Life in Colorado

I have not posted in quite awhile, so I thought I would update everyone on where I am in my life, almost a year and a half after college graduation!!

Kyle and I moved to Colorado 10 days after I graduated. It was such an exciting, scary, adventurous, anxious move. I started working as a sales and marketing intern at The Broadmoor resort. I enjoyed working at such a beautiful place and was excited about the experience I gained and could take into the real world. Well, turns out, the real world is not so easy! College prepares you for getting a job, but it does not warn you that jobs are hard to come by....especially these days!!!

After my internship, I got a job waiting tables until I found a position. I applied for over 20 different positions! (Apparently, according to local news, Colorado Springs is THE hardest place to find a job in the US...and boy, did I find out the hard way!) Finally, after talking to someone who knew someone who knew someone that owned a catering company, I decided to contact them and see if they were, by chance, hiring. They were not at the time, but they allowed me an interview anyhow. After the interview, they decided to make me the owners' assistant!! So, that is where I am today. I have been working as an event coordinator at The Picnic Basket, planning weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries, and any other party you can imagine. I have really enjoyed my job and the experience I have gained!

As for Colorado....we LOVE it here!! I have hiked to 11 of the 53 14,000 ft. mountain peaks here in the state. We have been to Crested Butte, Telluride, Aspen, Breckenridge, Buena Vista, Estes Park, Denver, and countless other places while we have lived here. I guess we are the definition of weekend warriors! We will always remember the times we spent in Colorado! We have become much closer as husband and wife, and had no one else but each other to depend on. I am so thankful for my family as well! We have been so blessed with such supportive parents, siblings, and grandparents. While we miss you all, we have made memories that will last a lifetime!

Our favorite place in the world: The Oh be Joyful Trail in Crested Butte, Colorado

Corporate Social Responsibility

The Broadmoor - Colorado Springs

The Broadmoor is a luxurious resort located at the base of Cheyenne Mountain in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado. I have the honor of being one of three interns to work with The Broadmoor this summer.

Built in 1918, the resort has been named a 5 star resort for 50 consecutive years. The Broadmoor has also won many other prestigious awards in the past including the number three spot on Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Golf Resorts list in 2008. With 700 rooms, 18 extravagant restaurants, three of the world’s best golf courses, a lavish spa, a fitness center, movie theatre, and picturesque wedding venues, The Broadmoor has something for everyone.

As a member of The Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire, The Broadmoor is also active within the community and focused upon being environmentally friendly. All three golf courses have been certified as Audubon Sanctuaries which is the highest level in environmental policies. Another green initiative the resort is involved in is an $800,000 project which involves replacing 30,000 light fixtures with LED and compact fluorescent lighting which is equivalent to reducing the pollution from 750 cars per year. A “Recycling Manager” was hired to enforce staff and guests to recycle plastic, aluminum, glass, and cardboard. The Broadmoor’s green initiative list goes on with further details on how they reduce the use of energy and water and the specific design of the golf courses.

The Broadmoor gives back to its customers by sending them gifts every Christmas. However, the past two years The Broadmoor decided to give something a little different. In each customer’s name, the resort staff and employees built a bicycle for underprivileged children living within the community. “It’s a fun and rewarding way to get our team involved and to do something really wonderful for members of the Colorado Springs community who may not have enough to give their children,” said Broadmoor Vice President of Sales and Marketing, John Washko.

Destination Services Corporation, an event planning service located in Avon, Colorado, helped plan the Build-a-Bike event which was held at the resort. After the bikes were assembled, they were donated to Southern Colorado’s largest toy allocation program, Christmas Unlimited. This program helps an average of 3,500 disadvantaged families within the community every Christmas.

The Broadmoor also extends Destination Services (DSC) to their guests and employees. Destination Services include events such as Mail Call, in which teams shop for items then compose letters to send to soldiers overseas and Meals that Give Hope which donates fresh produce and food to the Springs Rescue Mission.
As you can see, The Broadmoor is very busy keeping up with their corporate social responsibilities. I am very excited to begin my internship with The Broadmoor. My only hope is that this opportunity will open many doors to my future. Maybe one day I will be planning one of these initiatives myself!

10 Things Learned

As this college experience comes to a close, I am filled with joy and excitement about the future. I can't believe these past four years have gone by as fast as they have, but I guess life will pass by before I know it. I am excited about the journey that I will take.

I have learned many valuable lessons throughout my college days especially through the department of Mass Communication.

10. Never count on a shady local restaurant to cook and deliver 100 hotdogs on the day before a Hotdog Eating Contest.

9. Learn to work well with others. Everyone is different, therefore you must cooperate with each other well.

8. Take initiative. Don't step back and wait for other people to do it. Sometimes you have to do it yourself.

7. How to write a wonderful and interesting blog post

6. Tweeting on Twitter (and the use of social media within public relations)

5. The art of writing a great press release

4. How to plan a successful campaign

3. Never procrastinate when planning an event, things go much smoother when planning ahead

2. Don't stress out (like when you don't have any cupcakes for The Relay For Life birthday party!)

And the number 1 thing I have learned throughout all of this is...to be FLEXIBLE! (like when you are assigned a campaign and the plans fall through six times!)

Thank you Dr. Miller for all of your insight. It's been a pleasure working with you throughout these past two years. Hope you never forget your PR Fantasy Football Team of 2010!

~Cassie S. Melvin

Class of 2010

It's almost here. The day I never thought I would make it to - College Graduation! Some people say that graduating is bittersweet, however, while I will miss the friends I have come to know the past four years and the times we have spent playing volleyball, hanging out, going out, etc., I could not be more excited to walk across that stage to graduate on May 8! I have worked hard throughout my schooling career, but I look forward to being able to focus all my hard efforts on a job that I enjoy. Kyle and I will be moving to Colorado on May 18, and we are both very excited about the adventure. We will be working a good bit at internships and other job opportunities, however, we will be able to enjoy a fresh new place, new jobs, and each other.

I guess the only sad part about this time is that I will be leaving my family for six months, but they all understand. I have always wanted to travel and experience new things, and now, I am finally able to!

Here's to the Class of 2010!!

~Cassie S. Melvin

Digital Bridges Open House

It appears as if we pulled off a successful campaign! All of our hard work we put in this semester payed off this past Wednesday at The Digital Bridges Open House. Everything ran very smoothly and we had a great time as well.

For starters, we advertised the event with flyers, posters around campus and local businesses downtown, press releases in newspapers, and radio advertisements. Each person in my group did a fantastic job of getting the word out to friends and peers at the college about the event. The Open House was supposed to begin at 1 p.m., but people were piling through the doors by 12:45! In total, we had around 300 people attend this event. We were able to show them around the center and explain to them what Digital Bridges is all about.

Just to prove how many people came through the doors, we ordered 20 large pizzas from Dominoes, but had to order 12 more by 1:45! 13 WMAZ even came out and interviewed people about the center. Click here to see the video.

I am very proud of our group and how the event turned out! Even with all the hardship we had to endure at the beginning of the semester, I believe it was well worth it in the end. I look forward to planning similar events in the future!

~Cassie S. Melvin

Politics everywhere!

For the last couple of months, I have been working with a group of girls from my PR Campaigns class to create an event for a local small business called Digital Bridges. Sadly, we have hit many road blocks along the way. It all began with us creating an event called digital inclusion for people within the community who do not have much access to computers much less the internet. We were excited to get started since we were told that we would be able to create a press packet for the community explaining the cheap internet connections they would be giving away to 250 people. After creating a brochure and a couple of other documents, we were told that we were going to go in a different direction. I was actually pretty pleased with this news since the chamber had not given us the internet accounts therefore we were not accomplishing much.

The next thing we began planning was the Ribbon cutting ceremony which would have been held on April 22. We already had an invitation, food, decorations, entertainment, and giveaways planned. After much deliberating with the college, the president, the chamber, and everyone else involved, we hit a wall when the college told us that we would not be able to plan the event. So... here we were again. Stuck with nothing.

We met again today and finally nailed down what we are going to do. It will be an event that we are in charge of! One that will not involve different parties and politics. Digital Bridges will host an open house on Wednesday, April 21 from 1 - 4 p.m. We will provide refreshments and fun! The first 100 people through the door will receive a free jump drive with Digital Bridges' logo! We look forward to planning this event. It should be a huge success!

Killer Whale

"We have never in the history of our parks experienced an incident like this and all of our standard operating procedures will be under review," park president Dan Brown said.

On Wednesday, February 24, at 2 p.m. it was reported that a killer whale killed its trainer at Sea World Orlando. Tilikum, the 12,000 pound orca, was involved in two other fatal incidences within the past 20 years. Sea World's representative claims that the 40 year-old, experienced trainer slipped and fell into the tank and Tilikum drowned her. However, witnesses say they saw the whale come out of the water, take the trainer by the waist, and submerge her into the water.

Either way, Sea World is in dire need for some good PR because of this fatality. Sea World, located in Orlando, San Diego, and San Antonio is known as a family place, an amusement park full of exotic creatures. After this tragedy, they might have some explaining to do to all the "believing" children and parents. However, as of Wednesday afternoon, there was nothing posted on their website nor did they have anything tweeted about the incident. Maybe they don't need to explain themselves after all. Could it be that people understand that they are capturing wild animals and training them to do tricks for human enjoyment? Maybe Sea World does not see their sales dropping because of this death, so they are just moving on.

I am curious as to how all of this will play out with Sea World. Will update later this week.

Cassie S. Melvin

UPDATE:

I found the first tweet by SeaWorld about the incident.

"It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of a member of the SeaWorld family. Thank you for your thoughts during this difficult time."

It was announced that @Shamu, one of SeaWorld's Twitter accounts used to promote this usually docile creature, will no longer be active. SeaWorld will update their fans via @SeaWorld_Parks.

Another update from their website that was posted this morning:

SeaWorld Updates

Update: Thursday, Feb. 25, 9:33am

Tilikum

Many people are asking about the future care of Tilikum, the whale involved in the incident. We have every intention of continuing to interact with this animal, though the procedures for working with him will change. We are still reviewing this incident and will evaluate the situation and make a decision accordingly.

We are open to comments from you, our blog readers. However, as a policy, any comment that uses foul language or could be hurtful to the trainer’s family will be deleted. We appreciate everyone’s understanding and will share more information as it becomes known and available.

******

It appears that SeaWorld is using many media outlets to spread the word about this tragedy, but at the same time, keeping it a private issue for the families involved. Kudos to Sea World!