Volunteer Lounge
Originally written by Mary Dumas
What you did?
PreCon: Received reports from Registration about new members volunteering for any area of the convention throughout the year. Forwarded said reports to areas mentioned as interests. If no interested area was mentioned held report and sent an overview e-mail about 2 months out from the convention, and continuously until the convention. Kept past volunteers in the loop to keep their interest up for further job assignments at the convention. Appointed two assistants to keep the Lounge open when I was doing the convention things I needed or wanted to do. Gathered swag and other gifts from many locations for the use of the volunteers. Gathered games, information about food sources from the food services head, and additional items to keep the VL a comfortable place. Kept my Div Head informed of any information that he needed to act upon. Assisted in making Summit Mt. Arisia event happen. Bothered Hotel Liaison/Innkeeper to make Crash Space available and then assigned. Kept in touch with other areas to get feedback and information about need of Day Volunteers for their locations.
At-Con: Set-up VL at 1:30pm on Friday. Received shirts, swag, ribbons, time sheets, and other items from OPS. Contacted Hotel Liaison to get room 205-7 unlocked and joined. Also got Hotel Liaison to get hotel staff to configure the rooms as needed (additional tables and chairs). OTHER: assigned Crash Space to individuals, assigned jobs to individual Day Volunteers, kept log of jobs performed, kept list of jobs needing to be filled, ran drawing for special swag, gave away other swag, entertained stand-by volunteers, sent volunteers to on the run jobs, passed out t-shirts as volunteers made 8 hours mark, collected time-sheets to forward to Registration for future convention comp-memberships, disposed of swag to other members of the convention once VL was in need of emptying.
PostCon: Kept count of and will order additional t-shirts and ribbons. Passing volunteer time sheets to Registration. Issuing additional t-shirts and time sheets at post con debrief and one other meeting. Mailing t-shirts to volunteers who left word that they wanted their shirt mailed. Wrote debrief notes to staff@arisia.org as instructed.
What went right?
Having found two very good assistants (Robert Louma and Kara Haff) made the convention work really well for this area. There was never a time that the VL wasn't able to accommodate a request by another area within a short period of time. Found the perfect volunteer job for Raptor, with full kudos to the Smoking Lounge area head! The Crash Space was worthy of making us a world-class convention. Ming Diaz was so impressed by our hospitality that it will bode well for good word of mouth about Arisia for years to come. Most of the Day Volunteers we have are returning volunteers who enjoy the work, many new volunteers were also recruited.
What went wrong?
Monday there were very few volunteers to be found for general convention duties. There were a plethora of those who wanted to do load out to earn their 12 hours for free con next year, but they didn't want to do little jobs that didn't earn a lot of time on the sheet. The Elevators, eh hem, "I told you so."
What should be done differently next year?
VL should be opened on Thursday night or early on Friday morning if at all possible. If this is done OPS and Logistics would have less questions from concerned volunteers about their time counting correctly.
What sort of schedule/timeline did you use? Notes on yellow lined paper.
Are the any changes you'd make to the schedule for next year?
I've tried making lists in advance, scheduled in detail, but nothing like being flexible and having happy available volunteers works any better.
Vendors you used? none
Experiments to try next year?
Index Cards with jobs listed and sorted into hourly piles. Early training for volunteers (from con-chair to day volunteers) on the dynamics of people service skills.
Any comments about the rest of the con (other divisions, hotel, ...)?
- I could not have been happier with the diligence and help that Hotel Liaison and Innkeeper provided, simply wonderful.
- The VL people and I enjoyed every morsel of food that was delivered by the Staff Den, timely and delicious. -The general membership of the convention were a bit surlier than they should have been, especially the long time Arisia attendees.
- Why does Masquerade have to take up an entire day of pre-programming, and most of the ballroom during that time?
- Tech had a nice statement about wanting to be more inclusive and get new blood in, but then proceeded to do their usual job of making the newbies feel stupid.