My work experience with Penny Post actually started a day early on Friday 3 November, when I got to go to the launch of the Newbury edition of Monopoly at Newbury Racecourse thanks to Penny and Brian’s kind invite. It was a really exciting and unique insight into the amount of people who collectively make and contribute to Newbury being the best community and town possible. It was also very interesting to see what was on the board – including Penny Post on the Chance square. In fact, afterwards my school friends were curious and I showed them photos which they were really interested in.
I also got to shake hands with and talk to the Mayor of Newbury but there wasn’t a photo so you will have to trust me on that one.
Monday
On Monday, I went to work at Penny and Brian’s house, Hillsprings in East Garston. I compiled some items for Brian and helped Penny with some shots of the Monopoly Newbury board. This was tricky as it took me a while to get the right shot that I needed. However, with patience and persistence I managed to get what was needed which was a very satisfying result.
Following on from this, I did some Photoshop editing (changing the background and using the select tool) which was challenging but with Penny’s immensely useful guidance I successfully completed this task and the end result was great.
I also began writing an article for the Penny Post website which I found flowed extremely well and came to me very quickly. Additionally, Brian gave me constructive criticism on what was good and how I could improve it further. Brian told me that I could make some changes tomorrow and to build it further.
Tuesday
Tuesday involved me working from school, as thanks to a lot of red tape I couldn’t go into their house. I started by improving my article further and making small but necessary changes. Brian and I spent this day by communicating via email, so we could keep in contact and work in an efficient manner. I spent the rest of the day helping out at school, which I found very rewarding.
Wednesday
Wednesday consisted of me going to the Newbury Spring Festival office to drop Penny Post flyers off (they kindly agreed to circulate these) with Penny herself.
I also went with Penny to the weekly Educafe community cafe in Newbury Library (every Wednesday from 11am to 2pm).
Whilest there I had a zoom call with Brian to fine-tune my article and Penny taught me how to create a post on their website and edit it in both WordPress and Elementor.
I met a variety of people at Educafe and enjoyed seeing that people had a community and made use of it for different reasons.
One of the most interesting things was meeting some people who were learning English as it was not their first language.
One person that I met had come from Ukraine due to the war and it was incredibly eye-opening hearing what it was like for her to come to a new country and start again with a new life and new people in it.
Thursday
Today I was back at Hillsprings and I spent the morning improving my CMV article with some minor changes and then I published it which was a very proud moment for me. Thursday is Penny and Brian’s busiest day as they publish their weekly newsletter. Penny taught me how to edit the newsletter on MailChimp and I got to write text summarising my article and I was pleased that quite a few people clicked on it. Click here to see the newsletter (please note this went out 9th November 2023 – you should read this as Penny and Brian stayed up very late to get the newsletter finished. I feel for their sleep and sanity.. Don’t worry, I promise they were actually doing this and not clubbing). Additionally, I did some editing on Photoshop to clean up an image which went smoothly with an excellent end result. I then had my teacher visit me and he asked what I have been doing. He also joked that I was looking forward to going back to school!
Whilest we were working I also had cats crawling on me which was very amusing and entertaining. Here is proof of said cats (Marmite and Cleo, which are excellent names but I sadly can’t take the credit for them which is a real shame. At least for me, I think)
I think they like me which is a bonus to this experience!
Friday
Friday morning started off with a doctor’s appointment which meant I had to come to school via my chauffeur (sorry, my mum. I think I mistyped that) Consequently, it was a very chaotic start for me.
Soon after I joined Penny at Hillsprings we drove to the 4LEGS radio studio in the next village of Eastbury. It was my first visit to a radio studio and it was very exciting seeing all of the buttons on the mixing desk as well as listening to the music and jingles. Penny’s first guest was a nutritionist who talked about glucose monitoring then I spoke on there about various topics, including my experience of being in CBBC’s The Football Academy as I play on Southampton Academy’s para team) with Penny interviewing me.
She’s pretty good at this, I think (in my totally expert opinion) I found this great fun as I’m very talkative and radio allows me to do a lot of that old thing, you know, talking. I’ll stop. If you would like to hear my rambling, click here. Please be advised that no mouths were harmed in the making of this. I start at 33 mins if you just want to hear me. Note that this is unlikely given that I generally don’t shut up throughout. Yes, I know you should feel sorry for Penny and Chris who had to deal with this unfortunate trait of mine.
Thank you so much to Penny and Brian for the wonderful experience with Penny Post. I’ve had a brilliant few days with you learning web editing, photo editing, writing, research and fact-checking.
Also, they should be thanked for their ability to put up with me (which deserves a medal, I know).
Ellie Wheatley
Year 11
Mary Hare School.
