Alexandra Woods Internship Portfolio

Throughout my internship, I had many very successful moments and many challenging moments. Challenging moments usually revolved around time management. I would often find myself struggling managing my time as a student and as an intern. Since most of my work was done on my own time instead of in the office, I was challenged when it came to prioritizing my internship work and my schoolwork.

 

Through this I learned so much about time management and prioritization. I also learned that since I often find myself procrastinating work, I need to organize my time in a calendar and give myself soft and hard dead
lines. Once I learned to set deadlines for myself, I was able to manage my time a lot better and prioritize things by level of importance. Another challenge that I faced was thinking quickly on my feet when something needed to change. There were times when I needed to quickly be able to shift gears and think of something that can fix or change a certain situation.

These challenges have affected my career goals by making me realize how much I do want to go into social media coordination or event planning. These challenges that I faced helped me learn, they were not a deterrent from the career path that I am hoping to follow. Learning how to set deadlines and goals will only help me even more when pursuing a career in event planning or social media coordination because now I know how to appropriately prioritize work and get things done in a timely manner without feeling stressed or crunched for time. Learning how to not freak out in a quickly changing situation has prepared me for this in the future in any career that I choose.

The one skill I was hoping to gain in this internship was how to be prepared for things changing or an emergent situation. As mentioned above, I have definitely gotten a lot better in these kinds of situations. I mentioned in my first journal entry that I didn’t have much experience with crisis management, but I think in any internship or job you are going to be put in a situation that is going to require you to think quickly and be able to adapt to change.

I achieved the goals that I set in my performance evaluation. The majority of my goals were strengthening my weaknesses, which I definitely was through being put into those uncomfortable situations. I also set goals of doing research for Illyria and creating social media buzz, so that Illyria had a larger following. I created the potential for research for Illyria through creating a survey about new programs that they can offer. I also created a social media campaign and contest that encouraged people to come to events and support Illyria.

I feel I was mentored extraordinarily through my internship. I have worked with Chris Klinger in the Longwood University Box Office for the four years I have been at Longwood and while I was interning for Illyria, I was also able to gain experience through events and social media for Longwood Box Office. Through this I think I got to combine two very different worlds into one. Interning for a non-profit is very different from working for a higher education institute. Through this experience, Chris and I met multiple times a week to talk about things I can be doing and things that I want to achieve that week. He was always sure that I was not over worked and that I was able to complete tasks in a timely manner.

I would encourage anyone and everyone to work for this organization through an internship in the future. Everyday of work is different and every task you are given will give you a different sense of satisfaction when it is complete. If anyone is interested in a non-profit, I would encourage it to no end because one of the most difficult parts of my job was to create connections with other non-profit organizations, but it is one of the things I loved the most. It made me so comfortable going to people and talking about an organization that I love and it was a huge joy when I convinced others to love it as well.

Work Samples: 

1. In order to give Illyria the option to conduct research, I created the basics of a survey that they could easily send out in order to find out if the Farmville community might be interested in having a children’s theatre camp program at some point in the future.  The document attached was sent to my supervisor, Chris Klinger, and the first questions were what I needed to know in order to create survey questions that would be useful for them.

Illyria Theatre Company Survey:

Questions for you

  • Are we asking strictly about certain programs that y’all might want to start?
  • Are we researching solely for the purpose of the children’s program?
  • Would you be interested in not having a children’s program, but maybe a week long summer camp or something similar?
  • Who do you want me to send the surveys out to?
  • What would be the age range for the children’s program?
  • Do you know what you want to offer in the children’s program?

Sample questions:

  • Have you heard of Illyria Theatre Company?
    • Yes
    • No
    • Maybe
  • How did you hear about Illyria Theatre Company?
    • Friend
    • Family
    • Social Media
    • Radio
    • Online
    • Other ________________
  • Would you be interested in signing your child/children up for a children’s theatre program through Illyria?
    • Yes
    • No
    • It depends what it offers
    • It depends what the price is
  • Would you like your child to learn music through a program like this?
    • Yes
    • I don’t care
    • I wouldn’t sign my child up if there wasn’t music offered
  • What is the most you would pay for a program like this?
    • $75-$100
    • $100-$150
    • $150-$200
    • $200+
  • What would be the best time frame in order for your children to participate?
    • 8am-12pm
    • 12pm-4pm
    • 4pm-8pm
  • What time of year would be best for your child’s schedule
    • School Year
    • Summer
    • Winter Break
    • Spring Break

2.  This work I do not have a physical copy of anything.  This semester, Illyria Theatre Company has been partnering with Southside SPCA.  In June, Illyria Theatre Company will be performing the show Cafe Murder at the Virginia Tasting Cellar.  Along with assisting in planning the event and speaking with partners, it was my job to search endlessly for a murder mystery play that somehow involved animals.  For two weeks, this was my job whenever I worked.  The Southside SPCA had a vision and that vision was a murder mystery involving animals, which is apparently very difficult to find.  I had to search every publishing site I could find, every unpublished script I could find at every corner of the internet.  I would spend two hours a day searching as hard as I could and unfortunately came up with nothing.  So, we found Cafe Murder instead and Southside SPCA was very happy with it.

3.  Selling advertisements was a huge part of my job.  Almost every week, I would spend a couple of hours going to local businesses to try and sell advertisements for our upcoming shows and to gain support from the Farmville community in general.  I quickly realized how difficult selling advertisements is because of the amount of rejection you get.  My process of selling advertisements was just going door to door, so that I could explain what Illyria Theatre Company was and what their business would be supporting.  My biggest success in this was selling a full page advertisement, which is the most expensive, to Dr. Kendrick at Farmville Chiropractic.

4. This work I do not have a physical copy of anything.  Another very big part of my job was to connect with other local non-profits, which I really enjoyed because in a way it was a lot like selling advertisements.  In order to partner with other non-profits, since Illyria is a relatively new non-profit they needed to make those connections and maintain a relationship.  In order to do this, I had to go visit other organizations and talk to them about the potential of partnering on shows in the future.  It was my job to contact the organizations, set up times that I could come in, and go and get the mission of Illyria across to them.  I explained to each organization that partnering means that a percentage of all ticket sales of whatever event will go back to that organization for fundraising.  Through this, Illyria has made lasting connections with Southside SPCA, Piedmont Senior Resources Area Agency on Aging, Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross, and many others.

5.  I was also in charge of generating ticket sales, which was also a way I connected with other non profits and the Farmville community.  Below is an example of a similar form that I used in order to get other non profits to help sell tickets to events.  This was a contract between Illyria and the non profit organization in order to hold them accountable for the amount of tickets they wished to sell in case any were unaccounted for.

6.  While working my internship, I was also in the PR Campaigns class where my team and I developed an event for COPES, a non-profit for the awareness of suicide prevention.  Being the intern at Illyria, I thought this would be another great way to make another connection between non-profits in Farmville.  So my team and I developed an event centered around two plays that Illyria agreed to put on.  After speaking to Chris Klinger, we were able to completely commit Illyria to partnering with COPES, so Illyria would get a percentage of ticket sales as well.  It would be an event featuring both COPES and Illyria and it was focused on fundraising for each.  My supervisor, Chris Klinger, helped me plan the Illyria Theatre Company aspect, so that it would be as doable as possible.

Event Review: 

We will be putting on an event for COPES in September for suicide prevention awareness month.  We will be partnering with a local Farmville non-profit theatre company, Illyria Theatre Company to put on two short one act plays centered around the topic of suicide. After the one act plays we will host a discussion/talk back with the actors and creative team for the plays to create a dialogue about suicide prevention.   

Partnership with Illyria Theatre Company:

  • We will be partnering with Illyria Theatre Company to put on two short one act plays and will be hosting a discussion/ talk back after the shows.  
  • Partnering with this non-profit theatre company means that part of ticket sales will go to Illyria
  • We will be selling tickets for $7 for students and $10 for non-students and Illyria will receive $3 of every ticket sale
  • Illyria Theatre Company will direct and cast the two plays

Partnership with Greek Life & Other Campus Organizations:

  • We will be working with Longwood’s Fraternity and Sorority Life to get help sponsor this event.
  • As part of their participation it will be required that a percentage of all campus Greek organizations will be required to attend.  
  • Greek students will not be required to pay for tickets since the office is covering part of the payment.
  • Other campus organizations like LGBTQ+ and Promise 16
  • Offices like CAPS at Longwood as well as reach out to HSC

Seven surrounding counties:

  • We are brainstorming ideas on reaching out to the counties that COPES covers including: marketing in local high schools
  • Providing rides using Longwood’s busses to those who can’t or don’t want to drive

Fundraising:

  • Part of the ticket sales will go straight to COPES
  • We will be doing raffles for both prizes and a 50/50 raffle at the beginning of the play as people are walking in. We will ask local businesses for donations of items to put in the baskets. The 50/50 raffle will help us make a donation to both Illyria and the other half will go to COPES.
  • Selling advertisements for the programs

Overall, my internship was a lot of going out and talking to people rather than working in an office.  All other social media work and research developed and campaigns were created on my own time as long as I met all of my deadlines.  I loved this internship because of how much I got to talk to people about this organization that I had fallen in love with.

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