THE BIG DAY

Ok, I had never woken up before my alarm clock in my life. This was the first time ever. A whole hour before I was due to get up – I just can’t believe it! The Monday 17 May 2010 arrived. I knew I had half a day off in the afternoon and help from my friend Maria who was acting both as an event assistant and an assistant photographer but even though I thought I had done most of the printing, apparently there was a lot more to do than I expected. All signage, labels and name badges aside (which I prepared on Friday 14 May) I still had to print the final agenda, the CVs of the confirmed students and put together the goodies for the goodie bags. I just don’t know what I would have been doing without Maria. This was the moment I realized that I should never underestimate any offer of help and make use of all offers. No matter how big or small. 

I must admit that in preparation for this event I made use of all the contacts I had made through LMU Corporate Events Officer Ann Willis.

Director of Student Recruitment and International Development Mark Bickerton connected me with the university photographer Steve Blunt who attended the official part of my event. Mark also organised free refreshments and goodie bags for the contest.

Director of Corporate and Community Synergy Pat Wood arranged the publicity for the event at the university itself.

The event was to start at 3PM. I arrived at the auditorium at 2PM and still did not have enough time to prepare. Ann Willis brought lovely purple university logo labeled tablecloths for the judges, so the room looked really nice and very official. All the guests arrived in time except for Antony Poppleton from Phoenix who had contacted me in the morning to inform me about an emergency he had and therefore he could not make it in time for his group presentation but would try and do his best. Hoping that he would arrive soon I made a decision to start the competition without him.

In my opening remarks I welcomed all the guests and announced the agenda. Students briefly introduced themselves followed by the PROs who spoke about their companies, internship terms and presented their briefs. Then the students split into two groups and started working over briefs jointly. As Antony Poppleton had not turned up yet, the students who had prepared his brief for the competition (briefs were emailed to the students at 9AM on Sunday 16 May) had to choose between the two present agencies. One minute into the presentations Antony arrived ever so apologetic. I comforted him saying that emergencies do happen and the fact that I had to deal with one of them at my event only prepared me better for the future. The students' presentations exceeded all expectations: the judges seemed to be totally thrilled by the caliber and level of preparation of the participants. Anna Schirmer of Lansons admitted later at the champagne reception that she found it hard not to be able to jump in the brainstorming session. When the presentations finished, we moved to the reception venue – the Wall Bar. Each of the event participants received a goodie bag containing a copy of the Communicate magazine and London Metropolitan Business School Times, a corporate logo pen from CIPR and LMU, an oyster holder with the LMU logo and flyers with offers from CIPR, LMU and the Wall Bar.

The function room at the Wall Bar was a nice surprise to all the guests. It was spacious enough to accommodate twice as many, had its own terrace, bar and bathrooms. After a group photograph was taken the judges announced their decisions. Lansons offered their internship to Lukasz Gwozdz of London Metropolitan University and offered interviews to all the other three members of the group: Melina Ex and Hubert Miernik of LMU and Menglu Wang of Westminster University. PHA Media chose Oana Jinga of Birmingham City University to be their super intern and offered an interview to Maja Vuckovska. Felicity Stewart of Communicate magazine made a dramatic change to their initial plan and offered a free admission to their next five conferences to all the three of the winners of the contest which was worth over £7,500 in total.

Antony Poppleton then suggested that he was going to invite all the students interested in his company to a brainstorming session in their offices in Leatherhead and a lunch on the house on Thursday 3 June.

As an addition to all the scheduled benefits Felicity invited the students to join their editorial team at the Communicate magazine and I made an announcement about internships available at NACUE (National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs) who had approached me that same morning.

Despite of all the pressure and shortcomings I had to face that day I must admit that I was pleased with the overall event development and happy with the outcome of the contest, which meant that more that three students were the winners.

More photographs can be found on the event Facebook fan page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wanted-Super-Intern/119855904702170?ref=ts.