Yamhill County Mission Final Blog

            It is close to the end of the semester and I feel like time has flown by! I have enjoyed my internship so much and am sad to see it end. I do hope to still go volunteer every once in a while however. This week at my internship was crunch time. The big project I had been working on all semester is being tested this week. The week before Thanksgiving was the first week that I was really out in the community with the formal letters and brochure I had been working on. This week I split my time fairly evenly with time at the shelter and out raising awareness about the Mission. I have really enjoyed seeing success through the people at the shelter. This week one of the boys staying here with his parents finally got put back into school. His mom had to home school him for a while until they found a place at the mission to stay.  It was exciting to come back this week and hear about school—he was really excited that he had made so many friends already.  I got to help him with his math homework (multiplication) and it was pretty incredible how good he was getting at it. His parents have been working very hard the past few weeks and it has been a pleasure to be able to be apart of their lives from when they first arrived at the Mission to now where they have enough money saved to move into their own place. Their story and many like them encourage me to put my best effort into the project before me.

            It was very intimidating going up to business owner’s and churches asking if they would sit down and let me present a little about the Mission to them. I thought that people would be much more receptive to listening and helping out—but surprisingly quite a few people did not even want to sit down and talk to me but rather just leave the information on their desk. I had to learn to be confrontational and firm without using excessive words to make it worth people’s time. Overall, it was a great experience to go through, although hard.  In any career situation I need to have the ability to be strong and not afraid of talking to superiors, patients, and families even when they might be busy to hear me.

            Excited to finish up the semester and am thankful for the internship experience I have had with the Mission. 

Back from Break!

Happy Holidays, interns!

I can't believe how quickly this semester is flying by...the fact that we just celebrated Thanksgiving and Winter Break is just around the corner seems crazy to me! I definitely missed Robert Roe while I was home, however I took the time off to gather some new ideas for the store! With Christmas coming up, I thought that some smaller more 'gift' geared items would be a great addition to the store. So I spent my break looking through various new candle designers, scarves, mittens, etc. I swear I don't know how my boss was able to find such perfect inventory for the store because it is such a process to find something that fits just right! However it is such a cool aspect of working and interning at Robert Roe - I love feeling like I could find the next best seller for us! So far, the search continues. I want to find a candle that is a great, clean smell however with a price point and packaging that would attract women throughout the community for the holidays. 

Speaking of Christas...Naseem and I are starting to decorate the store! Since our colors are black & brown I knew right away that I would want to decorate our small tree in ornaments ranging from those colors. We luckily had the same vision of wanting to keep the tree classic yet fun. So far so good! And in the spirit of giving, my lovely boss decided that we as Robert Roe should host a toy drive or canned food drive out of our store front. We thought it would be such a cool way to get involved and give back to the community while getting into the Christmas spirit! We are currently looking into local organizations that would like our time and space! We can't wait to get involved and really try to make a difference! 

I hope everyone had a lovely and safe Thanksgiving break!

Olivia 

More Yamhill County Updates

I have been doing a lot of the same over the past couple weeks - importing paper files that were somehow missed during our big transition into the new Odyssey system. Since I am not in any specific department (criminal, civil, probate, traffic, etc.) I have the time to go through these documents with the Court Operations Supervisor.

The court staff, particularly judges, have been very thankful to have me, especially since this is such a tedious but highly important task. I have determined the root cause of the error that did not allow these thousands of court cases to import correctly into the Odyssey system - these cases are all ones with post-judgement documents or exhibits in the file. There are pictures included in files like these, stored in a standard JPEG format. The JPEG format confused the Odyssey system and it kicked back all of these cases. Now it is just a matter of individually uploading these files to their proper cases. The batch transfer of court cases that happened in June apparently did not recognize the JPEG format, so the files must be done individually.

Unfortunately, there is no more efficient way to do this. I am constantly looking for ways to improve efficiency, but it turns out that I must upload these files one-by-one. Thankfully the uploading process is a quick one. I have been doing this for the past week and will likely finish this project by Wednesday of this week.

Conclusion for Fall Term

Hi all,

As we wind down the semester, I am sure most of us are concluding our internships for the Fall term as well.  With my internship I finished up this past weekend.  The weekend was a mixture of regular work at the tasting room, and our last event for the fall.  The event that we had was a great experience personally for me.  It didn't turn out as planned, and was not a huge success as we had hoped.  Although it was a shame that it didn't completely work out, compared to other previous events that we had earlier in the semester which were a huge success, it was a great comparison for me.  It let me see and reminded me that even the best intended ideas and plans, in this case for the event, can turn out to fail or at least not meet one's expectations.  This will be good to keep in mind as I continue my internship into the spring term.  

Focusing on spring term with both the normal work and all the events that I have helped with, they have been great first hand experience.  I have started to learn the ins and outs of the winery and this knowledge will help me transition into the spring.  I will be able to apply what I have learned so far towards marketing and event planning which will be what I will focus on. 

Good luck everyone with the end of the term and finishing up your internships for the Fall.
Stephanie

SOL Republic

Hey fellow interns,

My name is Robby Richardson and I am going to be interning with SOL Republic. SOL Republic is a new face to the headphone industry. It is a Wilsonville based company that began in August of 2011. Its purpose is to provide an affordable, durable and great sounding headphone. It's main competitors in the market are the Beats by Dre Headphones and the SkullCandy Headphones. I will be assisting in the marketing and sales department by travelling to our national retailers, which currently consists of BestBuy, Apple, FYE, Guitar Center and FredMeyers, and setting up listening stations of our headphones to help develop the brand name and share the company's story. In doing so, I hope to help sell some extra units off the shelf as well. This helps SOL Republic develop stronger relationships with its retail partners. I will also be travelling to local events around the state where we have sponsorship opportunities to further develop the brand. I look forward to reading about all of your internships and the progress you make in your professional careers.

Robby Richardson

Robert Roe Blog # 4

Hello Fellow Interns!

This past Monday I got the opportunity to host the Women of Willamette event at Robert Roe. The Women of Willamette is a group of female business owners that gather to network, exchange business ideas, and generally discuss owning and operating a business in this area. Robert Roe got the opportunity to host this event on Monday evening. We saw this as a great experience to introduce Robert Roe to influential women and host our first of hopefully many social events. This was a great experience for me because I got to help plan and even host this event. We served Maysara Wine and La Rambla appetizers, everything for the event was planned to a t! That is, until my boss's father underwent open heart surgery and she realized she would not be able to leave his hospital. That meant that I had to step up and host the entire event! I arrived to Robert Roe at 4:30. I helped the caterer set up, organized the store, set the stereo system up, prepared the store, and opened our doors at 5:30! While only 20 women had RSVP'd directly to us, we had over 50 show up! It was a great turn out. I did my best to host and mingle, getting the chance to introduce this group to Robert Roe. I gave a quick speech about Robert Roe and how excited we were to host this event and spread the word about our store. I was thrilled at how successful the event was! We sold plenty of inventory and received so much praise and best wishes! Overall, this was a huge step and great opportunity for me! While I was really nervous to host this event without my boss, I was thrilled at the outcome. I felt that Robert Roe was a huge hit, and loved getting the chance to step up and represent my business in the best way possible. I look forward to hosting more events like this in the future!

Willamette Valley Medical Center

So for the past few weeks I have struggled to find the right times to be at WVMC that were productive interning hours. I changed around my schedule a bit, and have finally found a good combination. For the rest of the semester, I am at WVMC for a few hours early Thursday afternoon and a few hours later Sunday night. I like to stay useful, and my previous longer shifts had more standing around than actual work. Now, instead of finishing my tasks and standing around the last hour, I am busy through out the entire shift and I am much happier. On Thursdays I am typically doing more "task" type jobs, whereas Sunday nights are busy and there is more medical related experiences for me to potentially observe. Come Jan. term, I will be working many more hours so I am hoping to find more tasks to stay busy. In the ER, I am cleaning out rooms, restocking rooms and medical carts, and talking with patients to see if they have any needs. My favorite tasks have certainly been chatting with patients and hospital employees. That is where I have been getting the most interesting and useful experience that pertains directly to my desires of being a nurse practitioner. I hope to soon be trained to also intern on the medical/surgical floor so that I can switch back and forth if I'm lacking tasks.

To answer these questions..a little late. :)

• What role do costumes or trick-or-treating play in a business?: I was really interested in asking the nurses how Halloween night was in the emergency room. Surprisingly, they said it wasn't too busy. I would have loved to be volunteering that night. While it is sounds awful that I would want the ER to be busy, that is when I can have the greatest chance of seeing the fast-pace ER environment.
• How did the organization where you are interning deal with Halloween? The nurses and ER doctors probably braced themselves. I would imagine any holiday creates an increase in ER visits. Some seem to thrive on the rush with every ambulance arrival but I am sure, ultimately, no one wishes the ER to be busy.

Only 4 more days until break!!

Cupcake Post #3

Hey Interns!

This week while interning at Cupcake Couture was mostly the same as last week. I worked there on Tuesday from 2:30-5:30 and on Saturday from 11-5.  My class schedule is so packed those are the only times  I can be there. While working at Cupcake this week I practiced making transactions more and keeping our products stocked in the store. But what happened more this week than last week was that multiple times this week I had to go to the display window and pull clothes from out there for customers. This is not at easy task. To get to the display window I have to basically throw myself over this wall and squeeze through this extremely narrow spot then walk around all of the mannequins and decorations making sure not to knock anything over.  And this is all being done in the window so I'm sure the people walking around outside or the people in the coffee shop across the street loved this little performance. But I am a people pleaser and like to make the customers happy.

But Tuesday are still pretty slow when I am there so luckily I manage to get some homework done when no one is in the store. I like working Saturdays more because it's just more fun and I get to see more people.  So far so good while working at Cupcake. I haven't messed up or made any huge, life altering mistakes fortunately.  I have got more into a rhythm when making sales which is good.  I still really like working there and my boss just gave me my internship project that's due in a couple weeks.  I have to go to 4 other stores on 3rd Street and compare that store to Cupcake. Doesn't sound to bad. Can't wait to start it.

So that's what is good in the life of an intern at Cupcake :)

~Hannah Duge

Rescue Mission Update 11/12

I have been at the shelter for a few weeks now and time has flown by. I blogged last week about a project I had been working on and this week is no different. I met with the executive director of Gospel Rescue Mission and we brainstormed ideas for the brochure. One thing I learned from that meeting is the term “branding” in a company. Every company is recognized by their logo but more specifically color, fonts, and phrases. When you see a providence sign you don’t even have to read the sign to recognize the organization. Similarly, when you see a green symbol you can recognize Starbucks a mile away. The shelter is trying to have the similar approach. To get their name out there and to have members of the community recognize them and their visions they are working on unifying what gets sent out the public. The mission sends out flyers, brochures, emails, newsletters, etc to the community and they are working to make everything branded. Their specific colors are red and purple and they use cobalt font. Their logo is included on everything sent out and has a short statement about the mission and has the same colors and fonts. When I am working on my brochure to raise money for the shelter, I have to keep in mind the companies “brand”. This week my goal was to have the brochure close to finished so next week the brochure will be done, the letters/ contracts to give the businesses will be done, and I am planning on meeting with an owner of a bank to start out! I am excited to bridge the gap between the community and the shelter. It will be exciting to see all the work I have been putting into this project pay off at the benefit in January.

On another note, this week at the shelter they needed a staff member on duty to supervise. It was a great experience to be in charge of what was going on. I learned a lot of leadership skills in leading people older than myself that I can use in my job as a nurse; in nursing I will have to direct people older than me what to do while in the hospital and at home. It was great to talk and get to know some of the people staying there and help people fill out FAFSA, find rides to where they need to go, and figure out solutions to situations some of them are in. It is encouraging to see someone get back on their feet in a matter of a few days, job and apartment included.  Since Thanksgiving is coming up, a lot of work is going into preparing meals and getting blankets for the holiday. This is why it is crucial to start involving the community with donations and partially why I am going out into the community this week.

This was what the last week or so has looked like for me, excited to see how the upcoming weeks turn out as the semester wraps up! I hope to fulfill my learning objectives, so far so good! :)

November at Vista Hills

Hi all it's Stephanie again,

Things have been busy at Vista Hills and are continuing to be busy.  Over the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to start learning about the production of wine, wrap up the wedding season, and start the holiday season with planning and preparing for Thanksgiving events.

With all of the activities I have been learning the ins and outs of Vista Hills.  One area in particular that I have working at, is the serving and selling wine in the tasting room.  The tasting room can be a lot of fun, but also challenging at times too.  I am putting a lot of my communication and persuasion skills to good use, but there are also times when working in the tasting room can be difficult because I don't always know the background information with the wines that we serve.  Thus addressing questions that I receive from customers is not always an easy task, but no matter what I am always honest with them if I don't know an answer to their question.  I usually mention I can find out the answer and in the meantime I fall back onto my communication skills and mention other things I do know about the wines, or have learned.  Of course I know all the interactions in the tasting room help me develop my marketing skills and help me learn about some of the best ways to interact with customers.

Besides the tasting room, as mentioned we have been preparing for numerous events for Thanksgiving.  This has been a great opportunity to have a better understanding of what is involved with planning events, especially since I am interested in pursuing event planning.  As I have discovered event planning is one of the key areas where wineries sell their products.  At this point I have been working on the preparations for our upcoming events. By the end of next week I will have experienced the whole process of planning, implementing, staffing, and wrapping up our upcoming Thanksgiving event.

Till next time,
Stephanie

Robert Roe Blog # 4

Happy November fellow interns!


I can't believe how quickly time has flown by this semester. It seems like I just signed on to work and intern at Robert Roe, and now I am approaching my fourth month. I am thrilled to report that business at Robert Roe is picking up! It seems that more and more customers are finding our location, loving our inventory, and appreciating the fashion we carry. It has been a really rewarding experience to help Robert Roe grow. I firmly believe that with my involvement in Greek Life and constant interaction on various social media sites I can bring in plenty of Linfield customers. I have been so pleased to see how many of my Alpha Phi sisters have come in to Robert Roe, sharing in my excitement.

Robert Roe feels so cutting edge, and despite the fact that we are a small business technology advancements are at the ready for us! Instead of using a cash register we are Robert Roe use an application and little device called Square. It is a company that allows anyone to register their business - no matter the size - and charge people for their services. We use an iPad and the Square app to charge people, which really streamlines our look and organization. As the only employee of Robert Roe I have loved using Square as it allows me to store each and every clothing item along with pictures of the piece and price. That way, I always know the exact price without having to worry. It also takes away the hassle of figuring out the discounted price for Linfield students (10 percent off!) as it is a set button. This is the first clothing store I have ever worked at that makes this process so easy, and so streamlined!

As an intern for Robert Roe I have discovered that people are much more inclined to comment, like, and share photos I post about the store via Instagram as opposed to Facebook. I am not sure why this is, however I believe that like Square Instagram allows for users to be much more streamlined and organized. As opposed to the constant overwhelming newsfeed of Facebook. Instagram allows me to post single pictures of looks, pieces of clothing, or our space with a simple description. I would like to start a Twitter for Robert Roe, however I am still unsure how to do so without seeming too much like 'spam'. We want Robert Roe to stay on people's minds but in a positive way - not an annoying one!

Yamhill County Updates

We are making some definite progress over here at the Yamhill County Circuit Court - most all of the major glitches that the Court experienced with the Odyssey system have been worked out. Now we are focusing on becoming entirely paperless.

The last major glitch that I was responsible for fixing was determining how to make certain elements of "ported" cases from our old Court software confidential. When old cases were ported to Odyssey from OJIN, none of the court documents that were supposed to be marked confidential actually were marked confidential. Court-ordered psychiatric evaluations and the like should not be visible to the public, so this was an issue that staff needed to handle quickly.

I ended up having to compile a list of all cases that included any type of "report." I then went through each case to determine if the attached reports would be deemed confidential or not, and made appropriate adjustments. Though I was able to sort through the list fairly quickly, it was extremely inefficient. There was no way to isolate confidential reports from reports that can be viewed by the public, so I had to spend the afternoon ticking-and-tying cases. This would not have had to have been done had the error not occurred during transfer of court cases. Being the pilot court for eCourt and Odyssey, we expected these types of glitches. I have come to the realization that Yamhill County is meant to be a learning environment, though these errors have been frustrating. We will, of course, report on all the trials and errors we have experienced so that other courts may learn from our experience before they decide to "come online" with eCourt.

I believe that Josephine County is next on the list of early-adopter courts, with a scheduled "go live" date of June 2013. We hope that Josephine County will be able to avoid the same errors and frustrations that Yamhill County did.

Hello!

Hello everyone,

My name is Alec Greenaway, I am a transfer sophomore student here at Linfield. I was recently hired as an intern for U-haul to be in charge of their U-car share program located on campus. My main job is to get people to use the two cars that we have, other tasks include washing them, checking the oil, etc...

Anyways, I am very excited to see how this internship works out, and I am equally excited to learn about everyone else's experiences with their own internships.

Cupcake Post #2

Hey there!

So what role do costumes or trick-or-treating play in a business? 
How did the organization where you are interning deal with Halloween? 
And what is an appropriate age for kids to stop trick-or-treating?

Ok well costumes and trick or treating can be a large roll in a business during Halloween.  I think maybe wearing costumes and having candy available to give out to trick or treaters can bring in potential customers.  If  it is a small business or a new business that isn't well known yet it may help get their name out to the public.

This week at Cupcake Couture, there was a bowl of candy out by the cash register for children to keep them occupied while the parents were shopping.  Whenever a child came into the store I would always offer him/her some candy (with the consent of the parents, of course). 

For me, I think the appropriate age to stop trick or treating is 11 or 12 years old because you are almost a teenager and mostly trick or treating is done by 5 year olds. It would be awkward to trick or treat when you are 12 when everyone else trick or treating is around 5 or 6 years old.


~Hannah Duge

End October/ Beginning of November Post

Shelby Lawrence @ Yamhill County Gospel Rescue Mission 

• What role do costumes or trick-or-treating play in a business?
• How did the organization where you are interning deal with Halloween?
• What is an appropriate age for kids to stop trick-or-treating?

-I think Halloween is a great time for businesses to outreach into the community. It gives them a great opportunity to advertise and put out a good name for themselves. When businesses open their doors to trick-or-treaters it is a safe, fun environment for the family that encourages them to come back. Likewise, costumes are a great way to lighten the mood and make the business a fun and free environment for that day. 

-The organization I work with did not dress up with Costumes for Halloween (however, the children staying at the shelter did dress up). The Kids that are staying at the shelter went out trick-or-treating and brought back a bag for everyone to share. It was a fun atmosphere to see the kids dressed up and excited about Halloween. The staff also got a chance to share pictures of their kids and families to the people at the shelter. I was there the day after Halloween and it was a good topic of discussion for the people there. 

-I think that there is not a definite age to stop trick-or-treating. I would not feel comfortable as a college student to go out and knock on doors. I stopped trick-or-treating when I was in middle school and I think that by high school you are too old to be trick-or-treating. I still don’t know where I stand, I would still give candy to anyone who came and knocked on the door :)

Happy November bloggers!

I know that mid terms are happening and there is a general level of stress around campus.  So let's take a little break from our usual blogging this week and discuss more fun topics.  Please discuss the following:

• What role do costumes or trick-or-treating play in a business?
• How did the organization where you are interning deal with Halloween?
• What is an appropriate age for kids to stop trick-or-treating?

Take a deep breath.  Know that you are getting experience that you need to help you in the future!

My best,
Kristi