On Monday I was welcomed by Helen who gave me a tour of the building – which was far bigger than I thought it was, it took about fifty minutes to see all the rooms. Along the way I was meeting lots of staff who were all very friendly and welcoming. After my tour I went to the office area and learned about marketing with Esther and Jenny which was very interesting to see how much effort and resources go into marketing. I was then in a meeting with Esther, Jenny and Lauren (Head of Marketing). I then had a short meeting with Graeme, the General Manager who was friendly and seemed keen to find out about what I’d like to get out of my work experience and what I’d like to do in the future. After my lunch break I spent the rest of the afternoon with Tim who was very nice and the string sisters recording for their new album which was fun and nice to hear the music.
On Tuesday I spent the morning in FOH which was nice and the staff were lovely, but it was not a new experience for me as I have a waitressing job. In the afternoon I spent time with Tim and the String Sisters in the recording studio again.
On Wednesday I started the day off with cafe bar set up as usual then saw Shane who is the trainee finance officer and he showed me stuff do to giving out wages and invoices etc. I was then in an Ops meeting which was good to see how the staff solve any problems they are having and discussing what is coming up in the near future. After lunch I was in a Programming meeting which was very interesting for me to see how everyone plans the upcoming events, discuss problems they are having with them, proposing ideas for events, evaluating past events and looking at ticket sales.
On Thursday I did cafe bar set up until 10:30 followed by learning about the Admin side of things with Helen. I recording invoices into a database in case they were needed in the future. In the afternoon I worked FOH again which was nice.
On Friday I did the cafe bar set up and then I went to meet with Shaun, a waiter at the cafe bar but is at collage/ university for event management. We spoke about all the things he had done in his first year. It was really interesting and helpful for me to know what it is like to be doing it as a course. I still think I’d really like to study and become an events manager. In the afternoon I have written this blog and went to a coffee class which was really helpful to know how to work the coffee machines.
Overall I have really enjoyed my week here, learned lots of useful things, seen all the different departments behind an organisation like the Mareel and would love to come back here in the future.
