Volunteers

The lifeblood of any event: without their commitment and effort - even the best laid plans go to waste. So how do you aim to achieve that? This section will cover volunteer-related topics Pre-Event

Building the Team

• Choose your core team for specific roles and let them pick their teams. From there trust them to execute the decisions made and not micro-manage.
  • Always offer your support.
• Getting volunteers to feel involved in the planning of the event.
  • People will feel invested in an event if they feel their opinions matter in the grand scheme of things.
  • Keep them in the loop of whats going on (ensuring relevance) and not constantly lost.

Kept in the Loop

Speaking of being kept in the loop - with the wealth of information available, how do you keep track of everything? Here are some ways:

• Slack
  • Full Team Discussions.
  • Announcements of issues / news the team needs to be aware of.
• Google Drive
  • Centralised repository for files.
  • Meeting minutes, spreadsheets to keep track of budgets etc.
• Trello
  • Can act as a summary of tasks. Easy to see at a glance what needs to be done by when.
• Regular team meetings
  • Things can move very quickly, and with Slack firing fast and furious people can lose track of what's going on. Having regular team meetings can keep different teams up-to-date on what progress is like. Other topics include issues teams might be facing and upcoming issues teams will need to work on together.
  • Allow everyone to attend these meetings but make it mandatory for the relevant teams involved. This goes back to building a sense of investment in the volunteers. Unless there is a need, full team meetings should be held sparingly.

Volunteer Schedule

Instead of ad hoc deciding who should be doing what on the day itself, why not plan beforehand and assign volunteers specific tasks / roles on day? Having a schedule that determines who should be where at a given point of time during the event will reduce the chaos you have to deal with on the day. This should act as a guide where people should be, unless more people are needed for a specific task.

• Check what times your Volunteers are available at - not everyone can be at the event 24/7. Even if they can they might wander off just because.
• Try to assign volunteers to the same tasks they've worked on before. This ensures those with an intimate knowledge of what needs to be done in a specific role are responsible for it.
• Schedule shift changes around things occurring. E.g. preparing for a meal / event / workshop or tidying up the Sleeping Rooms before / after.
• Rest is important, make sure that every volunteer gets sufficient rest during the event. Lack of sleep hinders people from quick decision-making. (Note: See more in On-Day/Volunteers)
• If changes need to be made to the schedule:
  • How quickly can you update the Volunteer Schedule.
  • How long before the change is disseminated.

Team Briefing

• Done a week / few days before the event.
• Topics include:
  • Responsibilities they've been assigned to in the Volunteer Schedule.
  • Emergency Plans (Fire or other emergencies)
  • Code of Conduct and acceptable behaviour.
  • Walkthrough of the venue, rooms and their purposes. Resolving any issues that may arise or answering questions / doubts.
  • Radio Etiquette. If you're using walkie-talkies during your event, this should be covered. While a joke or two can be funny, unecessary radio chatter is annoying.

The On-Day Execution Segment can be found here