Volunteer Roles at the Surry Hills Festival

Volunteer roles at the Surry Hills Festival

Volunteers play a critical role in most fundraising festivals. Cathy Wills, from the Surry Hills Festival, describes the expectations of these volunteer roles from the last festival:

‘We have gold coin collections and spruikers and we have to gee them up and actually motivate them. We had some spruikers at this festival who were just clowning around and talking about their weekends or whatever it was and spruiking’s supposed to about mobilising the crowd to give. So we just said, ‘Oh it’s really great. You’re in this great environment—and can you make every second sentence ‘give to the neighbourhood centre’ and they were cool because they’re, like, just kids.’

‘So then bump in of small structures—I’ll tell you what our goals were. The goals were to get 250 vehicles on site unloaded and exited within three and a half hours, which is pretty great target on one road, so we divide them up into groups of 50 and just let them in at a time. Our other goals were to get the PA, the back lines and all those things in and out of the site by 9am. No moving vehicles on the site after 9am because obviously you’ve got a pedestrian liability issue, you’re starting to have crowds and moving vehicles, and then our secondary goals were correct stalls in the correct sites.’

This year the following volunteer roles have been identified for the day of the event.

Surry Hills Festival—volunteer rolesrequired for Festival Day

Bump-in team: 6.00am-10.00am

Traffic Marshals assist the flow of traffic through the park during bump in of stalls. They allow stall-holders to enter the park during their allocated correct set up time, and direct them to their general stall area.

Stall Area Marshals assist stall-holders to identify their specific stall area within a section of the park. They ensure that stall-holders unload their vehicles and remove the vehicle from the park within the allocated time frame before setting up their stall.

Dog Show Assistants: 9.00am-11.30am
The Dog Show Assistants provide support to the ‘MC’ for the Surry Hills Dog Show off, and collect Gold Coin registrations for dogs entering the show.

Gold Coin team: 9.30am-1.30pm OR11.30pm-3.30pm OR 2.30pm-6.00pm

These volunteers are the primary face of the festival. They greet festival-goers at all entry gates to the park, provide general information and assistance to festival-goers, hand out festival programs and receive the ‘gold coin’ entry donations which are a fundraiser for the community services of the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre. Gold Coin Collectors will give each person a sticker to indicate that they have donated, so that individuals are only asked to donate once during the festival.

Gold Coin Collectors work in teams of two people (minimum) and up to eight people, so it is an excellent opportunity to volunteer with a group of your friends, or to make new friends!

Gold Coin Spruikers: 9.30am-1.30pm OR 11.30am-3.30pm OR 2.30pm-6.00pm

The Gold Coin Spruikers will have the fun task of encouraging festival goers entering the gates to give generously to the waiting Gold Coin team.

Stage Management: 9.00am-2.00pm, 2.00pm - 6.00pm
Stage Managers and Stage Assistants are responsible for the change over of bands and artists, managing stage plots, checking the schedule of coming acts, making sure that necessary equipment for each group is available, locating and moving equipment to the stage and ensuring that each festival stage runs to schedule. Experience in stage management or event management is essential.

Recruit volunteers – Solo Activity 4