Preparations for the External Communications Team

By Carol Chan

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs

External Communications (Ex.Comm) is a team of 10 Rovers working to bring you updates about our adventures and experiences during our time abroad servicing communities in Malaysia and Singapore.

Earlier this month, Cheryl, the project manager for Ex.Comm, asked me to be a writer for the international service blog. Initially, I thought I would just be writing one or two blogs about my experience, but the entire process turned out to be a lot more complicated than I anticipated. We need to adhere to a detailed blogging schedule, work together with the photograph team and with Cecilia, our daily video blogger (vlogger). Leading up to our departure, I have somehow become a part of one of the most important and exciting teams on this year’s international service project to Malaysia and Singapore. Although it will be challenging to stick to the blogging schedule and create interesting content everyday, I am grateful for the opportunity to improve my writing and communication.

We are constantly prepping for our departure to Malaysia and Singapore. Although we are leaving in less than 48 hours, we have collaborated with the Photography team and Cecilia to simulate how the blogging process might look like when we are aboard. We walked around Downtown Vancouver vlogging, taking photos and simulating how we will be working as a team overseas.

Our first stop was visiting our head advisor and contingent leader, Scouter John Chow. He pretended to be a VIP and we interviewed him about his expectations for Ex.Comm. In addition to advice on generating engaging content, John shared with us the stories and experiences he has accumulated from past service projects. He spoke with enthusiasm and dedication and inspired our team to go above and beyond our original goals to share our experience and passion with others

After gathering our content from the simulation, we pretended it was the end of the day and headed towards Starbucks to work on our content. However, Starbucks was closed and we had to move to another coffee shop (Blenz) instead. This experience helped to remind us of how important it will be to stay flexible overseas. We gave ourselves a time limit of one hour of work on producing, editing and formatting our content to meet the standards of our contingent editors under time pressure.

This simulation has enabled us to work out potential technical issues beforehand and has brought our team closer together. Don’t forget to check our website for new content daily at http://pccrovers.com/iproj15.