This week, I spent my time working at home on various tasks. I spent a lot of time working with graphic design projects, such as graphics for social media or redesigning a magazine insert. I also worked on redesigning the member e-mail updates, which included reformatting the e-mail and creating a border in Photoshop. In addition, I worked on our county commissioner program, in which a OPC staff member and member/ farmer will go to county commissioner meetings in the Western Lake Erie Basin and give a presentation about the local pork industry. This required me to email OPC members and contact county commissioner offices.

Like many weeks thus far, this one consisted of time working on office tasks as well as tasks away from the office. On Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I spent a lot of time doing my general tasks, like writing press releases, editing content for our quarterly magazine, or creating graphics. On Tuesday, I attended my first OPC board meeting, where I was I tasked with taking minutes for the meeting. I enjoyed seeing how the board operates and how it affects the council. It is interesting to work in this type of organization, as there are many decisions that are made or influenced by this group of men and women, but I won’t see them too much in the office. I could tell that the board members really cared about the industry and desire to see OPC grow and thrive. On Friday, I worked another of OPC’s events, the Pork Chop Golf Outing. During the event, I completed numerous tasks, such as errand running, taking photos, and cleaning and setting-up the event. The golf outing was attended by pork farmers or agriculture industry professionals.

For the majority of this week, I attended state intern training with the National Pork Board in Des Moines, Iowa. Our first day consisted of numerous presentations from different departments within NPB. On our second day, we attended Operation Main Street Training, in which we learned how to handle and answer questions about the industry, especially when talking with the media. I really enjoyed learning about interviewing and answering these types of questions, as I have an interest in public relations.  I had never considered how much thought must go into answering these types of questions, from what words to use or whether or not to respond with facts and statistics. Our final day was spent at the World Pork Expo, where I watched purebred hog shows and explored the trade show. On Thursday and Friday, I worked on various office tasks, from editing Porkline content to creating slideshows.

This week has been very interesting and unique, as it was Memorial Day and we moved out of the office. Primarily, I worked on organizing teams and sponsors for the golf outing, which is our next event on June 15. A lot of the other work was miscellaneous tasks that needed to be completed before we moved out of the office and began to work from home. On Wednesday, we officially moved out of the office and will working from home for the time being, as our new office in New Albany won’t be available for a couple of weeks. I am enjoying all the different experiences that I am having with this internship and all of them contribute to some experience that can be utilized in numerous positions.