As a PR practitioner, dealing with individuals and groups is
a vital part of the job. When working with clients, practitioners must have
both the verbal and listening skills to discuss and provide assistance for the
client’s communication needs. The communications audit assignment engaged
everyone in the class to improve on those important skills, which is not only
necessary in the PR industry, but also in one’s personal life in general.
The class was dispersed into
groups and were each given a non-profit organization to work with. My group,
which included Angela, Jasmine, Juliana and Nicole, was assigned to work with
the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hamilton (BGCH). Throughout the assignment, Angela
kept in contact with Glenn Harkness, the Executive Director of the BGCH and
Blaze Forgie, the social media coordinator. Glenn wanted to meet with our group
to show us around the Kiwanis Boys and Girls Club, which is the main location
in Hamilton.
On September 22, our group headed
down to Kiwanis and Glenn gave us a tour, while also providing us details about
the services they offer. Some of these services include a creative room/craft
room, games room, computer room/tech center (Raising the Grade), as well as an Ontario
early years room, early learning and child care room, gymnasium and swimming
pool. Some of their sponsors include Coca Cola, Rogers and the Government of
Canada. Coca Cola donates to their active living and healthy eating programs,
while the Government of Canada sponsors their Ontario early years center. For
four years, Rogers has been sponsoring their Raising the Grade technology
centres located in each participating Boys and Girls club, which provides youth
with a designated room containing state-of-the-art computers, high-speed
Internet access and cutting-edge open software to support their learning and
interests.
After the tour, we sat down with
Glenn and discussed communications and media experience that the BGCH had been
through before. An instance of positive publicity they received was when Brian
Melo, a BGCH alumn, won season 5 of Canadian Idol. The city of Hamilton held a
ceremony at the Hamilton Place to celebrate his win. Children from the BGCH
were given VIP seats in the first three rows of the venue because of Melo’s
involvement in the BGCH program when he was a child. Melo credits the BGCH for
helping him become the person he is today. An instance of negative publicity
occurred when journalists questioned the donation from Coca Cola towards the
BGCH’s active living and healthy eating programs. How can the company sponsor
these programs when their products are considered unhealthy? The BGCH were
ready to respond by saying that Coca Cola doesn’t just have soft drink
products, but healthy products as well. Obviously children love the taste of
coke, however, their goal is to promote healthy alternatives. They teach the
children to choose apple juice or orange juice instead of coke.
A week
after, we met with Blaze Forgie, the social media coordinator for the BGCH. He
was a BGCH member ever since he was a kid and is now a Brock University
student. As a group, we asked him questions about some of the main social media
platforms they use, how they communicate with their shareholders and
stakeholders, as well as the times they received positive and negative
feedback. He answered all the questions efficiently and gave us all the
important information we needed. The BGCH use all the major social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. They also use Snapchat, a
growing social media platform with children and teens. Parents mostly use
Facebook to obtain information, while children and teens use Twitter, Instagram
and Snapchat.
After
meeting with both Glenn and Blaze, we came together as a group to analyze our
notes and split the questions. We also created a six-question survey that Blaze
posted on the BGCH Facebook page. Although it didn’t garner as many respondents
as we hoped, we were still able to pull out viable information.
The whole
experience working with the BGCH is one that I will never forget. I asked my
group members how they felt about the assignment as a whole and here’s what
they had to say:
“I loved Glenn, he was super helpful and wonderful to talk
to. It was also great that he took the
time to show us around the place and get us in contact with Blaze. Blaze was
also so nice and super helpful. They were both fast to answer our emails which
made very easy.” – Jasmine
“I really liked how doing this audit was a reflection of
what we would be doing outside of the program and that it was so hands on. I
loved collaborating and just seeing our hard work come together, and in the
end, have something to show the BGCH that will help them.” – Angela
“I really enjoyed how Glenn was so willing to provide us
with information about the club immediately! Right away we could see how passionate
he is about the club. If a director has as much interest in technology and
social media as Glenn does, the organization is going to be constantly evolving
it’s presence in the community online, which will in turn, help them for
offline purposes. My favourite thing about the experience is that we got to go
out to an organization and see what it’s like to interview a client, which
helped me with my internship greatly.” – Nicole
“I really enjoyed working with the Boys and Girls Club of
Hamilton. Glenn and Blaze were both very helpful in conducting our
communications audit. Glenn was very involved in our audit and was excited
about the opportunity to improve their overall communication practices. Blaze
made himself available to meet us and was very knowledgeable on the
organization’s social media platforms. My favourite thing about the whole experience
was being able to put into practice what we have learned in class, which makes
me feel confident in my skills as a future communications professional.” -
Juliana
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