Internship Excursions

What a week it has been! This last week, everything was switched up quite a bit as I accompanied my supervisor to several meetings in town. The first of these meetings was at Access, the in-home health care agency that RWNZ took on recently. I meet the heads of that, and then sat in as Noeline discussed with Graham the process of reviewing that Access just went through. I was very interested to listen in. Some of the topics that they covered included recruitment of younger members into RWNZ, the struggle between governance and management that RWNZ is facing. As Noeline is the executive officer, she is technically in charge of management, which entails helping RWNZ to achieve the goals set in place by the national RWNZ council (elected, and in charge of the realm of governance). From what I understand, the council is sometimes hesitant to hand over the reins to Noeline where the reins need to be handed over. Seems like they need to be made more exclusive and have better defined roles and duties. Really, I suppose what I walked away from that meeting was insight into the running of a non-profit organization. I really appreciate that insight as that may be the direction I head (although don’t quote me on that).

I also accompanied Noeline to an event at Parliament where the Ministry of Consumer Affairs presented their plans for reforming consumer law to anybody who holds a stake in the matter. I was impressed by the environment (understandably so, I suppose) and by the engagement of the stake holders. I had never really seen anything like that in person before. Also, I am discovering a deep fascination within me in regards to how government works.

Perhaps one of the most amazing things to me from last week, though, was discovering that some of the mini-reports I have written up per the direction of my supervisor have been used by RWNZ. One was sent to the president of the organization, and may have helped to determine the course of action that RWNZ would take on an issue, and another report (on evaluation forms from a recent conference put on by RWNZ) is being used as a source to write up something else. It’s a bizarre feeling, I guess. One would think that as a decent student I would have more confidence in myself, but I don’t. I’m excited that I have been useful so far.