Volunteer Tasks

The goal of this page is to figure out how many volunteers we need, by figuring out what we need them to do.

Hospitality

• Registration volunteers
  • People to work at the registration desk, being friendly, welcoming attendees, giving out name badges, answering general questions. You will probably be the first face attendees see at the conference.
  • 2-3 per shift, with morning and afternoon shifts; possibly more on the first day and just one or two on the last couple of days.

• Help Desk volunteers
  • There will be a help desk for people who are lost or confused or need help with something which will be available throughout the conference. Volunteers there will be the point of contact between the attendees and the organisers and will endeavour to answer any questions attendees may have.
  • As with the registration desk (the two functions could perhaps be merged after the first day?), we should probably split this into morning and afternoon shifts, with 2-3 volunteers per shift; we may need a few more if there's a lot of demand on the firs day, so having some stand-bys would be useful.
  • Helpdesk will also man phones, email, social media. This might have to be quite a large team, 10 people perhaps.

• Traffic volunteers
  • People to wear white caps and give out speeding tickets. Must be able to say "you're nicked, mate" in a cockney accent! People to hold signs and direct the flow of people. With a minimum of hundreds of people attending Wikimania each year, it is very easy for attendees to get lost in the venue. These volunteers will do their best to guide attendees to the room they wish to be in; they will be smiley and approachable, and able to offer help to people who look lost but may too embarrassed to ask for directions!
  • We probably want one or two of these volunteers at every point where people could get lost (eg corners, stairs, lifts); again theses could be split into morning and afternoon shifts, or even by session.
• Digital signage will have maps, room and session listings also. Barbican hosts will be on hand at building entry/exit points too.

Hosting

• Session operators
  • Volunteers to run the different track rooms, providing water for the speakers and making sure the presentation equipment is working. They may also moderate sessions, or there could be scope for separate session moderators (who would ensure presentations run to time and would be responsible for making sure everybody in the room is happy and safe [see friendly space policy]).
• equipment will be operated by technical staff

• VIP hosts*
  • People to get keynote and other speakers to and from their spaces.

Technical

• Video production volunteers
  • For more details see the collaboration page for video production.