What do volunteers do?
We need volunteers who will be attending the Eastercon on site and volunteers who will be participating online, so that we can make this an enjoyable experience for members everywhere. There are many different types of volunteer roles and we need help from people who enjoy and are good at all sorts of activities; training will be given where relevant.
This page offers some examples of the range of tasks and activities that volunteers do. There are plenty of others too. For more information about why we’re asking for help and what that means, you can refer back to this introduction. If you think you’d like to volunteer, please do then fill in the form to let us know.
Do you like meeting people and helping them?
You might enjoy registration, welcome and information.
If you’re on site, you’d be handing people their membership badges and welcoming them to the convention.
If you’re online, you might enjoy the same sort of role on Discord, or helping with the registration process to ensure that new members can quickly get access to programme and social events online.
Do you want to help people enjoy the online side of the con?
As well as Discord – where we need moderators too – as an online member you could be a programme wrangler or party host, helping with online events.
You’d be supporting participants for online or hybrid programme items to take part, and ensuring items are recorded for catch-up later – or, if you like a more active role, you could be welcoming people to online social events and making sure everyone can chat together enjoyably.
Would you like to meet and help programme participants?
To match the online role, if you’re on site you might want to help in the green room.
You’d get to check in and welcome participants meeting up before their panels and talks, locate any missing participants, and help to make sure they’re ready for their programme items (including by taking and delivering drinks orders).
Do you enjoy watching programme items?
You might like running the sound desk and/or helping out with questions. (On the form that’s programme support and/or tech.)
Either way, you’d get to watch the item like the rest of the audience. At the sound desk, you’d be adjusting the microphones for participants and then managing the levels as needed to make sure everyone can be heard. For questions, on site you could be a mic runner to ensure that everyone can hear points raised from the audience to the participants; online you could be rounding up and passing along questions raised in Discord.
Do you like doing practical, physical things?
You might enjoy set up and tear-down.
You’d get to help move equipment around, plug in and tape down cables, and assemble displays for the art show or stages for the programme – and then take things apart and pack them away at the end. We might need help with moving things around during the con for performances and events too. (On the form, choose art show, tech, and/or general help – and let us know if you’ll be around for move in/move out.)
Do you want to keep busy and see different parts of the con?
You might enjoy being a general volunteer (sometimes called a ‘gopher’ because they go for this, go for that…).
That often means moving around the convention, ferrying messages or equipment; it could also mean managing people’s movements in and out of function rooms, or helping to fix small problems at short notice.