Sarah Charlotte Nicole Turje

Welcome to my E-Portfolio!

My name is Sarah Turje, and I am currently a fourth year Business student at Capilano University in North Vancouver, BC. I am working towards getting my BBA, with a focus on Marketing and Advertising as well as finance.

My Ultimate career goal is to own my own Event Planning business, Specializing in organizing large corporate and non-profit events for the entertainment industry. My love for event plannig started when I was in elementary school and I would spend my weeknights organizing talent, magic and runway shows for my friends and family. Who would of guessed that was just the beginning…!

I am always looking for oppurtunities to gain knowledge and experience, so if you could help I would LOVE to hear from you! Please look through my blog and feel free to leave any comments, feedback or questions.

This past summer, a former teacher, Carolyn Stern, asked me, and a few other fellow students, if we would be interested in gaining some real industry experience in marketing, advertising and event planning. Me, being an eager beaver, said Yes!

The Problem: The Lonsdale Quay Market, which is located at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver, is a 2 story building which has a fresh food market on the bottom floor and wide variety of retail stores on the top floor.

The mission: Bring public awareness and increase revenue for the Retail level of the Lonsdale Quay Market.

The Plan: My team and I wrote up a proposal and presented our ideas to the marketing department of The Quay. Our idea was to organize a daylong event, on the second floor of The Quay, which would include everything from live bands, food sampling, kid’s games and raffles/prize draws. Our goal was to bring attenton to the Lonsdale Quay’s Retail level, and make the public aware of the great stores The Quay offers. Click here to see our proposal, concept report

The marketing team loved our idea and we were given a budget, a date and a guideline of requirements and standards. Other than that, we were given free range to do what we wanted and The Spring Spree Jamboree was born. We all pooled our resources and secured the following:

• help from a graphic designer to make our promotional material
• sponsorship from local businesses for extra money and prizes
• 6 bands/performers to play throughout the day
• help from all the stores (upper and lower level) in promotion, ideas for activities and food and product sampling.
• sponsorship from the North Shore news to print our ad and press release in the newspaper

Event poster

We had less than a month to plan the event, and our inexperience made that time feel even shorter. Our team definitely had some roadblocks but with the help of the marketing department and our teacher The Spring Spree Jamboree was a great success. I learned a huge amount about the great deal of work that goes into planning successful events and loved every minute of it! Click here to see the Reference Letter that the Marketing department kindly wrote for me.

Pictures from the Event

Sarah handing out food samples to guests

Lonsdale Quay- Retail level

Store display by, Flying Fish international gifts

I have been working at the Adler Centre, a small not-for-profit counselling centre who specialize in Adlerian theories, for almost four years. I got hired, straight of out high school, to work as a part-time receptionist during the summer. Well, four years, two Executive Directors, three Clinical Directors and many counsellors later I am still there and my job has evolved into the role of Office Manager/Bookkeeper. Over my four years working at the Adler Centre, I have had the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge and experience into how businesses operate.

Over the years I have seen and been involved in enormous change and growth of the organization. These including;
• Rebranding of the Adler logo and image
• Securing Government Grants
• Designing and developing the promotional materials and the website
• Getting PCTIA registered

The Adler Centre offers; workshops, seminars, classes and counselling services to professionals and individuals in the community. For more information, please visit our website at, www.adlercentre.ca or download our most current Newsletter . The following is a brochure that I designed for the Counselling services at the Adler Centre.

Vancouver is one of the most multi-cultural cities in Canada, and its restaurant industry mimics the same trend. You can walk down one street and find 10 restaurants ranging from Japanese to Mexican, and everything in between. Having such a wide range of cultures in one area requires restaurants to accommodate different eating and dining out habits, including the time of day/night that people eat. The BC Government is hindering the success of Vancouver restaurants by restricting service and operating hours, which has given Vancouver a reputation of a ‘No Fun’ city. For more information on this topic, please visit my Blog; Public Concerns of Late Night Restaurant Hour.

Here is a list of some of my FAVORITE restaurants in Vancouver:

West
2881 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC V6K1N7

Blue Water Cafe
1095 Hamilton Street
Vancouver, BC V6B5T4

Bistro Pastis
2153 W. 4th Ave
Vancouver, BC V6K 1N7

Bishops
2183 West 4th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V6H 3J4

Joey’s Burrard (Come down and visit and you might recognize your server…!)
820 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 1X9

For an Advertising class I took at Capilano University, my team and I were required to design an advertising campaign to promote the 2010 Olympic Games coming to British Columbia. We had to shoot a 60 second commercial and write a marketing document on how we would leverage Vancouver during the Olympics.

We presented our campaign and commercial in front of 3 industry professionals, who had the difficult task of choosing the team who they thought, had the best campaign. The prize you ask? Being exempt from writing the final exam. So, as you can see the initiative was high and motivation was no problem!

Here is our Commercial, aka…the winning Commercial!

The Following project is a Marketing Plan I prepared for a first year marketing class at Capilano University. This was my first ‘real’ business project, and I was eager to do a thorough job. As you will see, I went way above the call of duty and ended up making a Business and Marketing plan in one.

My marketing plan is for a ‘potential’ Wakeboarding camp and school, that would be operated from Cultus Lake, BC. The camp/school, called WestCoast Wake, would teach children (ages 9 – 17) graduated skills in a variety of active water sports. To read the full Marketing plan please follow this link, WestCoastWake marketing plan

Advertising Poster

In an Entrepreneurship class I took at Capilano University, the whole course was centered on creating a viable and professional business plan. The business plan had to be for a non-existent company that, at least one member in our group had hopes of starting.

My group chose to write our plan on opening an automotive detailing company which would offer its services in high end apartments in the Vancouver area. Please follow this link to view our full, Business Plan – Mirror finish

Vision Statement
Mirror Finish Auto Spa is more than just a car wash; it’s a complete spa for your vehicle in the comfort and convenience of your own apartment garage. We are dedicated to offering the highest quality automotive cleaning solutions with a keen attention to detail for people who are concerned with the longevity and look of their car.

My dream job (and the goal I am working towards) is to become an event planner for large scale events in the entertainment industry. I have always been fascinated with huge award shows, big elaborate parties and all the details that go into executing these events.

I was thrilled last winter when I was asked if I would model for runway shows during Vancouver Fashion Week. Although I would be modeling and not part of the actual production team, I took it as an opportunity to see what goes on behind the scenes in putting on a large scale event. I was also excited to be able to pick the brains of people in the industry.

Fashion week is a global event that takes place in cities all over the world, such as; New York, Paris, London, and Toronto. Vancouver Fashion Week is currently in its 9th year of production, and is hailed as being the West Coast’s most prestigious event. For more information about Vancouver Fashion Week and how you can get involved, visit their website at, http://www.vanfashionweek.com

Here are some pictures from the event

Checking out the scene with another model

Posing for the Press

Posing for cameras after the Anna Sui show

For my Research Marketing class at Capilano University our year end project is to conduct a ‘real life’ market research study. We are required to follow the marketing process, which starts with problem discovery and ends with presenting our finding to the client. My team and I, ColdDraft Consulting, decided to research whether it would be financially and commercially advantageous for Pourhouse restaurant to extend their operating hours until 2:00am on Monday – Saturdays nights.

Market Research Process Diagram:

Pourhouse restaurant is a new restaurant located in Gastown area of Vancouver B.C. For more information about Pourhouse, please visit their website; www.pourhousevancouver.com.

So far, our team has completed the Research Proposal , Terms of Reference, Team Charter, Research Design , and begun on collecting our raw data. Please feel free to check out and/or fill out the Survey we disigned for this project.

So far, this project has been extremely valuable for my learning career and I know that this knowledge will come in handy in my future.

Stay Tuned for the finalized project and results, which I will be posting on here as soon as it is completed!

Stay Tuned!