We’re one of the organisations working with the University of Birmingham’s ‘B-Experienced’ Internship Programme – and we’ve been delighted to have had Sarah as part of our team in early 2025 through the scheme.
We asked her to say a bit about her experience with us over the past few months…
When reflecting on my time at Strike A Light it seems difficult to condense the experience down into a short blog post, but I shall do my best. Now that I have been part of the team for the last 10 weeks, it seems funny to think back to how nervous I was on the first day of my internship. However, based on how welcoming and friendly everybody at SAL are, my nerves were definitely unfounded and I managed to quickly settle in and find my feet.
Though working officially as the marketing and producing intern, I like to think of myself as more of a jack-of-all-trades figure during my internship. I have worked on traditional marketing focused tasks such as researching and writing email marketing examples focused on upcoming projects, which allowed me to become familiar with Mailerlite and learn how to create emails which are clear, concise and get readers engaged. I’ve also done research into how Strike A Light marketed their ‘Pay What You Can’ ticket sales and effectively used Canva to design an eye-catching application for a grant proposal.
Yet my experiences have also strayed outside of these areas which has given me an amazing chance to widen my knowledge and skills in lots of different fields and help me to continue to understand the type of role I may want to pursue in the future. Some of these experiences include doing the front of house at Viv Gordon’s Cutting Out, which gave me a chance to learn how to engage with our audience and collect useful evaluations from them. I was also able to sit in on the show, which I found an impactful piece of work and provided a chance to gain a better understanding of what SAL does and the driving ‘why’ behind them. During my time I have also researched fundraisers, participated in a SAL in school’s session, attended NPO focused away days, handed out promotional flyers and carried a baby seagull out of our office kitchen…Okay that last one was definitely not part of SAL’s plan for the internship, but a memorable and amusing moment in the office, nonetheless.
Beyond the work I myself have completed and contributed to, I also think an important part of my internship has been that of an observer. I’ve been lucky enough to sit in on meetings and discussions at SAL covering a vast area of topics and at each meeting I’ve had a front row seat to the team’s passion, enthusiasm, care and creativity in their approach to every part of the work they do. These meetings have shown me how valuable collaboration is, how useful bouncing ideas off each other can be and to have the confidence to share my ideas, even if I doubt their usefulness.
As I now move into a period of job hunting and looking for my next opportunity, I know that the experiences I have had, the work I have done and the confidence I have gained from interning at SAL will be invaluable in my applications. Thank you to the Strike A Light team for making me feel a welcome and valuable part of your organisation.
Strike A Light 