WordCamp San Francisco 2011

Coming to WordCamp SF and wish you could be more involved than the average attendee? Volunteers — whether you’re signing on to be responsible for a whole area of event operations or pitching in for an hour or two — are the foundation of every WordCamp, and volunteering is a great way to meet more of the community and give something back.

There are a variety of volunteer opportunities, each with different time commitments, experience requirements, and logistics. There are two requirements for ALL volunteers, regardless of the job or duration: be reliable and be friendly. 🙂

Look over the list to see if anything strikes a chord, then if you’d like to volunteer, fill out the volunteer application form to express your interest in volunteering. Our volunteer coordinator, Andrea Middleton of WordCamp Central, will get back to you by the next business day to let you know what options are available and work out a schedule (which we will post on this site for reference).

As we fill up volunteer positions, I will remove the filled positions from the list, so if there’s something specific you’d like to help with, submit the form soon!

Swag store and t-shirt station – Pre-conference prep work includes folding/rolling shirts to bring to Mission Bay. At-WCSF work includes distributing and/or selling shirts and other merchandise from swag tables in the hall, taking money and making change, using an iPad/Square reader. Retail experience helpful.

Video – We’re bringing back Joe from Blaze to man the mixing board, but need volunteers to act as camera operators at WCSF. Good gig, since you can watch sessions at the same time. Video Experience REQUIRED.

Registration – Check in registered attendees and hand out nametags. Being really awesome with alphabetical order helps here.

Happiness Bar (formerly called Genius Bar) – Answer questions and help WordPress users fix problems with their sites. Must be able to show level of expertise to be selected for this gig.

Newbie Workshop – Provide as-needed 1-on-1 help to attendees who are setting up their first WordPress.com site at the same time as the rest of the class (and are confused about something). Must be very familiar with WordPress.com features. Note: this in Friday at Pier 38, not Mission Bay.

Printing – Feel like donating some paper and printer ink to the cause? Print up some programs and associated materials on plain white paper from your business or home office and drop them off at Pier 38 during prep week. Anything we can’t get covered by volunteers will be printed at Kinko’s, and we’ll need a volunteer to oversee that, too. An eye for detail is helpful.

Food/Beverage – This is already taken of for the most part, but it would be helpful to have a few people keeping an eye on things. On Saturday we’ll especially need a couple of people to help around lunchtime.

Green Room Guards – Having a safe place for speakers and volunteers to leave their stuff while they run around is important. We need people to stay in these rooms (maybe an hour or two at a time?) to guard everyone’s stuff.

Emcees – Introduce speakers/sessions and keep things running on time. Keep an eye on the clock and give speakers a heads up when they are down to 10 and 5 minutes, and let them know when their time is up. Brevity and wit a must.

Room Runners – Work with the emcees, video people, speakers, and everyone else working in the room to keep things running smoothly. Make sure there’s water for speakers, and provide support as needed for other event staff.

Casual Runners – Unexpected things always happen at events. It’s good to have a handful of people on hand to help take care of whatever crops up.

Airport Pickups – Some speakers and VIPs will be flying into SFO and need to get from the airport to a downtown hotel. While many will just take BART, for some a ride from a friendly community member would be a nicer way to begin their WCSF weekend. If you have a car and don’t mind doing an airport run or two, awesome.

Hotel Shuttle – Some speakers and VIPs will all be staying at the same downtown hotel. Drivers willing to do a run or two between the hotel and Mission Bay before and/or after the conference would be very helpful.

Miscellaneous Prep – Random helping here and there that doesn’t have a category.

So if you’d like to volunteer, fill in the form and let us know!

Andrea (the volunteer coordinator) will review applications each day to figure out when/where you’d fit best in the schedule. Expect an email or phone call from her to confirm your interest and determine when it makes sense for you to volunteer your time. Thanks!