25 July 2025
This week, I finally was able to knock out one of the things that has been on my list to complete all summer. Before starting this internship, I had to create a work plan with my boss to demonstrate what was in the plan to be accomplished through my work. One of the things on that work plan was to work on the critical path for World Diabetes Day. My boss and I have been meaning to work on it for awhile, but with everything else going on in the museum, it fell down the priorities list. But this week, we made the critical path our first priority and I learned a lot!
It is important when organizing a big event to have a solid and detailed plan to make sure everything gets arranged as it should and so the event itself runs as smoothly as possible. Banting House has what is called a “critical path” in place to plan for our biggest event of the year, World Diabetes Day. Though this event isn’t until November, there is a lot that needs to be thought about and completed months in advance, so having a complete list that breaks down not only what needs to be done, but also the exact timeline it needs to be done in is a very useful tool to have! We already had a pretty detailed plan in place from previous years, but what use is a detailed plan if nobody is looking at it? My job this week was to reformat the plan into a new document that encourages us to look at it and update it as needed. Part of the appeal of this new format is that it allows us to leave notes on a task’s completion status. This helps us keep on top of the tasks and make it clear for everyone what work has been done or is in the process of being completed. Reading through the critical paths from the last few years and reformatting this year’s has been very educational! A lot of work goes into planning an event as big as World Diabetes Day, and if you don’t plan to make a plan for such an event, you’ll find the event won’t plan itself!
There’s a lot of little things I did this week that are not too different from every other week but I am always glad to continue the work. There will always be more social media posts to create, more artifacts to catalogue, and more tours to give and I wouldn’t have it any other way! I only have a few more weeks left of my internship and I can’t believe how fast it has gone by. I’ve already learned so much and have gotten the chance to experience a lot, so I can’t wait to see what new things I get up to next week!