My CBC 75th Anniversary Volunteering Experience!

This Saturday I was granted a volunteer position at the 75th Anniversary CBC Open House - It was an awesome experience!

All volunteers were assigned different areas to work in. My friend and I (Lydia, also a 1st year RTA student) was assigned to work at the News Desk station. Here, guests participated in short mock news broadcasts including news, sports headlines and weather. It went in groups of three. When the next group was up, each person would go to their spot (sports and news at the desk, and weather standing in front of a green screen) and perform their newscasts with teleprompters. It was so professional and the script was actual news from the day before! The crew recording each take and we took the footage and converted the files onto cool CBC-themed usb keys so they could take theirs home and show family and friends. It let guests experience the real thing and everyone had loads of fun. I had a great time meeting people: guests, other volunteers, other CBC workers and featured anchors and news reporters who took part in meet-and-greets with the public. 


Funny story:

I met Odette Gough (photo on the left) one of the presenters of Le Téléjournal, which is considered the French language equivalent of the English CBC's The National. She was so friendly and talked to me and my friends. She told us about her musical career and my friend told her that I sang opera. So... she made me sing opera right on that spot in front of everyone! It was extremely nerve-wracking but it was funny. Odette's friend asked me to join her french choir - which I totally would have but it was too far for me to commute. 

My own footage... I filled in a couple of times when certain groups didn't have three members. It's a lot harder than it looks! Lydia (right) and I (left) jumped in without having looked over the script and we were pretty terrible!

Volunteering for the 75th CBC Anniversary Open House was such an amazing experience. In the media industry it's so important to know people, and I definitely met a lot of people thanks to RTA. Two of my fellow volunteers and I even charmed the lighting director into giving us an all-access tour of the building! We got to climb around the sets for the children's shows, peek in on a live taping of Cover Me Canada, and sit behind the Hockey Night in Canada desk. It was definitely a surreal day and the volunteers were treated so well.


- Karoline
* thanks to http://www.lexpress.to/archives/3790/ for the picture of Odette Gough!