Week 3

This week in general has been a little bit slower than my previous weeks. I think this is because I am really settling into my position and the responsibilities that come with it. Of course, I am learning things everyday I am here. But, I am beginning to feel a little bit more confident, and am willing to put forth my ideas when I am included.

For instance, on Monday, I had a meeting with my two supervisors, who are also the communication department here at the Medical Society. We settled ourselves in the board room and they filled me in on the project I would be helping with. This is a big project for the Medical Society, because it deals with their Annual Meeting in October. I will be helping them create a brochure/pamphlet that includes information about the Annual Meeting, their dinner dance that follows, and the registration for both. This is a change from the regular 8-page booklet that they usually use.

After I had been informed of all this, we spent at least a half an hour trying to decide exactly how our tri-folded brochure should be folded. We all sat there with pieces of paper, folding them different ways. We were trying to find a way to fold our brochure so that our registration page could be easily ripped off, without taking valuable information about the event with it. Then we measured for postal regulations, and I was told to create a brochure that would lay all the information out, so we would know how to start putting it together.

The first thing I did was measure and cut paper, and then staple it together like the eventual brochure would look. Then I had to sit back and look over all my information. I had to include a schedule of events, a dinner menu, hotel accommodations, a page for graduates and memoriam, as well as directions and the registration. After I looked at it for awhile, I decided that since it was doctors I was arranging this for, the pertinent information should come first. So the schedule was by itself on one page, then followed the dinner menu, hotel accommodations, and directions on the next page. Because the information would be reprinted in the actual meeting program, I chose to list the graduates and memoriam on the next page, with the registration on the back. That way, when the registration would be filled out, the doctors would not be losing valuable information for the event. They would only loose the graduate and memoriam list, which they would eventually see again.

I accidentally measured my brochure wrong, but it turned out to be a good thing. The brochure is going to be slightly longer now, but that means we can put more information in it. Because there was some concern about the schedule fitting onto one page by itself, I typed out last year's schedule and fit it to the brochure. It fits fairly well actually, and with a little tweaking, will look very good. Even though it isn't a huge accomplishment, I feel very proud of my ideas, mostly because they worked. And while this is the preliminary stage, I am excited to continue because I think that this brochure is a great learning experience.

In addition to this, I feel like my writing has improved a bit from the last two weeks. I feel I am gleaning information from articles more efficiently, and using that information to write an article of my own. Though I am still encouraged to borrow some information directly from the press releases, simply because its succinct enough for a small paragraph, I feel I am becoming more comfortable with it.