PSC Website

In recent weeks, my role has significantly increased in terms of the Phoenix Sister Cities website maintenance. Prior to this internship, I can honestly say that my experience in maintaining a website and doing other web-oriented tasks that require a certain technological savviness has been at a minimum. However, I have learned a lot in such a short period of time. I am constantly having to update the calendar by adding and taking out events. In addition, I am constantly adding pictures, biographies, and random teasers on the home page that link to other pages within the website. I encourage all of you to venture to phoenixsistercities.org and just browse around for a bit. It is a really neat website that describes all nine of the sister cities and the committees that go hand in hand with them. There is also information on becoming a member of sister cities. There is also a calendar (yes, the one I always update) that lets the public know about when the monthly committee meetings are and where they are held. They are open to the public and citizens are encouraged to attend. For example, the monthly committee meeting for Hermosillo, Mexico is held the second Tuesday of every month. However, since the second Tuesday of February was Valentine's Day, the meeting was pushed back a week to tonight (2/21/2012) at 6:00 pm at Rico's Grill. At the end of the day, the skills I am picking up through my time at this internship are proving to be invaluable and will benefit me greatly in my future career.

Board of Directors Meeting

Last week, myself and the other interns were invited to attend the PSC Board of Directors meeting. The meeting took place on the first floor of City Hall and dinner was provided. It was a really interesting experience as I learned how the meetings are conducted, how the agendas are laid out, and I was introduced to all of the commission members of the various sister cities. There were a few commission members that I had previously met but nonetheless, I shook a lot of hands that night. One of the main topics on the agenda was the upcoming delegation visit to Ramat-Gan, Israel. The commission members discussed the trip in great detail. They also spent a significant amount of time discussing funding. Since WorldFest 2011 was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, funding has become that much more of an important topic due to the fact that a large portion of funding comes from the profits made from WorldFest each year. All in all, it was a neat experience to be involved in the meeting and I am appreciative of the opportunity.

The interns and I also had the opportunity to meet with the two management interns at the City of Phoenix last week. They provided us with insight on their day to day tasks as they jump around from department to department throughout the course of their year long internship. If I remember correctly, one of the interns began her internship with the City Manager's Office, is currently in the Budget and Research Department, and next month she will transfer to SkyHarbor to spend the last few months of her internship.     She also described the application process to become a Management Intern. After listening to how beneficial the program is,  I can honestly say that I look forward to next year when I will be eligible to apply for the Management Internship Program at the City of Phoenix.

PSC Newsletter

This week I have been working on the initial stages of developing the quarterly Phoenix Sister Cities newsletter. The Spring 2012 newsletter will include numerous events that have occurred and will occur between the months of October 2011 and March 2012. Some of those events include the Ennis 5K Run & Walk, the Great Canadian Picnic, the Chengdu Performance at the MIM Theater, and the Matsuri Festival. Until now, I have never developed a newsletter but I have quickly become acquainted with Microsoft Publisher and am well on my way. On Monday, a meeting was held to determine the content and layout of the upcoming newsletter. Newsletters from previous quarters were presented to me and I was given guidance on what to avoid and what approaches to possibly take. In addition, I was provided with the email addresses and phone numbers of committee chair members in order to contact them to request pictures and brief articles regarding their respective events that will be incorporated into the newsletter. All in all, it was a great meeting and I feel well-equipped and confident about pursuing this project. The newsletter will take a couple of months to complete and be mailed out but I am excited to see how it will turn out.