week of 7/23-7/27

Monday: 10-4
Tuesday: 10-4
Wednesday: 10-4
Thursday: Out of the Office
Friday: 10-4

Total: 24 hours

Monday:
Today I began contacting individuals about things will need for the tournament such as radios and gifts for the tournament committee. I emailed a gentleman from the PGA of America about his input on the volunteer handbook. He is the gentleman in charge of volunteers for the tournament. I also spoke with a man from Microw Graphics incorporated so as to arrange ordering the signature scrolls to go inside the picture frames for our sponsor gifts. I also arranged for the company to send us a catalog of the items they carry so as to make some decisions about the type of gifts we will order for the tournament committee. When I talked to Microw Graphics, they told me that they would not be able to help us out as far as engraving gifts, so I spent a lot of the afternoon looking online at a website for a company that we have used before to find some gifts that are comparable in price to what we have done before.

Tuesday:
I worked with my supervisor on getting logos for sponsor pages. I also contacted a lot of the teams who sent in their registration info to clarify a lot of information if we had any questions. I finally got a response about where we might be able to find radios and began the process of setting up a conference call to discuss the volunteer handbook. I also began work on making a spreadsheet for the team registrations that should come in this week and next. I sent a fax to the PGA tour concerning a letter and an information page on the PGA to put into our event handbook and volunteer handbook. I contacted another gentleman about radios, because the first man told me to see if he could give us any more leads on companies we could get radios from.

Wednesday:
I began faxing a lot of information on Wednesday. I have started faxing athlete Bio pages to a lady involved with the tournament who will be putting them together for us. I also began to send housing rosters to the Housing company we are using for the tournament. I received the catalog from Microw Graphics today, and we began looking through it for gift ideas. I began working on a coaching and officials certification spreadsheet to keep track of how many certified coaches and officials there were in each state for each sport. This had nothing to do with NIT, but we were a little strapped for things for me to do. I input the information we received from the PGA in the form of a letter, and information pages and put it into the event handbook.

Friday:
I did a lot more faxing of athlete bio pages today. I also contacted the USGA about some information we would like to put into the event handbook. I also sent some confirmation emails to registered teams for the Tournament to let them know we had received their GMS information from the online registration and to confirm that it was all correct.

Most of my work this week either involved excel or working with equipment around the office such as the fax. I also was given the opportunity to work with the Games Management software that Special Olympics uses, and that helped me to understand a little more how the events are run.

As a whole, I had a lot more to do this week, and there was not nearly as much downtime during the day as there has been the past few weeks. It helped when I was having trouble finding something to do with my time, Craig found some other things that I could do, that even though they didn’t necessarily involve the NIT, they were still beneficial to see how the organization as a whole functions.

Next week all of the registration forms will be coming in at the beginning of the week, so my goal is to get all of that information put into the spreadsheets I have made as quickly as possible. Also, contacting all of the programs to confirm that our information correct is important too.

Internship: Wild Dunes Resort, Charleston, SC

Job Shadowing: Zach Stone, Resort Manager.

I did another job shadowing experience with Zach Stone, one of the "Resort Managers." His job is to respond if there are any problems on the resort. For example, some one says they have found something missing in their room, such as a pair of earrings. His job is to make a record of it, and check with housekeeping to see if there was possible anyone with sticky fingers in housekeeping who cleaned their house. He is also responsible for calling the guest to see exactly what they say has happened. More often than not, they have misplaced them, they dropped them and they were vacumed up, or they will find them when they are leaving. Either way, he has to file a report, and see if there is anything he can do to alleviate the problem.

He is also responsible in case there is some sort of emergency on the grounds. For example, we had a little girl get stung by a sting ray, a guy walk into sign and break his nose, etc. He is responsible for determining whether or not the resort is liable for any of these things. For example, was the resort quick enough in responding when they little girl was stung, could anything have been done to prevent people walking into the signs (like moving them higher). He also has to decide if the guest is truly at fault. We had a gentleman injure his foot on a sliding door at his vacation home, and he was trying to say there was something wrong with the door that caused him to cut his foot, when in reality, he wasn't paying attention, and he tripped over the door.

Also, he has to deal with guests who might have an issue with their room or condo. For example, their air conditioner doesn't work, or they had to be moved unexpectedly, or they didn't get put into the room they were originally told. Unfortunately, this also means that we may have to put up with guests who just want to complain about everything. This can usually be resolved by something like a complimentary bottle of wine, or giving them a slight discount on their room for the evening.

While shadowing, we basically made the rounds around the resort. Zach likes to begin by ensuring that everyone has everything they need. So we would make rounds to the restaurants, and the grand pavilion, just to make sure everyone had what they needed for the evening. Also, if people need things such as different types of alcohol or other things throughout the evening, Zach will usually go get them for them and take it to them whereever they need to go.