Difference between revisions of "Volunteer"

Revision as of 02:41, 5 May 2010

Volunteers can be the life blood of a BJC, very often most (if not all) of the organisers are volunteers. Without volunteers the BJC could not be anywhere near as good as it is or as cheap.
It is important to impress upon the BJC attendees how critical it is to the success of BJC that them giving up their time free of charge is. Every hour of volunteer work saves BJC paying for someone to do that task, thus keeping the cost of BJC down for us all.

Utilising Volunteers

Volunteers need to be coordinated so there are clear jobs they can volunteer to do (with the means and instructions to do those jobs).
A good way of doing this can be to set up volunteer rotas for various duties so people can give up an hour or two of their time when it suits them and you don't have 100 volunteers one day and none the next. It is also sensible to use volunteers to their strengths; some will be very good at running workshops, some will be good at helping tech. shows.

Rewarding Volunteers

Many BJCs have had incentive schemes for volunteers where they are rewarded with badges to show they have helped the convention. Some reward volunteers with refreshments. Derby tried to reward volunteers with better seats at the public show but this was not popular with everybody.

BJC Norwich and BJC Huddersfield had a reward badge scheme where the more times (hours) you volunteered the different colour badge you were awarded.

Some people will volunteer every year whatever the scheme, but they should not be taken for granted. Make sure volunteers are thanked for their help.

Recruiting Volunteers

Some BJCs have asked registrants to select what they would like to volunteer to do at BJC on their pre-registration form. This can be a good way of encouraging volunteering/reminding people to volunteer and can give you an indication before BJC what volunteers you might expect.

Having a volunteer sign up sheet on the registration desk also gives people another chance to volunteer (or be invited to volunteer) when they arrive.

If you have a reward scheme maybe advertising it at Reg desk or info point might encourage some people to volunteer.

If an attendee says that something needs doing, that might be the opportunity to ask them if they would like to volunteer to do it.

Volunteer Jobs

Here are some suggestions of jobs that might be entrusted to volunteers, the list is not exhaustive:

• Manning registration desk/Info point
• Running workshops
• Badge control
• Marshalling/ushering people on to buses for public show
• Litter picking
• Erecting/dismantling fencing

Other Things to Bear in Mind

It is probably not a good idea to ask a complete stranger to do something that is very important.
Overnight security is sometimes best left to professionals (depending on location).
Be careful when giving volunteers cash-handling duties, some people are better with money than others.