s finding their internship to be very rewarding too and that the looming final report deadline isn’t causing too much stress!

Charlotte

Bentley Campus

GGF Gala- Beautiful ending of my internship

Finally GGF's Gala Event comes to an end, and so has my internship placement.

Firstly the Gala Event was a success, there were around 385 corporates who attended the event and the overall presentation of the event itself was sensational.

On the event night, staff and volunteers had to come early to prepare for a quick staf briefing at 5pm, I was the Choir Manager who was in charge of the Methodist Ladies' College (MLC) at I had to direct the 60 choir students to a preparation room for them to rehearse and warm up.

Every single GGF committee members and the Board of Directors were all dressed up nicely to attend the event. It was a lovely evening with all the glamours clothing and delicious dishes with also eyecandy performances by Australian Idol Star, Paulini and many ariel performances.

Crisis like sound system wasnt working properly when Paulini and the MLC choir were running trial shots of their duet piece, the staff who was in charge of the stage setting wasnt sure what he was doing....of course it irritated Paulini and the others because of the limited time for rehearsal.

Because of this the whole scheduel had to push back 30minutes to conduct the rehearsal and to fix the sound/microphone connection. Everything went on smoothly after that little incident, and everyone enjoyed their time at GGF's Gala.

I was suprised that the table decorations and the gift bags were all put up nicely and most of all I get to witness the all of the hard work myself and the other interns have put in to for this event.

Being this my first corporate event, I was rather excited than nervous. I couldnt wait to go into the ball room where all the action will be taking place that night to get a full scan of the whole decorations.

I admire our chairman, Tenille and also the GGF Committee members who were in charge of events management for the Gala. It has really opened up my eyes to events management for corporate functions, making me want to quickly go in to the industry and start PR event projects.

* Thank you Tenille and Tiffany, I have enjoyed my time being a part of the GGF Family.

* Thank you to the down-to-earth interns, Joyce, Zahirah, Ciara and Kelly, you have made my placement even more interesting.

BEST OF LUCK IN THE FUTURE

Love Bec

Job security in the not for profit sector

As most of us are nearing the end of our degree I thought I would comment on what I have found in doing my placement in a not for profit company. Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) we have lost a few of our major sponsors and as our major funding contract has been reviewed by the government and we are only being given half of the funding of previous years, the company has been making significant cut backs in the staffing department. In the last 2-3 months that I have been at the organisation, about 15 people Australia wide (which equates at around half the staff) have been asked to leave, and have with only a weeks’ notice. From what I understand of the organisations operations and the way it has been running over the last few years, there was an excessive amount of employees for the amount of revenue they were bringing in so this is understandable why this would happen in these circumstances.

It was the way these people were let go that made me unsure whether there is enough security in the not for profit sector which made me question if I would be comfortable working in the industry. Most of the employees are on a contractual basis and therefore were let go without much warning. I’ve seen this become a worry to remaining employees who have started looking for alternative employment as they do not feel secure in their positions. Because of this I don’t believe the situation was handled very well as now not many employees have much trust in their employer. I think if they were kept in the loop and given some warning that this could be happening in the coming months, it would have not been such a shock when so many people started to leave.

Although all these redundancies have happened, there has been no one out of the PR department that has left. While some ways I think this is a good decision, it’s confusing as to why they have done this when they have laid off the entire business development department who are the ones who brought the sponsorship money into the company. It will be interesting how the PR department now have to change the way they operate as they will not have as much money to spend on campaigns and will have to really get back into the foundations of PR by getting coverage and increasing awareness for close to zero money.

Over the next few years I believe PR in the organisation is going to be rather challenging with the insecurity of their positions and little funds to work with, but hopefully the team will be able to keep the company going strongly and maintaining support.

I’d love to hear from anyone else doing their prac in the not for profit sector who have had similar of different experiences.

My Internship at two organizations

Hi everyone,

I am Christy from Curtin University of Tecnology, Miri campus. This is my first entry for PR 393 blog. Now, I am going to share with you all about my experiences gained when doing my internship in two organisations which are Kim Teck Cheong and Miri Kaying Association.

I had my first internship at Kim Teck Cheong (KTC) during my one month semester break. It is located in Kota Kinabalu which is my hometown. KTC is a distributor for about 12 companies throughout Malaysia. To name a few including Proctor and Gamble, Dutch Lady, and Alliance Cosmetics. Miri Kaying Association is the placement that i recently working for. It is a not for profit organisation which serves the welfare to its members. Moreover, it is a Hakka dialect association.

However, I will be more focus on the placement that I recently working for which is Miri Kaying Association. During my first week of the training, there was an interactive session whereby all the committee of the association and members which is made up by community have an informal way of interacting with each other. Well, I must say that I love the session so much. Besides that, it is a great opportunity for me as a new member to know each other in the fastest way. The aims of the session are to gather all Hakka members and to maintain the traditional Hakka spirits of friendly or should i say hospitable?

During the session, committee pointed out some of the issue that the association is facing now which including lack of younger generation membership . Then the rest of the committees and members shared their opinion in an attempts to tackle the problems. Perhaps, it is a way for me to get a better understanding regarding the internal, and external environment of the association.

Before I joined Kaying Association, there is another ongoing preparation for the upcoming event which is "Primary School Mathematic Competition". The event will be organized in September 12, 2009. Besides, I was being assigned to work with Public Relations Director, Mr Hiu in organising the Mid-autumn festival at Boulevard Restaurant which is falls on 25th of September, 2009. I was excited upon heard that I can participate in the event. It is a way for me to show my creative and ability to run the event well.

Indeed, both of the members here are friendly and helpful, and I actually looking forward to create a sparkle in working as a team with them in the upcoming event. Alright, I think I have said enough for this time, I will include some flashback regarding my first internship in the next post.

Cheers,

Christy