I thought the other week was busy!

Time for another blog post, sorry it’s a bit late. I thought the other week was busy, not compared to last week!

Even though it was a busy week I have to say I had one of my top 5 experiences so far in my apprenticeship; visiting Aston Fire Station!

Last week was full of different things again. As it was Pancake Day Craig and I made a Vine of someone flipping a pancake to promote safety for #watchwhatyouheat. 

On Wednesday we were at The Juice Academy again, where we learnt a lot about presenting and presentations. This was a really good experience as we looked into who was a good public speaker; which was really insightful into how people present. I never knew that public speakers (for example, Barak Obama) practised even their hand gestures down to a T!

Then it was Thursday, the first ever #SMAday. It was exciting and scary at first but once I had gotten into the hang of Tweeting and spoke to everyone on white watch I felt a lot more comfortable. What I mean by gotten into the hang of Tweeting is that I got the chance to Tweet about #SMAday from the WMFS Twitter account. (I think this is what scared me the most!) But I was quite excited when people actually started RTing (Re Tweeting) and favouriting the Tweets I had been doing. I even got some engagement out of the followers!

I stayed at Aston Fire Station with White Watch for the whole day. I watched them check their equipment, do their training, do (boring) admin work and then I went with a few of the watch members to some high rise flats. Here they did their checks to find out about the flat. (As they had inherited it from another fire stations patch). They checked things like: where best to get their water from to how many rooms are on each floor. This is so they are as prepared as the can be when dealing with a fire there (if ever one arises).

Like I said, for me, this was an amazing experience. I have never seen what happens in a Fire Station before and this was a great insight. I’d also like to thank White Watch at Aston Fire Station for being so friendly and looking after me!

Settling in and Working Hard

It'll be a month tomorrow since starting at West Midlands Fire Service on our social media apprenticeship. I can't believe it as it felt like only yesterday we were sat at our desk on our first day shaking! Since then though we have really settled in; with help from a friendly team to work with and because of all the opportunities we've been given. 

I don't think that either of us thought that we would be let lose to do so much! 

I think it's safe to say that last week has been our busiest week yet. Even so it was extremely enjoyable and very productive. From filming our blog post to visiting Aston Fire Station to visiting Templars Primary School in Coventry where we had to film and write about a Booster Seat Campaign (not to forget going to Manchester to train with The Juice Academy). 

Last week I also did my first solo interview (scary!). This was with @Bluelighthinking; who are the Research and Development team at West Midlands Fire Service. This was a great experience for me as it helped boost my confidence as well as learn skills about interviewing, taking notes and writing up an article after. (you can also read this on our #SMAvlog!) 

They're just a few things we did; you can read about the rest on our #SMAvlog which is updated weekly so get reading! (or watching as we may post videos of our week or videos from events we have been to).

My next post will be about why I made the right choice in choosing this apprenticeship, so keep checking here for it!

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Manchester Travels

As I'm doing an apprenticeship with @TheJuiceAcademy I need to travel to Manchester once a week for the next 4 weeks and then once a month until the end of my apprenticeship. 

Most people may get the train seeing as it's an 87 (or so) mile drive... But not me; I love a long drive (apart from when the satnav shouts at you!) and don't get to drive that far very often.

It's also worth it for the great lessons at The Juice Academy, even when you think you know how to use social media there is still a lot to learn!

My first blog post...

Well here goes...

I am not an expert in the field of blogs (so please excuse any grammatical errors!). 

Recently reading the blogs of other Juice Academy apprentices; it has inspired me to write my own about my apprenticeship journey at West Midlands Fire Service (Follow them on Twitter @WestMidsFire) and experiences. 

I have always been interested in social media and its global take over. So when I saw that you could actually be a social media apprentice with The Juice Academy (you can also follow them on Twitter @TheJuiceAcademy) I jumped at the chance (not literally as I bang my head too much as it is). I applied for the position straight away and then the wait began. When I got the email inviting me to the 'boot camp' I didn't know what to expect but was amazingly surprised at how good the day was! Especially when I was accepted for the role to be a West Midlands Fire service Social Media Apprentice. 

Our first week was so busy but so fun at the same time. We even met with the Chief Fire Officer (which was a scary thought at first!), however, it was an amazing experience and once me and Craig (@Mr_InCraigable) were interviewing him we didn't know why we were even scared in the first place. As you can see from our selfie... 

We have even done interviews (which you can watch here), attended events to represent the West Midlands Fire Service and helped raise awareness on the Twitter account.

Basically; I have had an amazing experience already and I've only just finished my third week!

That's just a rough overview of my experience so far but will now be updating my blog on a regular basis, so to stay updated you can follow me on Twitter (@Jesssicaar_18). 

Also watch out for #SMAvlog!