I'll be there

[stutheblue]

I have received my confirmation email from Oxfam and I now officially have my place at the festival. I can now join in with the excitement along with everybody else. The Oxfam priority thread opened today. When I enrolled just after it had opened there was just under 2000 places available. Just tried having a look now to see how many were left but it wouldn't give me that info as I am already going. It only shows you the festivals you can still apply for. The system usually goes live for everyone else around a week to ten days after, although no official date has been given yet. Interestingly, the criteria for priority applicants has been tightened up for 2016. I think they are rightly concerned that stewarding doesn't become a closed shop and that all the places don't go before they go on general release for the most popular festivals. Basically you need to volunteer for more than one festival.

Look forward to finally speak to people as efest meet, too shy to do so last time. And if you need an impartial referee for the Wateraid football game, I'm your man!!!

[Woffy]

Nice one Stu.

Congrats.

I was shy at the meet but made myself go.

Great fun.

[jonodillieono]

If you volunteered in 2014 and are again in 2015 (1 festival each year) you still get priority in 2016. I thinkkkkkkk

Otherwise like you said you'd need to do 2 oxfam festivals this year to get priority for next year

[Callum_96]

Wait there's a meet up and football match? God I love efests

[Rose-Colored Boy]

859 spots at Glasto remaining :-) I'm actually going as a punter this year but congrats all the same

[Mardy]

Nice one, Stu.

[matt2007]

Well done.....have a good one

[stutheblue]

The new criteria will apply to all stewards in spring 2016:

Volunteers must steward at 2 or more festivals in 2015, in order to benefit from priority applications in 2016, unless one of the following exceptions applies:*

• You have had a supervisor role at a festival for the last 2 consecutive years (2014, 2015)

• You have stewarded in 4 of the past 5 years and have stewarded 8 festivals within that period

• You have stewarded at 10 or more festivals in the past 10 years

This has been pasted from the oxfam site.

Wait there's a meet up and football match? God I love efests

Sorry Callum the football match was a few years ago to raise money for wateraid, and it was implied by some on the Rest of World team that the ref (me) had received some financial inducements from the opposition.

[kbearne]

It's my second time this year and I'm volunteering alone - I'd really like to go to the efest meet but shy too! im doing litter picking with child reach

[Rose-Colored Boy]

The new criteria will apply to all stewards in spring 2016:

Volunteers must steward at 2 or more festivals in 2015, in order to benefit from priority applications in 2016, unless one of the following exceptions applies:*

• You have had a supervisor role at a festival for the last 2 consecutive years (2014, 2015)

• You have stewarded in 4 of the past 5 years and have stewarded 8 festivals within that period

• You have stewarded at 10 or more festivals in the past 10 years

And that's more lenient than it was initially, we kicked up a fuss.

[kbearne]

And that's more lenient than it was initially, we kicked up a fuss.

We kicked up a fuss? Do you work for Oxford?

[The Placid Casual]

This is my first year going as a ticket holder, but the last two years I went with oxfam (the first on my own) and I had an unbelievably good time. I got incredibly lucky the first time around with my shifts as I only had to work Wednesday, Thursday and Monday. I managed to coax my mates into doing it last year, and they've decided to go with Oxfam again after realising that they couldn't not go this year. I'm going with other people this time.

I've missed the efests meet the last two times due to being on shift, so I'm looking forward to meeting everyone at this year's. I'd also be up for some sort of charity football match if possibly one could get sorted? I'm not sure how possible that'd be, but playing some footy while totally out of it would be well up my street.

[klipper]

Congrats! See you at the meet (if i buckle up the courage and go)

[Pinhead]

And that's more lenient than it was initially, we kicked up a fuss.

It is quite a change from the previous conditions required to stay on the priority list, i.e. working a minimum of 1 festival for them in every 4 years. It basically means that I won't be on the priority list any longer after this year along with quite a few other previous priority stewards I suspect in the coming years. Having to do 2 festivals a year to stay on the list is a bit of a burden for me tbh as that equates to around 10 days of annual leave I'd have to use doing the stewarding and I just can't spare that much to fulfil the criteria each and every year. I understand why they have tightened it up, and to a greater extent than not it will be fairer for new stewards - the priority list had reached around 12K this year I believe and this means that positions for really popular festivals like Glasto are almost able to be all filled by priority applicants alone. However, as I commented on their forums, this might lead to a greater body of less experienced stewards filling positions each year.

I also think that their motivation for the change is slightly naive - the organisers feel that only the people most dedicated to the fundraising cause of Oxfam, with the stewarding of festivals as a vehicle to that aim - should now be on the priority list in future. The reasoning is that with those people now stewarding 2 festivals each year, that will make Oxfam the most return on funds raised compared to people that might only have previously stewarded, say, once every 2-3 years, and so they should be the only people now rewarded with priority status. Whilst this premise is perfectly true, it neglects to appreciate I think that in all honestly many stewards really want to steward a festival primarily because they are actually interested in going to a particular festival, want to get into that festival, might want to do that festival for free by working for Oxfam, or might have to do so because regular tickets are so difficult to get hold of, e.g. Glastonbury. I think that by not recognising this motivation behind many applications, this could actually lead to Oxfam falling short of available stewards in future years as the lack or priority list membership represents a less regular incentive for applying to steward each year. Perhaps a rule of working 1 festival rather than 2 each year to stay on the priority list might have been a better balance.