The time’s come at last - on January 3rd I’ll be setting sail on the adventure of my dreams: my working trip around the world. I fly to Miami, where I’ll board the Crystal Serenity as the on board Assistant Editor of Guest Publications for Crystal Cruises’ 2008 World Cruise.

I’ll be working on board until May, and then taking until June to backpack Europe (including my first visit to the country of my ancestry, Poland).

While I’m off, I’ll be putting Impression One on hold for a little bit. In its place I’ve set up a photo/blog site to chronicle the journey…if you’re so inclined I’d love for you to follow along.

It’s a quick-and-dirty site done up with iWeb, so some of the pages take a while to load on slower connections. I’ll be posting photos of the various places I’ll see, and I have a blog to share the experience: the destinations, the reality of working on a moving vessel, and the ups and downs of my first time overseas. My first blog post explains the inner desire to live life with passion - the root cause that started this whole crazy adventure rolling.

Thank you for all your support this year as I started up the Impression One site, and I look forward to keeping in touch through “where is Andrew now?“

Since completing my full-time contract at Lawson in September, I have been grateful to work on three major freelance contracts that have kept me “in practice” as I await my cruise-job adventure which will set sail in January.

Bethanys Hope Foundation is a London-based charity that directly funds its own research laboratory working to cure Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD). Londoners may be familiar with the Foundation’s signature fundraising event: The Hawk Rocks the Park. The charity was founded by Dave and Lindey McIntyre, whose daughter Bethany passed away after a heroic battle with MLD. I was incredibly fortunate to work with the Foundation as a freelance consultant for two projects, and I must say Dave and Lindey were two of the most wonderful people to work with for their tireless efforts and inspiring commitment to the cause.

The first project for Bethanys Hope was a grant proposal to hopefully fund new laboratory equipment. This was a particularly exciting challenge as I had never before prepared a formal grant proposal - needless to say I learned a lot about the process, and during in-depth interviews with the research team came to understand MLD a lot better! Of course, I cannot post the proposal to the portfolio page.

The second project was equally rewarding: I was given the reigns to completely redesign the annual newsletter for stakeholders - a report on the fundraising and research efforts delivered to the vast community of volunteers and supporters. From interviewing and writing the feature stories and research report, to developing a design concept, through to editing content and laying out the copy - it was rewarding to manage this project from start to finish. The results - Bethanys Hope’s redesigned annual newsletter - are on the portfolio page.

The third freelance project I took on during these months was for the London District Catholic School Board, and was work proposed to me by a teacher at my former high school (here’s to keeping connections with meaningful people!). This teacher is launching a new specialized curriculum program in manufacturing, and wished to have a promotional poster and informational pamphlet about the program. My solution to the promotional and informational needs makes use of a tabloid-sized page. Unfolded, the front page serves as a poster suitable for guidance offices and classrooms. Folded, it makes a four-page detailed pamphlet outlining the program. The informational poster/pamphlet is also on the portfolio page.

While I was working at my most recent full-time contract (which wrapped up in September) at London’s Lawson Health Research Institute, I was often asked: “What public relations does a science lab at a hospital need?”

I believe my most recent portfolio addition is a nice example of what goes on at a hospital research institute, and why one would want to publicize what goes on there. During my contract, I had the opportunity to write a feature for the donor magazine of St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation, and the story was published this month. The story was to cover the research done at Lawson towards curing age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in Canada. I was honoured to interview two of the researchers leading the battle to stop this negative aging process, and learn about their fascinating work. I also learned about the way that their work was directly funded by the family of a late woman who had suffered macular degeneration herself.

Writing such an article hit home why I was doing the work I was, and the privilege of it. Here I was learning about a hugely problematic health issue, and the remarkable effort to solve it. I was given the ability to inform the public - about macular degeneration so that they might be aware, and about the research so that they might share in the hope. And hey, it being a donor magazine, perhaps the realization that truly world-class science towards takes place in their hometown would inspire Londoners to help fund it!

Writing such an article was, for me, a true example of how public relations lets others see what goes on inside the organization I am contributing to.