EU Connects life and summer in Brum *

2008-08-03 10:41 p.m.

And that’s another internship/placement in my pocket. In economic terms, it isn’t really a pareto-optimal solution, but close enough. In terms of politics, it’s pretty close to politics topics. In a short summary, quite a good summer spent living in Brum.

Week One: As usual, getting to know the place, which is the West Midlands Regional Assembly, EU Connects Division. Under their logos and promotion materials, it is stated “partly sponsored by the European Union.” Well, it doesn’t take much to guess what the section (it’s a team of three) does. It acts as a middleman for any West Midlands organization—Business, Public, NGO—well basically any organisation to link up with European Organisations. This is not just about finding partners but the main thrust is to get these organisations to apply/bid for transnational funds (which again come partly from the EU) and thus link up with European counterparts. EU Connects is a pilot project to assist in free advising regarding link ups and funds and bring the West Midlands closer to Europe and vice versa. All this might seem rather straightforward, but there’s more to it. That “more” came much later because the team had to visit Brussels during my first week so I was left manning their desks and learning by glancing at the material. Oh, on the first day, I got to meet Jo Cameron, an ex contestant on the British version of the Apprentice. She’s self employed, trying to get a equal balance of women in the work foce.

Week two and three: The real business began. The whole team kept of saying how glad they were to have me—the small size should tell you the reason. I soon had to get use to the common terms such as Grundtvig, Leonardo, Transversal and other funds that were available. My initial tasks were the normal office tasks save analysing feedback from some conference. My main work through out the six weeks came after I was searching for addresses which should have been stored in their list. Their was a list, but it was filled with blanks. Mmm, this is déjà vu, I thought. So while the basic office work came by, I was “digging” through the Internet for contact details. That’s not really “research”, but I call practice for finding information. All went well and perfect for me, until the suggestion came to transfer the data from Microsoft Excel to Microsoft Access.

I have opened Microsoft Access before, but after clicking around, I hadn’t a clue what the program was about. Having worked on Excel for a certain two year four months and naturally using it for one of my undergraduate modules, Excel was definitely a “closer friend”. Even so, with the help Clive, the IT support assistant (he is somewhat like Eng Cheong, the IDSS/RSIS IT head), the Excel file was moved over to Access. Access is a rigid cousin of Excel in my view.. Gone are the mass copying-and-paste times and where searching for data isn’t exactly of a few clicks. Beyond making friends with a Microsoft Porgram, I got to visit the Millennium Think Thank in Birmingham, which is not what you think it is. It’s the equivalent of Singapore’s Science Centre. Having Businessmen from theWest Midlands and Sweden watch a show about the stars isn’t exactly appropriate. Oh well.

Week four: Contact searching and data entering continued, with email address book editing and arranging, increasingly déjà vu. Breaks came when Julia, the manager, asked me to join her at the City Council for some Funding meeting. Join did not meant just sit in and listen to it, but also being the bag carrier. Nothing wrong with that. The meeting was long but gained some more useful stuff about European funding. It became quite evident at this stage that EU integration was continuing at an increasing pace and at all possible levels. I doubt ASEAN is at this stage at all.

The remainder of the weeks, well, were still re-editing the database and adding more entries, tracking the results of one fund. There were more out of office trips—one to Aston University (one of the other Unis in Brum), one to the nearby Groundwork west midlands (UK NGO dealing with environmental issues), and a trip to Wolverhampton. Groundwork sounds like a interesting NGO, but haven’t look exactly into it. The trip to Wolverhampton was fun, because I spent the afternoon wandering around. There was a union protest that day, but strangely enough, the protestors were no where to be found. So after taking a picture of the signs indicating a protest, I drifted off to the city centre church, which had a Burma War (ie. WWII Burma Theatre battle) memorial. Wolverhampton wasn’t a city until 2000 and other parts of it were former towns. In fact, from the map work I was given (Oh, another task), Birmingham by far is the only populated area of the West Midlands, well, you can include Coventry. The rest is all lush rural countryside.

This may not seem like much of a work placement, but there were certainly new issues to be learnt. As like pervious entries on internships, Many thanks to Dr. Julia Speht, the manger, for being extremely friendly and helpful every step of the way. Thank you for a the little gifts, drinks and the farewell lunch at the Japanese restaurant. I greatly appreciate all your advice on future placements, work and universities and wish I could have done more. To Louise, it was great working with your on the files, database and other various issues. I am sort of converted to liking Microsoft Access now, although I’ll place Excel first. To Jo, like wise it was great working with you on promotion materials and thanks for all the help at various stages. Apologies for not being able to work on the webpage for you, that wouldn’t have been much of a challenge.

Beyond the internship, Summer in Birmingham was well, a solitary summer. Heather and I exchanged a few text messagnes, but sadly we couldn’t meet up. Food wise, well it was fun experimenting with new ideas for dinner, although constraints brought me back to my ham pasta. Oh, one evening when I was waiting for the spaghetti to cook, a girl slightly taller than me (well she was on heels) burst into the kitchen, armed with a packet of pre made tortellini’s. She was, as I eventually discovered, the most amicable of the Chelwood (the residence) occupants. Melissa in fact knew Edmund Lim, my old ACS and JC mate—what a small world!—for she was from Warwick Law and Business. Other dinners and breakfasts were however, at Weatherspoons, a delightful club which served the best Fish and Chips, pretty good steak and a hearty fry up. The rest of the time was look out from the top of the Vale and admiring the wonders of God’s creation.

Ok, this is a rather sloppy entry, especially for a internship review. I’ll have to work on it (I’ve said that several times before).

previous - next