Matt, Karla and Katie
If I were to say it has been a busy week at
the Canadian Angus headquarters here in Calgary, Alberta, that would be an
understatement. Intern training started Monday morning where I met Karla and
Katie, the summer interns for Saskatchewan and Alberta respectively. We’ve had
a jam-packed week full of staff overviews, summer planning, and development of
workshops and promotional material that we will use throughout the summer. We
worked in the conference room for most of the week, which I think we are going
to rename “The Arctic” because it had to be at least 15 degrees colder than the
rest of the office building. Despite Tina’s many attempts to fix this, it
didn't seem to change much.
I flew into Calgary from Toronto on Sunday
afternoon. Starting Monday morning we had a tour of the office, learned where
everything could be found, and we were introduced to the office staff along the
way. Once we finished going through some logistics, we each set some goals that
we hope to accomplish through our internship this summer. We then had an
overview from Stacy in the Registry Department and Joanelle who is the Office
Administrator.
Tuesday morning brought more brainstorming
about how we could increase the interest in all of our Canadian Junior Angus
programs. We worked alongside the CJAA coordinator Belinda who flew in from Regina
to be with us. We also discussed social media and how each of us could assist
with updating these pages over the summer.
On Wednesday we began developing our
workshops for the summer, particularly those that we are going to be using when
visiting schools. We also discussed radio and print interviews which we may
encounter this summer. We also had a very in-depth meeting with Kajal about
breed development and with Cheryl about the Angus tag program.
Thursday morning we talked a lot about
Cassie and Tina’s jobs in marketing and communications respectively. Michael
also talked to us about the Rancher Endorsed program and the Canadian Angus
Foundation. Additionally we had a two-hour online webinar which outlined some
simple strategies for better event marketing.
Friday was a particularly busy day. Ciara
met with us to discuss her responsibilities in the office, and then we had some
time to work on our schedules for the summer. Next we spoke with
representatives from Canada Beef, Canada Beef Research Council, Canadian Beef
Breeds Council and Alberta Beef. To finish the day we spoke with Rob for a
while and then wished everyone farewell.
The office staff at the Canadian Angus
Association are truly second to none. I think all of us interns agree that they
treated us unbelievably well this week, and we can’t wait to see what the rest
of the summer has in store for us. We want to put a special thank you to Rob
and Michael for treating us to lunch throughout the week and also Cassie and
Tina for working alongside us all week and passing so much of their knowledge
on to us. Us interns are now parting ways; however, we will keep in close
contact over the summer. We look forward to seeing all of our many Angus
friends and youth throughout the summer at events throughout our respective
provinces We hope you get a chance to read our weekly blog posts, and keep up
with our exciting happenings throughout the summer.
Posted by Matt Bates
Feedback: mbates@cdnangus.ca
