Ollie Connects Through Events for Fred Hollows Foundation
When Ollie Nolan accepted an events job at Fred Hollows Foundation, he didn't realise he'd be creating a community while working from home.
Working in the events industry during a lockdown can still bring a satisfying level of human connection, as Ollie discovered in his role at Fred Hollows Foundation. He was appointed to work on Fred's Big Run 2021 - a virtual running event raising funds for the foundation - and was excited to realise that his supporting role helped to build a community and create connections to distract people from the stay at home orders.
Participants in Fred's Big Run register a distance and fundraising target and then run and raise funds to support the foundation to cure avoidable blindness. Ollie was responsible for helping people fundraise with some ideas, answer any questions they may have, finding out some cool stories for media, thank you calling fundraisers, and a lot of backend event work, such as answering general enquiries and being the point of call for anyone who needed help with the event. He was contacting prize winners and encouraging fundraisers to keep up the good work.
"I loved that the event brought people together during lockdown, giving them something to work on," said Ollie. "It was a little virtual community."
Ollie helped raise over $2.2 million for the Fred Hollows Foundation, and worked on a post event report, gathering and analysing data and information to hopefully make next year's Fred's Big Run better and more successful. Following this, his role sees him working on a campaign for World Sight Day, hoping to further spread awareness of the Foundation.
Ollie's experience shows the diversity of career roles available in the events industry. He completed the Diploma of Event Managemenet SIT50316 and Bachelor of Event Management CRS1400177 at William Angliss Institute, having said it provided both academic and practical skills for an in-depth and well-rounded understanding of the industry. To hear more about Ollie's student experience and key learnings from the course, you can read about his events experience here.
