Wednesday  

3 April 2024

This week, I met with Matilde and Ana in person. Morgane and I collaborated on working on the Canva design for the festival. Each artist has a designated 3 slides consisting of their title of the piece, logo, photo of the piece, synopsis and biography. From the Excel spreadsheets I was able to collect the information needed and make the Canva's for the publicity of the festival. 

Then to end the day, Morgane and I went around the barrio on our ruta de carteles. 

Thursday 

4 April 2024

I continued working on the Canva, today I concentrated on adding the photos and logos to the slides.

Discussed with my other workmates what other tasks I could help them with as I found that I had completed my tasks earlier than expected.

Friday

5 April 2024

Finalised and corrected any updates for the Canva.

From yesterday's discussion with my fellow teammates, I learned where and how to organise the outstanding data of the artists for the Analisis de Actuaciones excel. Today, I concentrated on filling in the outstanding biographies and synopsis from the artist's emails.

Furthermore, I learned how to check on the status of our Hootsuite, and checked on our various social media platforms to verify that everything had been completed well.

Wednesday 

10 April 2024

Over the week, there had been more updates and replies from the artists, which meant I would still be continuing work on our Canva, as it is ever expanding. 

Morgane and I completed our poster run around the barrio. However this time, we ran into quite a few unfriendly, not very nice people.  Unfortunately some of them are people who work in the cultural sector of Casc Antic.

Thursday 

11 April 2024

As we noted last week and throughout this week, it is realised that as we receive more and more replies from the artist, I will be working on the Canva continually until our deadline. Today, I focused on going over details and filling in the analysis excel form.

With Hootsuite I revised what was outstanding and posted our promotional danza comunitaria video.

Before leaving we had a check in call where I officially met Joana, we went over our tasks and feedback.

Once again, I communicated with the team on what I could help on as the next day I would not be in office.

Friday 

12 April 2024

It was a lovely day working from home as the sun was out.

After finishing all the Canva updates we received this week, I started on a new task; sending the 3rd reply email to our fellow confirmed artists, updating the convocotoria excel to track the completion of the task. In this email the artist received their schedule for their scheduled day of the festival with each of their individual timeslots.

This week was pretty similar to the previous one, Morgane and I worked together on our tasks. Most of them were related to the Festival Social 2024.

I learned more things regarding email press release, some skills with canva and updated the schedule for our expected participants of the festival. We also had our weekly meeting with Joana.

Also, this week I was able to use Hootsuite more easily. I had faced challenges in the past but with the help from my colleagues all is well.

Morgane and I enjoyed discovering the city on our ruta de carteles.

This week we continued our work with the preproduction of the Festival Social. I learned the importance of good Excel skills and found ways to transfer data from Excel to Canva quickly and effectively. 

On Thursday I had the opportunity to conduct  the creative lab classes at Casal Pou. It was a very enjoyable experience as I got to meet some regulars of the class and share with them my contemporary skills. Also, it was nice to get to know the barrio a bit more.

In the laboratory we experimented dancing with uncommon objects - chairs, jackets, different textures - sticky, fast, slow. Different music...I really do miss dancing everyday!

At the end of the week I mostly focused on working the campaign programme; learning the importance of hashtags to build community engagement. I appreciated being able to work remotely from home as the weather was nice and I could sit on the balcony.

A week to go before the festival;

This week I concentrated on finalising the Canva - updating and applying any changes received from the artists. There was a lot of confusion between Excels; which was not very time efficient. Meaning that; there was conflicting information on the same event/artist on different Excels. Hence, I did not know what information was the correct one to be applied. 

In the end, it all worked out. This taught me the importance of good data entry.

On Friday, as it was the last weekend before the festival, the focus on getting our press release out was very important. I actually enjoy doing press release. 

The format we used was to attach a banner, a message with information about the festival , our logo and sign off. I then sent it off to the list of contacts we had.

I felt a bit sad to not be going on the company retreat - but in hindsight now it was good I didn't go. 

There was a mix up on the ruta de carteles, and it required me coming in on the weekend to collect the posters and hand it to a team of staff who forgot to pick hers up. Considering I do not live in the city, I found it unreasonable that I had to commute and organise it, when it would've made more sense that the other party collected it and handed it to me when we were going to meet that week.

Company retreat + festival

As the motor team went on their retreat, they met up with the volunteers who would be assisting with the preproduction, production and post production of the festival.

At the beginning of the week I was assigned an extra day of remote work as there was a little excess of work that needed to be done; completely normal considering it was just days before the festival. 

On the Wednesday, I had assumed to come in for work - as I always do and have been for the past two months. Perhaps it was a lack of communication from the team as upon my arrival to the office, the motor team present did not seem to have any idea that I was arriving nor what my responsibilities were for that day and the rest of the week. There seemed to be a surprise that I showed up.

I went onto meet up with Morgane and to meet the rest of the new volunteers as they were about to enter into their first rehearsal for their group presentation. I participated as well at Casal Pou. 

The volunteers and I went for lunch together afterwards where we could all introduce ourselves.

If I am completely honest, considering it was just two days before the festival, I had assumed that there would be a bit more communication. I felt as though I had been "forgotten" as the team was preoccupied with their responsibilities of the volunteers. 

I will note that I checked the tareas and - there was no updates nor my name on the Excel, and I still showed up as a team player because that is the nature of my work ethic. The main thing I would like to highlight though is that it is also the respect for the time and energy that I (or anyone else) contribute(s) to this association, especially so that at this time I am nearing my Master's degree and balancing everything else in between and trying to be there for everyone. 

By now it should be noted that I am someone who if there is a problem I will bring it up - and so I did. I let the team know how I felt and we talked about preventing mix ups like this happen again in the future. 

I received a call moments later on my way to university where it was noted that my efforts were noticed and noted. I was told I was only to come in for the weekend to help with the festival.

Festival Social 2024

As I arrived to the festival my mentor explained to me in the morning what my responsibilities would be for the weekend; cultural management, artist liaison (check in and check out), data collection (number of participants), evaluation form and feedback collection and photography of artists.

Upon starting the day, it was noted that all members of staff for the festival (motor team, volunteers and all involved) had a Tudanzas shirt; so as to represent the association and to symbolise to the public that we are associated to the festival ------ except me. 

Once again, if anything this was a basic need. There were no nametags, or lanyards. There was such a hesitation to give me a shirt from merchandising. I don't say this lightly as a member of the team even went so far as saying that I should wear a TOTE BAG around my neck. In the end I was given a shirt and pin from merchandising - thank god.

Disrespect - is a word I would use to describe this.

This adds back to my point I brought up above of where I felt completely forgotten. 

>moving on

It was very lovely to see all the artists and meet everyone who we had been communicating with via email for so many weeks now in real life finally. I missed being in the creative environment so much. 

Over the weekend my friends from university came to visit me during work which was nice. A bunch of us even got to do the mandala workshop together. That was something I missed so much - being in a creative environment. I participated in a couple of workshops and met some amazing people.

There was so much interpersonal + intercompany drama within the team and the volunteers that it created a very disorganised and chaotic environment. This made work more difficult and as a result , of course, affected others. Things escalated and many things were not right, but that was not my responsibility to deal with. 

The Renfe train lines were more awful than usual, which meant my arrival and departures were affected. As it was the weekend of elections, in a plan of sabotage, a copper line was stolen which caused a HUGE disruption. This caused me to arrive late on day two as I was on the last running train that had been stopped by the Mossos. In the end, I managed to get myself to and from home in one piece.

I learned a lot. In regards of people skills, management skills, time and scheduling, communication etc..

If I were in a position to give advice to anyone I would say; don't get your emotions involved.

If there is one thing I would say to change - is for the team to actually greet their volunteers and helpers and look them in the eye. I imagine that everyone learned how to say hello and good morning and basic human skills - regardless of language. :)

New tasks of grant applications

After a week's break I returned to a new task where I would be learning how to apply for grants and how to organise my findings into the Tudanzas database.

This was quite a difficult task and I was quite confused as I was unfamiliar with this process. There were formaciones available and linked in the Excel but they were only in Portuguese, hence I did not understand. 

When I brought this up later during our team meeting, it was said and I quote "Maybe she thought that you understood Portuguese because you know Spanish so then you would have been able to know what to do". Spanish is my 4th language, which I think I am doing very well already in navigating this language, but for me to try and make sense of Portuguese too from the basis of my Spanish is impossible.

From the help of my mother and the other volunteers - I slowly got an understanding of how to fulfill my tasks although I will admit it was difficult and a little bit of a struggle.

During the aforementioned team meeting,  I brought up my request for taking time away from my internship to focus on my studies and completion of my Master's as it was very much needed.

As I neared the end of my course, there was a huge pile up of personal and academic things I had to attend to that I simply could not balance too many responsibilities at the same time. 

Therefore, I decided that the best option would be to take a break so that I could come back with a stronger focus and to complete my studies to the best I could.

This week I had a lot of formaciones and team calls as I had to learn a lot of new things regarding the subvenciones. I learned how to update the data on the gantt chart efficiently and in the correct format. It was very helpful to have had these tutorials as I felt that I was finally getting a good understanding on how to do my subvenciones tasks, briefly talking about the carpetas etc..

It was definitely a big and new skill that I am happy to have learned. Honestly, it is difficult and it was a stuggle still but things are more clear.

This same week, I re-organised myself. After being away for some time I felt the need to reorganise things and to set a routine to get back into it. I calculated my hours, set my schedule and my final day with Tudanzas.

Festa Mayor

On Saturday I was requested to come in for Festa Mayor. This time I had a team shirt (wow!); a bright neon green one, it was truly Brat summer. 

It was like a short and sweet version of the Festival Social. There were some familiar faces which was nice to see and the weather was so nice. My responsibilities were to be artist liaison again, to bring them to the office space to change and help them out if needed.

I would bring up the same suggestion I did for the festival social. Look people in the eye and actually say a hello.. you know, normal people things.

A super tiring week

We took down the expo, it was fun to get out of the office and it took like 4 hours. We took the paintings down and wrapped them all individually in bubble wrap. In the background at palau there was also a cabaret rehearsal so we had some background music.

Saw a chicken Gina, she's the chicken of the barrio, apparently she's 20 years old. A lie I think.

Saw a pig on the metro Mandarina

Rita and I went to see Past Lives on the beach

My last week

Over the weekend I took a long rest, I felt as though it was much needed.

This week we had a new intern Victoria. She's super nice too and all 3 of us get along well.

Rita and I are bringing her to Ikea for the first time in her life as she hasn't been!

Quite a turbulent week just personally - it feels as one door closes, many do too, but with that many open as well. 

Many thanks to all who have seen me through these 15 weeks.

Here's to brat summer.