Myrna Barrera

Hollins Summer Programme

Internship Journal
Week One:
It turned out that I would be doing my internship at Move Your Money UK right in Soho
Square. When I first met my supervisor, Laura Willoughby, I was astonished at how laid back
she seemed. She was not dressed up incredibly formal and she seemed very open and
welcoming. I was most interested in her style because it reminded me of my stereotype of young
English hipsters. She was wearing creeper shoes, which can be described as closed shoes with a
very thick platform, and very short blonde hair with some lose clothing. Quite generally I would
classify her style as hipster. I was very interested to see how working with her would turn out to
be, since as the head of the company she must feel passionately towards fighting great powers,
either politically or financially.
However, I am also apprehensive that I am going to be working on a campaign against
the big banks in the UK. Coming in I felt out of place because I was considering working in the
banking industry in the future. However, I realized that the banking culture in the UK is very
different than in the U.S. and they seemed to be a bit behind in diversity. I was slightly torn
because I knew I would be on the team but I dont know if I could pick up the passion that
everyone else had. First of all, I have not been directly affected by the big banks in the UK and I
have not been here to listen about all the scandals since the beginning of the economic crisis.
Secondly, throughout my life I have never been drawn into campaigning and it had perhaps been
one of my least favorite things to do. I was also surprised that there was only one employed

person and yet there was so much to do and personally I felt there needed to be more
organization but thats difficult to do when the company is mostly volunteers.
On the first day on the job that evening we had a training session on social media which I
thought was interesting. We got to meet some of the volunteers that have been with the campaign
for a while and others who were interested in starting. Everyone on the team seemed very
welcoming and our supervisor even brought some quiche for us to eat which I thought was really
good.
That first week Catherine and I were able to attend the St. Paul Cathedral debate on good
banks. Our supervisor was one of the panelists along with the archbishop of Canterbury and the
CEO of Barclays and the economics editor of BBC. It was a great experience to enter St. Pauls
Cathedral but it was also nice to get to hear peoples reactions to the banking industry in the U.K.
I am not trying to be biased but my supervisor with Move Your Money UK got the loudest
applause, simply because she appealed to the crowd and the consumers. I think this was a great
way to start the first week of my internship because I was able to take note of the field in which I
was going into for the summer.
Week Two:
The second week of my internship I slowly began to get into a rhythm of routines. I
found myself with a couple projects on my hand. I found them fairly simple to do and not very
complex. However the struggle was my unfamiliarity with the campaign and the previous work
that the campaign had done. Since I am not a U.K. resident I am not extremely familiar with the
problems that consumers have had with the big banks. I am not directly affected by the mishaps
of the banks and policy in the U.K. can vary greatly from that of the U.S. Thus it became a

learning process to figure out what to tweet on behalf of Move Your Money. I had to find news
that the campaign could use to persuade people to move their money and lean away from the big
banks or look at the positive news for local banks. Perhaps the reason I found this more difficult
was because I did not share the same opinions as the campaign. . I understood completely the
motivation and the reasoning behind the campaign and I greatly admired them for starting the
campaign. However, I found myself unable to form a strong opinion against the big banks.
What was really interesting on my first week of tweeting was the very busy news
day. The company sent out a press release stating that according to either data out there 2.4
million customers had moved their bank accounts from the big banks. This was released on the
guardian and mentioned on the times. We were getting a lot of comments and reaction to the
news. I found it kind of exciting but I did find myself also questioning how the numbers came
about which was the concern of many. I can see how campaigns use numbers to their advantage
without giving out the full details. I've learned from my statistics class that calculating numbers
is not always as simple as you think. Aside from that I was very happy that the campaign got
some coverage.
I was also able to join and follow my supervisor to a Co-Op Bank and watch her do an
interview with ITV. I felt impressed by Lauras ability to answer questions on the spot and sound
passionate and knowledgeable about what she was talking about. Unfortunately, the interview
had to be cut out because of the coverage done on that one celebrity that got abused by her
husband.
What I found most particularly interesting this week was that we were able to attend the
board meeting. I was assigned the task of taking the minutes for the meeting. This at times was
difficult because I had no idea what they were talking about. I think overall it went well and I

was able to learn much more about the company and realize the huge role that my supervisor has.
I could also see that there was a lot going in different areas and there was a lot to go around
without the man power. Laura was involved in all of the different projects and business going on
in the company which I thought was really impressive. I also was able to see that they were not
all young hipster people that were against big banks. Many of them were professionals with their
career but they just seemed to be fed up with the way things were being run inside the banking
system.
Week Three:
By week three I was definitely getting used to my routine at work and I was becoming
more familiar with the message of the company. I also began to understand a bit more the reason
for why the founders of the organization decided to campaign against the big banks. Surprisingly
I went into work on Monday after having arrived from Paris on coach at 8 in the morning.
However, I did go in to work later and I found myself able to go through work and make it to
class. This was also the start of Wimbledon and the other people in the office used the apple
screen to stream tennis on BBC. Kiki, from the other company in the office seemed to be really
into it and she would make frequent comments on tennis.
During the week Catherine and I accompanied our supervisor to meet with a volunteer
that was taking charge of the companys new crowd funding campaign. This was a very informal
meeting and we met a tea shop that had a great variety of teas available. It was a really nice place
and mini tea pots were given out to you for dine in but I found myself out of place since I do not
drink tea. I tried to find something that I would be comfortable with but the smoothie turned out
to have a tea flavor which did not surprise me. I felt slightly embarrassed because I could not

finish my drink but I truly made the effort but the flavor is never going to stick to me. It just
came to my realization that it is always assumed that everyone drinks tea. I try not to make it a
big deal because I can avoid it most times but this really made me feel a little out of place.
At our meeting I was finally given some more tasks to go through and given a timeline of
creating the company newsletter for the upcoming crowdfunding campaign. I was unable to
compile a rough draft until my supervisor gave me the information I needed but she seemed to be
putting that off. Thus, this kind of left me in the position I found myself a lot, streaming the
internet to get distracted and play around with Photoshop. I was however able to create a button
on our newsletter that we could use as a donate now button for the campaign and for all
newsletters sent. Laura seemed to like it and I found myself slightly proud that I was able to
design something by just playing around with the tools on Photoshop with little experience.
Week Four:
I started off my week like a very typical Monday and as usual there was an evening
meeting that day. I was able to see some of the volunteers I originally met my first week and was
in constant contact with on email chains we have running through the company. Since Catherine
is focusing more on the crowdfunding campaign she left with the volunteer to meet with one of
the organizers. I stayed with some of the social media volunteers and was able to finally present
the research I had done on email newsletters after completing it two weeks before.
It felt rewarding to be able to present my work to a group of people who have been with
this campaign much longer than I. I thought it was very beneficial because many of them had
never thought about the tips that I had proposed to them. I enjoyed doing the research because I
felt that I was able to learn a lot and become the person who is specialized in that area. The

volunteers also seemed to be satisfied with the draft newsletter I had created and my task was to
draft a newsletter to announce the crowdfounding campaign.
On Tuesday Laura was hardly in the office and on Wednesday we were all able to meet
and I reminded her again that in order to create a draft I needed to know what she would like me
to put on it. She was finally able to pass me some information and very quickly I was able to
finish my work. I asked her for something else she would like to add but once again that was put
on hold for the moment. On Thursday Laura was not in the office and I had some short work to
do but it was a very boring work day, I tried to find things to entertain me regarding work. One
of the interns left early since he didnt seem to want to work on 4th of July.
Week Five:
Monday was a very typical day but I got in slightly later because I cued up to get seats to
see Wicked the musical that evening. My supervisor is a complete supporter of this because she
is a theatre geek. She probably goes to see about 80 shows a year. She also had given us her
login got a discount theatre website where it is 2 tickets for 5 pounds. She helped us out again by
getting us tickets to see Merrily We Roll Along.
The beginning of the week we had been discussing about the possibility of launching the
crowdfunding campaign this week and it was a matter of setting the date and sticking with it. I
just felt that there was some work that needed to be done everywhere and it is hard for Laura to
be everywhere which slows down some of the work. I found myself researching some things that
could work for the campaign. I also did a lot of research of the science of virality and how
internet memes work and can spread. I was trying to look up things that could be useful for the
campaign and not spend my whole time watching videos on YouTube.

On Wednesday we finally decided to launch the crowdfunding campaign on Thursday

and there were some things that needed to be finalized and most were assigned to Catherine since
she has been working on this. However, I felt that I was not assigned enough and did not feel that
that was very challenging or time consuming work. I was not mistaken and it only took a half
hour to finish the work I had to do.
On Thursday we went in the morning ready to launch the crowdfunding campaign. I was
on social media so I tweeted some news and announced our campaign. I thought this was a good
day for social media with me and Catherine working together. I spent most of my time trying to
find news articles to tweet about and I had a good response by various people retweeting us or
directing tweets to us. I think it was a good end to the week. I found myself interacting more
with the people around me. I really enjoyed my time working in this office, the people are really
nice and super opening to us. I felt like I definitely learned a lot about British people by just
sitting in this office.