I can’t believe my ten month Marketing Internship at Haven House Children’s Hospice has come to an end and feel like I have always worked here, it will be weird to leave.

So with internships you never know what to expect, you hear good and bad things about them, you don’t know if you’re going to be stuck doing things like making tea and stuffing envelopes the whole of the time, or if you will be really involved, getting huge amounts of experience.

When I first started at Haven House, what stood out was that everyone was really welcoming and friendly. The atmosphere is the best of both worlds, laid back but at the same time professional, which put me at ease.

Haven House is a small local Charity, the income generation team is fairly small; I was part of the Marketing team which was made up of only three people. This was actually beneficial to me, because I was able to have close contact with what was going on. Everyday I had a different task, whether it was involvement in Social media, Market research or data input. There were more opportunities to get involved in so I was able to gain more experience in different aspects.

Obviously being a Charity there are loads of fundraising events to get involved in. One of the best events I was involved in was the annual Ball, the amount of effort that went into that evening was crazy and it most definitely paid off. The atmosphere was just so lively, a lot of emotion was drawn from the guests, the amount of money raised was amazing and of course everyone could get their gladrags on. I was so happy to be a part of it. Other events that I loved being a part of were the Summer Fayre, another one of Haven House’s huge annual events of the year, the Royal opening of the Holistic Care Centre, golf day event and Ally Pally darts event and I am sure there are more that I have missed out.

At University you don’t get opportunities like this, to be honest you really don’t learn as much as actually going into the working world and having an Internship in the course that you have taken. For me, being able to see Marketers in action helped assure me that Marketing is definitely what I want to do as a career and that I am doing the right degree.

Taking an internship was one of the best decisions I have ever made, I can safely say after leaving Haven House that I will have walked away with not just experience in Marketing, but I was able to see overall the work that all the Income generation team do, and how much effort goes into raising money for a Charity.

It is said that “all good deeds are selfish” and that is most definitely true when working for a Charity. Even the smallest things I did to contribute in helping raise money for Haven House, left me feeling happy and accomplished which was another added bonus of having my Internship at Haven House.