One Last Word #WTI

A day has passed since the final 10 applicants for the STA World Traveller Internship finally found out their fate. As one of these applicants, I know completely how every single one of them felt…..anticipation, stress etc. When we found out the final results, I felt such a heavy weight leave my boney shoulders.

The final calm before the storm #sta #wti

Since the announcement for the 2 people who get the internships is tomorrow, I thought I’d have a little reflection.

There are 9 others in my position awaiting the appointment and these all obviously want the job as much as me. STA Travel will know who they want, so there is now nothing more any of us can do.

It is hard to be confident about getting the position because every single of the other applicants offer something unique and have the same passion for travelling as I do. I do however feel that I can offer a lot to the whole campaign and having worked on an award winning campaign for Tourism New South Wales, last year, it prepared me perfectly for this position. So who knows what will happen. I have picked my two applicants who I would chose (excluding me of course), so it will be good to see how close I am.

My summer plans are on hold until this announcement because if I get position, I will probably celebrate for the next week, but if not, I have a few back up plans which I’ll have to start working on.

I just wanted to address a few peoples concerns about myself. I think a lot of people think I may have been cheating, but I can honestly say, I haven’t even voted for myself never mind cheated. I don’t see the point in cheating because to be honest, it is pretty obvious and I’m not that type of person. As a marketing student and I work in internet marketing, I have been promoting the cr*p out of my application form every round, from Twitter, to Facebook, to various websites and forums around the web. I have been lucky in that I have a few friends with a good following on social media networks so this in itself has helped me a lot. But most of all, I worked VERY hard to get these votes. I spent a lot longer on the laptop than I normally would. I’ve been glued to my phone tweeting and facebook’in when not near my laptop. So some may think I haven’t had to work hard to get to this point, I have.

Whoever does get the position, remember how lucky you are and what others would do to get in the position you find yourself in. Cherish every moment of the 3 months and make sure you work hard for STA Travel. Obviously it is a marketing campaign for STA Travel and they want to drive traffic and business to them, but from a consumer point of view, make the videos, blogs and photos as relevant and interesting as possible. Even if no one else in the country pays attention to them, you know there will be 50+ former STA World Traveller applicants scrutinizing your every move. So prove them wrong, get the results, and do yourself and STA proud.

So lastly may I just say, good luck to everyone and may the best man and woman win. To everyone who is unsuccessful, well done for coming so far and there is always next year!

Cuzzy

Full interviews with Matt Lewis and Cllr Andrew uploaded

I thought it would be a waste of footage if I didn’t upload the full thoughts and interviews from Matthew Lewis (Actor) and Councillor Stuart Andrew.

So here you go;

Now it’s in the hands of the Gods.

Done. Dusted. Finito. Several rounds of voting, 2 videos, 1 one phone interview and thousands of people asking me “What is this STA Travel thing you are going for Cuzzy”. The fate of 10 hopefuls is in the hands of the guys and girls at STA Travel.

Having just experienced the busiest 12 days of my entire life and missing out on the vital sleep I need, I had only one day to film everything for the STA World Traveller video. When I received the email from STA HQ, I was over the moon with the extension. I could foresee going into the Leeds at 5am to do filming, because I simply did not know where I was going to find the time. But the extra 2 days was a godsend.

We had about an hours worth of footage, so I had to find a way of getting that down into 5 minutes, and with only 5 hours to do so, it wasn’t easy. I have so many outtakes and fuller interviews with people, I might make a separate video if anyone is interested?

I would like to thank a few people in helping me make the video;

- Matthew Lewis – For filming the whole thing, ‘directing it’, driving us around the whole day, arranging for the Leeds Rhino players which we didn’t have time for  and for having a little interview in a wet alley.

- Nick Rushfirth – For coming along for the night stuff, helping with the monopoly idea and handing me a Kopperberg at a much needed time.

- Thomas Hemingway – For filming me interviewing Matt. That is all.

- Ben Wilkinson – For sorting his cousin out to meet us at the Leeds United training ground.

- Councillor Stuart Andrew – For talking 10 minutes out of his busy election campaign to come chat.

- Aidan White – For taking time out after training to have a little interview.

- Lynda Lewis – For organising the nurse to meet us for an interview. Unfortunately we didn’t have time for it.

- Voters – To every single one of you that has voted for me, or posts it on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. You guys are awesome!

- Leeds residents – For putting up with me being annoying and asking to interview you and jumping into shots etc on Thursday. I was getting a fair few mucky looks. So I apologise.

So here it is, what you have all been waiting for, my STA World Traveller Final 10 video about Leeds.