August 29, 2025
Brendan’s Summer Recap
Brendan, Social Media Assistant
We have to stop meeting like this.
Last time I wrote one of these, I was coming off a three-week internship that led to a summer job at CPAWS Manitoba. For as awesome as that blog was, let’s talk about my last three-months.
I was hired as the social media/content creation assistant. When I tell my grandma what I do, she doesn’t quite get it, so let’s lay it out. My primary function was to manage our social media channels. From June through August, I wrote most of our social media posts and theorized ideas to expand our reach on our social media.
I also dabbled in some graphic design, photography, and video editing, but let’s just hit the highlights.
In show biz we call this a hook; let’s begin with the caribou costume.
The Caribou (Of the costume variety)
To me, being an intern meant a few things: say yes to opportunities, pick up the printing, and if there was a funny thing to do — do it.
When I came back to CPAWS Manitoba, I had to fulfill my promise of wearing the mascot costume during the pride parade. After all, this would be my third time donning a mascot costume, so I have the experience (which is a story for another blog).
My first day back was the day of the pride parade, it was hot, and I was ready to sweat off a few pounds. Thankfully my coworkers thought of a few ways I could wear the costume, walk in the parade, and not get worker’s compensation from dying of heat on company time.
The solution? A vest made of ice packs and duct tape that was made to keep me cold under the costume. (Shoutout to Carly for taping me up).
I had a blast throughout the day. I gave the highest of fives, started some chants about nature, and got ice cream after. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Check out this video of us at Winnipeg’s pride parade:
One of the personal highlights of marching in the pride parade was seeing our float. The float was one of my responsibilities as an intern. Seeing the float come to life filled me with pride (haha) as my work come to life.
The Bird Video (Dude, people love birds)
A large portion of my job this summer was creating content and finding ways to connect to our audience. Before you make a post or video you need to have a good idea of what a typical CPAWS Manitoba follower is interested in and if they would care about the post.
So you, yes you, you’re reading this. Let’s see if I have this right: You either love nature or try to connect with nature in your everyday life. You go for walks or hikes and take pictures of animals and plants along the way. I’d be surprised if you didn’t own a bike and your ideal vacation probably involves a tent, trailer, or cabin.
Am I close? That description is typically how I would describe our audience. I built this idea of our followers through talking to people who signed up for our hikes or workshops.
All this leads to the Merlin ID app, an app people use to identify bird calls and keep a list of the birds they’ve seen. All my homies love the Merlin ID app, and when I think of our audience, they definitely love it too. Our communications team leader asked me to make a Merlin ID TikTok all summer, and I tried to find the best way to do it.
Well one day I was driving to work, listening to my favourite hockey podcast, The Steve Dangle Podcast, when BAM — They started talking about the Merlin ID app. So I pulled over to record the audio from my phone.
The result? Well this video:
We got over 30,000 views on social media from this video between TikTok and Instagram while having the podcast hosts repost the video. This video and it’s results showed how audience insight drove our content.
Photography (Dude, I love squirrels)
One of my favourite parts of my job this summer was taking tons of photos. We didn’t have a lot of pictures of our events, so I wanted to make sure CPAWS Manitoba had what they needed for next summer.
I went to most of our events over the summer and took pictures of people, animals, and landscapes. Tuesdays quickly became my favourite day of the week as I’d go to our Nature Club workshops to capture photos for promotional social media posts. But you can only take so many pictures of people sitting/standing in a circle, so I’d often wander off to see what else I could find in Crescent Drive Park.
My favourite photo has to be when I had a pileated woodpecker hop into a patch of light on a tree. I was very sad I didn’t have a longer lens for a clearer photo, but still love how it turned out.
Squirrels quickly became one my favourite animals to take pictures of. The little guys often stop and freeze for a moment between their leaps. I don’t know if it was placebo or not, but giving a squirrel a little “pspspsps” like they were cats gets squirrels to look at me. I now have a tidy little collection of photos of squirrels looking at me, it’s fantastic how good sports they are.
Click here for a Super cool collection of Squirrels
CYA CPAWS
“Brendan, you were saying goodbye in the last blog I read about you”
Okay nosey, I’m leaving for real this time. After spending practically five months at CPAWS Manitoba, here are some closing thoughts about my time at CPAWS Manitoba.
First, If you’re a Creative Communications student at RRC Polytech and want a work placement at a non profit, I’d highly recommend asking to be placed here.The staff here are some of the most fun, colourful, and genuine people you’ll work with. They love what they do and they’re darn good at it. You’ll have a great time if you get the chance to work here.
Speaking of the staff, I’d like to thank them for being so welcoming during my time here. The creative freedom I had when running our social media accounts. The trust they had in me allowed me to do my best work, and I hope they were happy with the results.
Also, if you’re reading this, take a hike. Seriously, CPAWS has a monthly hike on the first Saturday of every month. They’re fun, free, and are a great excuse to get out side and connect with nature without having to do any planning. They also have a lot of other great events to get you outside.
I’ve never been good at ending blogs, so from CPAWS Manitoba, this has been Brendan.
Peace out girl scouts.