Monday
On Monday, when I came into Mareel, I got taken to the Marketing office. I then got setup onto Tessa’s Mac. After, Tessa gave me a tour of Mareel while explaining what I would be doing here and what she does in Mareel. I came back and met Tara, who also works in marketing, and she told me about her role. Before I attended a Marketing Meeting, I started working on my task for the week. The task is a competitor analysis where I had to research 3 organisations similar to Shetland Arts, look at their social media, compare it to ours, and suggest anything we could change. I then had a Marketing Meeting and a Cinema Meeting I had to attend. I was shown how we organise and arrange the films every week. I then got introduced to another member of the marketing team, Adam, and he introduced me to his role. We then took down the impact display and replaced it with one from Eric Gray for learning disability week. I finished the day by filling in a spreadsheet with ideas people shared with us for our organisation.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, I started the day by updating the social media. I made posts about upcoming films and events, and even some special ones like giving away a cardboard cutout of Stitch. That post did very well, with almost 200 people commenting to try and win the cutout. I also uploaded a blog made by a former student, Daisy, about her time in Wales.
After lunch, I was shown how to update the weekly firm email by Tessa. With that, I also wrote the weekly SIBC advert. I was quite proud of it. We didn’t end up recording the advert until Thursday. The email took me quite a while, and after it was done, I only had a little bit of time before I had to go home. So, I just finished up the day by working on my competitor analysis.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, it was staff training day. This meant that I got to start slightly later (at 9:30 that is) so that’s always nice. We started the day by having an all-staff discussion about budgets and costs. I didn't participate in any of the conversations, however I understood and could have mentioned things if I really wanted to. It was very good experience to see a meeting / discussion like this as they will probably happen in any job I decide to go into.
After lunch, and a break, we went back into the auditorium to hear lots of new staff (some older staff who had changed jobs) talk about their roles and what they will do for the company.
After another very short 5-minute break, we had to do some fire drills! All the staff had to hide around the building acting as customers, and then the others, roleplaying as staff, had to find us and make us evacuate. We did this twice and it went quite successfully.
After that, we still had some time left, so we decided to do a scavenger hunt. This was a great team building exercise! But unfortunately, I would be leaving in 2 more days! It was still nice to meet some more staff though. After it was finished, and sadly we didn’t win, it was time to go home.
Thursday
On Thursday, I started up by updating the social media again for more films and events coming up. It started to feel more natural now and I felt like a real employee! After that I started work on this blog. That took me up to lunch time.
After lunch, I watched Mark Spalding’s piano recital that I had been advertising on social media. I found it quite entertaining. And then after, I finally managed to record the SIBC advert with Tara and Tim that I had been working on since Tuesday. I found it really fun seeing how the adverts were actually recorded! And it was cool to see how Tim turned it into a proper advert from just a couple of voice lines.
After that I just did a few jobs here and there. Adam taught me how the printer worked and we printed lots of booklets to put on tables for the film quiz night happening later on that day. We helped a bit more with the film quiz to finish up the day. He also showed me how the cinema works, how the projectors work, how the films + adverts are managed and all other things like that. It was very interesting as it is something I always looked at and wondered "how does that work?". After we just did a few odd bits and pieces here and there before going home.
Friday
On Friday, I came into Mareel, and I was sad that it was my last day! I immediately started work on my blog again and managed to finish it! I then finished my competitor analysis and presented it to Tessa a bit later.
To finish up the day, I updated the social media with pictures that Tara had sent to me Yesterday. We also picked out some winners for a Lilo and Stitch giveaway we uploaded to socials earlier. I was then ready to go home, a bit earlier than usual because it’s a Friday. I felt sad that I saw leaving but was happy with everything that I accomplished!
Overall I really enjoyed my time at Mareel. I never knew how much time the Marketing team put into everything to make Mareel (and Shetland Arts as a whole) run so smoothly! I am so grateful that they allowed me to do so much amazing things like recording an SIBC advert, uploading to social media, or even something as simple as learning how the printer worked!
I want to say thank you to Tara, Tessa, Adam and everyone else that worked with me at my time here. It has been really fun, and I would love to return, doing something here, in the future!
