Volunteer Jobs with the 2001 North American Conference

Interested in getting involved in the conference? Here is an overview of the main coordinator jobs available on the organizing team...and some other jobs you might like to think of taking on too. It should be said that many of these coordinators will need a committee of people working with them to get the jobs done, so if you're interested in helping out in a certain area but don't think you could be a coordinator, no problem! You can still be part of the committee. For more information, email binetbc@bi.org. Anyone is also welcome to join the organizers listserve. Watch this space for more info.

Fundraisers:
We need people who are interested in everything from presenting a one-time fundraising event to those who know how to work with unions, funding-bodies, the government, and anyone else who might give us money.This is one of THE most important parts of the conference. While we hope that income from registration will eventually cause the conference to break-even or surplus, we need money in the meantime to pay venue deposits, cover advertising costs, pay for mailing, photocopying, phone calls, and all the other costs of organizing a conference. The availability of additional money can be used to improve our services at the conference and help subsidize travel and accomodation for those who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to attend. Furthermore, any surplus funds from this conference will provide seed money for the next North American Conference...and we'd like to be as helpful as possible to those who take this job on after us.

Venue Coordinator:
This person will serve as the liaison between the conference committee and the UBC Conference Center.
Some of the responsibilities will be to:

• Determine what kinds of rooms and facilities are needed when and arrange it with the venue.
• Obtain all the rules and regulations for the venue, ensure they are communicated to all other coordinators, and ensure they are followed.
• Assign workshops to rooms and ensure this information is communicated to all who need to know.
• Find out what kind of audio/visual equipment is required by different workshops and ensure it is provide when needed.(Either through the venue or through the AV Coordinator)
• Determine how far in advance of each component of the conference people can get in to the venue to set up. Ensure that the people who will be the first to arrive for each component of the conference know how to get in.
• Coordinate with Food and Drink Coordinators to determine if any kitchen/server facilities are needed and ensure they can have access to them when necessary.
• Check the acoustics in each room. If rooms are "noisy" (ie: echos, loud fans etc.) arrange for curtains to be hung, rugs to be put down, etc. to "quiet" them down.
• Talk to all other coordinators to determine how many chairs and tables they will need and where.  Coordinate this with the venue contact.
• Check all set-ups to ensure that people in wheel chairs can easily manuever around the conference without stray chairs or tables getting in the way.
• Work with the Volunteer coordinator to assemble teams of volunteers to set-up rooms etc. as needed.

Audio Visual Coordinator:
This person would work with the venue coordinator and special event coordinators to determine what audio-visual equipment is needed when. He/she would be responsible for obtaining (through rental or otherwise) any items not provided by the venue, and for ensuring items are picked up, set up, and returned as required. The coordinator would also serve as a technical assistant at the conference and ensure that any additional technical help that might be required is provided.

Some of the many volunteer jobs include:

• Working at the registration table
• Envelope stuffing for mailouts
• Registration package stuffing
• Conference badge making
• Food preparation
• Bar-tending
• Email/internet information distribution
• Door staff for events
• Bartenders
• Clean-up

• Checking mail, email, etc. regularly for new registration forms.
• Processing credit card payments.
• Passing on payments to the Conference Committee or accountant
• Noting whether registrants require assistance with accommodation, travel arrangements, or other matters and passing the information on to the appropriate coordinator.
• Ensuring that registrants who want to be added to a mailing list or email list are added (by sending their information to the appropriate person)
• Ensuring that any other questions or comments on registration forms are answered or delegated.
• Organizing a system for registration on the day of the conference…and for those who have pre-registered to sign in and pick up their conference book, goodie bag, etc. (work with conference book and goodie bag coordinator)
• Working with the volunteer coordinator to staff registration tables during the conference.

Registration Form Coordinator:
Simply designing a registration form will be an art unto itself at this conference. The form will need to obtain all sorts of information including delegate's travel and accommodation needs, it will need to be available in at least three languages (english, french, and spanish), and in many forms (paper, web form, .pdf file etc.). It will likely also need to be updated regularly as more conference events are confirmed.
The person in charge of the form will need to be in touch with all the different conference coordinators to ensure that all information that needs to go on the form is there. He/she will also need to oversee the form's design, translation, and production from beginning to end and ensure that forms are always readily available to whoever may need them.

Track Coordinators:
The North American Conference will probably have between 15 and 20 "tracks" - simultaneous "streams" of workshops that follow a certain theme. Track coordinators will work together along with the conference committee to schedule workshops in their tracks. They will then serve as a liaison between the facilitators of the workshops and the rest of the organizers. Responsibilities might include working with the venue coordinator to ensure facilitators know which rooms their workshops are in, obtaining bio information and workshop descriptions from facilitators for the conference book, ensuring facilitators travel arrangements are taken care of etc.

• Working with the sponsorship coordinator to obtain airline, bus, and rail sponsors to provide free travel to conference presenters and discounted travel to conference delegates.
• Making travel arrangements with for conference presenters…booking their tickets and so on.
• Working with the Registration Form Coordinator to ensure that the form contains questions about travel requirements, ability to car-pool, etc.
• Working with the Registration Coordinator to obtain this information from returned forms and coordinating travel for those who need help.
• Perhaps set up a web-site message board for those who want to exchange car-pool information.

• Liaising with the UBC Conference Center on Gage residence bookings.
• Working with the sponsorship coordinator to find a hotel sponsor who would provide discounted rates to delegates.
• Keeping track of rates and availability of rooms at youth hostels and other cheaper accommodation.
• Working with the Registration form Coordinator to ensure that the form includes accommodation and sponsor information. Also ensure the form gathers information about people's accommodation needs: whether they want to billet, stay in residence, stay in a hotel, or whether they'd like to share a hotel room with another delegate...and if they are local, whether they can host a guest.
• Obtain this information from the Registration coordinator and ensure delegates who need assistance with accommodation are helped, ie: work to pair billets with hosts, and to pair up people who want to share hotel rooms.

Practical responsibilities of this position might include:

• Working in conjunction with the sponsorship coordinator to obtain sponsors for breakfast foods, spring water, alchohol, and non-alcoholic beverages....as well as anything else that might be required.
• Purchasing any other items that may not be available through sponsorship.
• Obtaining urns, trays, cutlery, and other supplies needed for serving.
• Obtaining liquor licenses for events where necessary
• Working with volunteer coordinator to create "teams" to prepare, serve, and clean-up breakfast, staff the bar at entertainment events, maintain coffee and tea services, pick up and deliver supplies like urns, etc.

Together, the group will need to develop a marketing plan for the conference involving advertising, publicity, postering, and other methods, the goal being to reach the biggest number and broadest range of queers possible. Once the marketing plan is in place, they'd need to make a list of all the means through which conference sponsors can be given promotional recognition both at the conference and in promotional materials (ie: banners in conference area, inserts in mail-outs, etc.) and attach a dollar value to each one. Finally, they'd need to establish what kinds of sponsorship is needed for the conference both in terms of financial needs and in terms of products and services required.

From there, the responsibilities might break down as follows:

• Book all advertising accounted for in the marketing plan.
• Coordinate the design and layout of advertising, (ensuring all sponsor logos and information are where they need to be)
• Ensure that advertising is delivered to publications in the correct format by the correct date.
• Coordinate the design, layout, and printing of posters and other promotional materials accounted for in the marketing plan.
• Ensure the delivery of posters, flyers, and other materials to the destinations anticipated in the marketing plan.

• Write and issue regular press releases and updates as the marketing plan or committee dictate.
• Either maintain a comprehensive media list for Canada, the US, and Mexico, or use a network of regional coordinators to relay press releases to a list of people in their region.
• Develop a press kit for the conference.
• Actively solicit appropriate media to do interviews and stories about the conference.

• Develop sponsorship proposals for different companies, government agencies, and unions...and pursue them.
• Ensure sponsors receive promised renumeration for their contributions.

Electronic Media Coordinator:
Email and the web will play a huge role in "getting the word out" about the conference, taking in registration, and relaying information about conference events, accomodation, travel, toursim, etc. This coordinator would design and maintain the conference web site, which we hope will be an extensive resource with an on-line registration form. This person would also be resonsible for compiling an electronic mailing list of those interested in the conference and diseminating information to that list, as well as to every other listserve, web site, etc. that we can think of to send information too.

Conference Book Coordinator:
Conference programs for International Bi Conferences really are "books". They contain a schedule and descriptions of well over 100 workshops and sessions, biographies of presenters, information on conference events, exhibitor information, maps information for out of town guests and, of course, advertising to pay for it all. The Conference Book Coordinator would work with the Track Coordinators, conference committee, Venue Coordinator, and others to ensure all necessary information is compiled.   S/he would source out a designer and printer for the book and would oversee the production process form beginning to end.

• Source out suppliers of bags.
• Work with the Sponsorship Coordinator and Committee to source out a sponsor for the bag itself – that is a company that will pay the manufacturing cost in exchange for having their logo on the bag.
• Work with the Marketing and Sponsorship Coordinators to set a "price" to be charged to companies who want to insert things in the bag.
• Sell "insertions" to companies
• Coordinate the manufacture of bags
• Arrange to obtain all pertinent  material from sponsors and get it stuffed in the bags
• Arrange with conference book coordinator to ensure the book is stuffed in each bag
• Ensure bags are ready to be handed out at registration time.

Conference Merchandise Coordinator:
Manufactuing and selling souvenir merchandise for the conference will be a great way to fundraise and a great opportunity for people to take home a "souvenir of history". The merchandise coordinator would survey previous conferences to find out how much merchandise sold and plan merchandise for this conference accordingly. They would then source out merchandise manufacturers, work with the conference committee on a budget for manufacturing, and oversee the process. They would also arrange for merchandise to be sold at the conference either at the help desk, in the vendor area, or wherever and oversee that process. This would involve working with the volunteer coordinator to staff the merchandise table, looking after cash floats, visa forms, etc.

• Working with the Conference committee to prepare a budget for the event.
• Securing the venue for the event
• Working with the Food and Beverage Coordinator(s) to secure liquor licenses and look after food and drink requirements.
• Working with the volunteer coordinator to obtain volunteer staff for the event.
• Working with the marketing/publicity coordinators to ensure event is properly publicized in the media.
• Working with the registration coordinator and conference book publisher to ensure event is listed in conference materials.
• Obtaining all other necessary elements for the event, ie: sound equipment, technical staff, security, DJ for a dance, art for an art auction, performers for a performance evening.
• Supervising the event from beginning to end and generally seeing the project through to completion.

Community Entertainment Coordinator
In addition to holding our own events, we would like to encourage businesses in the queer community here in Vancouver to get involved in our conference by doing something special for delegates, ie: a special night at a bar…or a bath-house, a dinner special at a restaurant. The job of this coordinator would be to try and make such things happen. At the same time, making sure that community events don't conflict with conference events (so as not to have two bi events competing) …or that two community events don't conflict with each other. In exchange for their support, businesses could be listed in a special "community events" section of the conference book. It would also then be the job of this coordinator to arrange this with the conference book publisher.

• Securing a trade-fair venue
• Setting a means of payment for those who wish to use the conference for commercial means, ie:  do they pay a commission on their sales or a flat table rate?
• Soliciting businesses and delegates for participation in the trade fair
• Overseeing all aspects of trade-fair...ensuring vendors know where their tables are, ensuring they pay, etc.

Info-Fair Coordinator:
The BC Conference has a small "Info-Fair" each year whereby community groups are invited to set up information tables about their organizations. We would like to be able to expand this concept for the 2001 conference so that groups from all over the continent can bring information on their organizations and set up a display. The Info-Fair coordinator would oversee this process. The Coordinator would work with the Vendors Coordinator to secure a venue for the event. S/he would then solicit the participation of community groups, working with the marketing, publicity, and registration form coordinators.

BiNet Info Table/Help Desk Coordinator:
As with any large conference, it's always nice to have a central help desk staffed with people who can answer questions about where things are, when they are, etc. This person would take care of organizing this desk....arranging with the venue coordinator to have a central table set up, working with the volunteer coordinator to find volunteer staff for the table, and ensuring that all volunteers know what's going on enough to help others. The Coordinator would also arrange to have extra conference packages, maps, travel brochures, and any other information available that delegates could possibly need.

Security Coordinator:
Hopefully security will be more of a safety precaution than a necessary element of the conference bu the job of the Security Coordinator will be to make sure our bases are covered "just in case". S/he would establish when and where security will be needed at the conference and work with the Volunteer Coordinator to find and schedule security volunteers. If some events are seen to require security with more specialized skills, work with the conference committee to find or hire them as needed.

Child Care Coordinator:
Delegates to the conference will have the opportunity to reserve child care space by a certain date prior to the event. The Child Care Coordinator will be responsible for getting information from the Registration Coordinator on who requires child care and ensuring it is provided. This would involve arranging with the venue coordinator to have an appropriate space available for childcare and obtaining the services of certified child care providers. This coordinator would also familiarize him/her/er self with laws relating to providing childcare - ie: insurance, ratio of children to supervisor, etc. - and ensure they are followed. S/h/e would further arrange to provide any toys, books, and other supplies, required by the childcare providers.

Accessibility Coordinator:
This person would be the "point-person" for inquiries about accessibility and requests for assistance. S/h/e would obtain information about people's requirements from the registration coordinator and may well work in tandem with the University's Disability Resource Centre to obtain the sign language translators, visual guides, and other assistants necessary. Ideally, we'd like to have sign language translators for all workshops. This person would also familiarize themselves with all the conference facilities so as to be able to give out information on the easiest routes from one place to the next.

Other jobs involving specialized skills:

• Conference Accountant
• Sign Language Interpreters
• Language Translators and Interpreters  (French-English, Spanish-English, Spanish-French)
• Lawyer to help with contracts etc.
• Technical support staff
• Graphic Designers