I started as a Marketing Intern at the Erie County Botanical Gardens on August 29th. I was very excited before I even started because I grew up going to the Botanical Gardens with my grandma and sister. Everyone there is very kind and welcoming, especially my supervisor Erin who is the Associate Vice President of Marketing and Visitor Experience. The first day was really relaxed as we did introductions and went on a tour of the Gardens. The tour gave me a different perspective because I got to see all of the behind the scenes stuff that goes on there. After the tour, Erin set me up in the conference room with a laptop and an 8 page long list. The list included all of the activities going on at the Gardens up until December. It was my job to go on free websites and add these events to their calendars. I did this tedious task for a total of about 12 hours. However, I didn’t mind doing it that much because I got to learn in detail about all of the events and activities that go on there.
This past Friday I got to work on Press Releases. Erin asked me when the last time was that I worked on a press release and honestly it’s been well over a year. She sent me off to try my hand at it, so back I went to the conference room. There was a file full of sample press releases and she gave me ideas of what to write about. I used the template and after an hour, I had what I thought was a great press release. I printed it out and handed it to Erin and waited excitedly for her response. She read the first paragraph and said “The first paragraph is fabulous,” but then she grabbed her marker. She nicely wrote all over it and moved her chair over to tell me what she changed and why. A lot of what she changed was stuff about plants which is cool because I wouldn’t have known that. After I fixed it and it was deemed “amazing” I worked on a couple more. I printed the next one out about the Medicinal Garden and the Mum Show and again the marker came out. “I don’t want you to think I’m ripping you apart” she said “because this is good and you wouldn’t necessarily know this stuff.” What she said made me feel better because it’s always a little crushing knowing you did something to the best of your ability and having it not meet expectations. This time however, Erin asked me to speak with the Horticulture Specialist Kristen, and ask some questions about the Mum Exhibit so I could better understand the flower terminology. Like everybody else, Kristen was very helpful and provided me with a lot of information about Mums that I could add to my press release. After I added that information, that press release was deemed “much better” and I was finished for the day. In fact I went about 15 minutes over my time but I wanted to make sure I delivered it to her because it had to be sent out that day.
It took me 4 hours to write 2 press releases, each shorter than a page. While at first I was a little bummed, I realized that it was pretty awesome I got to do that. I honestly didn’t even think I would be given the opportunity necessarily to be told “Okay, give it a shot.” While my skills are still pretty rusty, it was really nice practice for me to get to dive right into a project like that. I hope next week brings more press releases my way.
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