St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group blog

I am sad to say that this will be my final blog as my internship finishes today. The past two months I have had some of the most brilliant experiences working within St John as a whole and within the Eye hospital in particular. I actually can’t believe how fast this whole time has gone.

This whole process started just before Easter when I applied for an internship at The Order of St John International Office. So I was delighted when I was told that I had an interview. The interview was actually really interesting as I mostly chatted with the two lovely lady interviewers about international development projects. I was even more delighted when they told me that they would like me to come and work with them at Easter.

BUT….I am hugely embarrassed to admit this, but here goes…I actually haven’t mentioned this in any of my blogs before, but I am a ballerina. So Just before Easter, I was in a ballet show up at university. Ok, so my excuses first…I love to dance and so I am really passionate about it…..and during the first show I managed to kick myself in the head on stage and then knock myself out and break my nose….all pretty spectacular and I’m sure you can imagine, it was not my finest hour!

So, because of this I was required to postpone my internship to this summer. Whilst at the International Office I was told by Faryal that they had a space opening up at the Eye Hospital for a new intern.  So I chatted with her and Geof and managed to sort out the internship to start here a couple of weeks later. Working here has been a really brilliant experience and I have gained some invaluable skills that will undoubtedly help me in my career. But the best thing about working here is the people. So I just want to say a big thank you to them all and that I really appreciate the time that they have spent sharing their skills and expertise with me…..so thank you…and goodnight, L x

Many of my blogs have been spent discussing my actual work at the Eye Hospital and I have therefore neglected the best part about working at the office…the people who work here! They are quite an eclectic bunch and all have something truly unique to bring to the table. So I thought that I would take a bit of time to tell you a little but more about them….

Nicky is the Head of Fundraising and Marketing here at the Eye Hospital. Well I think ‘Head’ is quite an understatement (perhaps Guru of Fundraising would be more fitting)! It has been amazing to work alongside Nicky because she is absolutely incredible at her job. She somehow finds a balance between being passionate about her job, being generally brilliant at fundraising and lastly (and I think most importantly) she makes the time to listen to and be thoughtful to those around her.

Dominic is the Eye Hospitals Communications and Administration Officer. I think the best way to describe him is Nicky’s right hand man. He is one of the hardest working and most dedicated people I have ever met and is truly enthusiastic about working here. I spoke to him at the beginning of the week and he was telling me that over the weekend he had been thinking about one particular task he had been doing at the Eye Hospital. Well, I think you will join me in taking my hat off to him, as there are not many people who would be thinking about work at the weekend! He is probably one of the nicest people I have ever met and is always chirpy and good for a chat. Also, he is probably one of the biggest coffee and tea drinkers I have ever met too!

Geof is our Trusts and Campaigns Manager. Most of my work here at the office has been under the guidance of Geof. He has given me the responsibility of some interesting and complex projects such as the Adwords campaign. We have been given a charity grant by Google to advertise The Eye Hospital on the Google search engine.  So, I have been working with Geof to construct the format of these campaigns.

Earlier on in the week, we were having a team meeting and we spoke about Geof’s work on the website and on Jerusalem Scene. It really struck me how talented Geof must be in order to create such a professional looking website. Also, he often looks over my blogs before I have pasted them on the wall…and generally he makes sense of my my ramblings! His writing ability with writing and editing Jerusalem Scene goes to show he really is a talented chap!

Faryal is the Fundraising and PR Officer.  I first met Faryal when I was working downstairs at the International Office when she came to chat to me about the work at the Eye Hospital. Even from our first meeting I was struck by how passionate she is about human rights in the Middle East region. Even from our first meeting I remember thinking- gosh she is passionate and bilingual, she really is an employer’s dream! Whenever we strike up a conversation she always has something really interesting to say. We were chatting about human rights yesterday and she was telling me about a piece of research that she was thinking about doing which contrasted the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories to that of the status quo in Australia. When I asked her whether she was thinking about doing a PhD in this interest, she replied ‘no it is out of personal interest.’ Well, I think that is incredibly admirable, that doing this piece of research is out of personal gain as oppose to academic credit. Perhaps a sign of a ‘true academic!’

Lisa is the Administration Executive for the London office.  Most of her work is dealing with the finance side of things here at the Eye Hospital. We were chatting the other day about her career and she has worked in an impressive list of charities. She is such a lovely lady, down to earth and so easy to get on with.

It is funny, because I was thinking to myself, why haven’t I told you a bit more about these people before, but then it struck me that I wouldn’t have been able to give you quite an accurate representation of each person until now. Well that’s all for now ladies and gents….I’ll be back tomorrow for the last hurrah at the office…which will see the return of Nick (previous intern)….

Happy September!

My task for the last two days was to help JP (John Punter- our lobbyist) to gather research about hiring a new intern/volunteer. The purpose of this new postgraduate post will be to work with JP on Public Affairs and PR. The intern will be provided with a six month comprehensive traineeship which involves experience of some of the basic processes which govern UK and EU political processes, helping to draft and implement a public affairs programme/plan and an understanding of PR and the various elements which make up the media and how it supports public affairs work.

So for the last two days I have been researching possible London universities that we could contact in order to recruit this new postgrad intern/volunteer and also the legality of the employment of volunteers and interns.

The issue of legality began a few days ago when I was reading an article about the contention that law firms may be breaking the law if they are not paying their interns the national minimum wage. Aside from the intricacies of the employment law, the article touched on the contention that these law firms were preventing social mobility because poorer individuals were less likely to be able to undertake these internships. The key message from the article being surely at least the top law firms could afford to pay their interns the national minimum wage. There were a wide variety of opinions on this article and some that said that the legal profession should be in the hands of the rich and wealthy. While I shall not directly comment on this statement, surely the wealthiest law firms should be promoting SOME diversity.

The volunteer or intern at the Eye Hospital will be working for a world renowned non-for-profit organisation; they will be chosen solely on their merits and will be gaining vital experience in a sector that is very difficult to break into. My experience working for The Order of St John for the past two months has been hugely beneficial to my knowledge and skills in the charity sector.  For me the best thing about working for St John has been working within a small team. This has allowed me to work alongside individuals who are incredibly skilled and knowledgeable in what they do; it has also allowed me to take on a great amount of responsibility and to gain a wide array of skills.

Well, I PROMISE that the next blog will be a little less serious!- but I thought that the views of this article were worth sharing…..until next week….

Lx