Volunteering 2020

[glasto-worker]

15 hours ago, Lisanextdoor said:

Hi. Thanks for this info. Yes my local branch had places last year and as far as I’m aware there were no problems. I’ll contact the rep this week to double check. I’m not guaranteed a place but the way they explained their allocations policy last year suggested I’d have a good chance of getting a place. 

The Rules on which Groups get places are all sorted out by the Political committee.

and Trade Union groups { there is lots of them } get a good allocation.

No one is every guaranteed a place.

In the 90's I could get 25 places for Glastonbury { every year } - at the time I ran Unison Kensington & Chelsea Team but these days it would be more common for a trade Union branch to get 6 to 12 places.

The standard procedure would be that all ' registered Organiser's ' would be asked to supply a team bid and WBC Staffing { they have a full time staff manager } would then crunch the numbers and she would then accept the bid or reduce the allocation.

BWTUC Teams { last year it was split into 6 Teams } is a bit different because the Volunteer payments go back to the WBC so I don't receive the normal WBC Group Organiser e-mails so I have not a clue when they are sent out ' but it will be either this Month or next '

I did not hear of any problems with regards the Groups/teams who worked last year.

But you would be wise ' to get your name in fast '

Good luck

Edited February 6, 2020 by glasto-worker
correction

[paddyclark]

On 2/4/2020 at 11:37 AM, Gilb said:

I don't even see how it was possible to do that!

I got straight on at 11:30:02, selected Glasto, ticked the boxes, before I could hit Proceed the page refreshed itself with Glasto - Sold out.... 

Pointless 😒

The same here too. 

[glasto-worker]

12 hours ago, MrZigster said:

FTFY.

 

re Finsbury Park wireless festival 2018 - I know nothing about Football - I was lucky because of the Heat I pulled out in advance { clearing it with the Chairman who agreed it would be unwise as I have a cancer controlling implant that makes me Overheat - no way could I have worked it } but it was very odd as many teams did not show up ' {worked out at 40% failed to show up} or let them know in advance which was highly unusual ' { they build in a extra 5% for people being ill }  - anyway loads of Teams were dropped.

+ the fact that weekend there did appear to be a lot more Punters than expected - I have seen the photos and seeing I have worked at Finsbury Park since 1988 I have never seen it so busy {even when the Sex Pistols were there in 1996 and that was mobbed }

[marathonsteve]

If you are new to Volunteering have a listen to the Glastocast Podcast which gives you a flavour of what Volunteering there is like.

[philipsteak]

Download, Nass, Boomtown, ArcTangent, Leeds and Reading all that are left for Oxfam. Never seen it like this before. I'm pretty sure some of the ones that have filled already didn't even manage to fill last year. I don't think Latitude did for example, or if it did it was very late

Edited February 6, 2020 by philipsteak

[stuie]

29 minutes ago, philipsteak said:

Download, Nass, Boomtown, ArcTangent, Leeds and Reading all that are left for Oxfam. Never seen it like this before. I'm pretty sure some of the ones that have filled already didn't even manage to fill last year. I don't think Latitude did for example, or if it did it was very late

Maybe people who missed Glastonbury have got straight on the case to make sure they qualify for priority next year?

I agree though, it's definitely all filled up much quicker than last year.

[jfaragher]

6 minutes ago, stuie said:

Maybe people who missed Glastonbury have got straight on the case to make sure they qualify for priority next year?

People were saying this last year as well (and the year before, and...), though things have gone fast this year - it's only a couple of days since general opening...  It will be interesting to see if there's been an element of panic / impulse "buying", and people drop out at a higher than normal rate.

I think that there is an element of this - though apparently in previous years Glastonbury only has a core of about 700 returning volunteers from the priority eligible people, and a substantial proportion of new volunteers do only one year, even more so for those who just do Glastonbury.

I think the social media stuff has been a bit more focused this year, it's been a bumper couple of years for festivals, and this is that odd year when some that usually clash, don't - there are a lot of people who always go to Boomtown, who have the chance to do Boardmasters as well for example.  

[marathonsteve]

Never give up Hope. One Oxfam volunteer on Glastocast said that someone obtained a place in the week before the festival started.

[astrowerks]

15 hours ago, DJL said:

So has anyone successfully set-up a page alert? has anyone heard of any coming up since they came up sold out?

@Pipine said distill didn't work, @e_p and @crazyfool1 are waiting on @eFestivals to set one up? I'm up for paying for one via here...

 

message back from Oxfam today - "tough luck, keep an eye on the page etc"

[Pipine]

1 hour ago, marathonsteve said:

Never give up Hope. One Oxfam volunteer on Glastocast said that someone obtained a place in the week before the festival started.

That was me!  I got an oxfam place the friday before the festival..  so I'm not giving up hope this year either..

[March Hare]

4 minutes ago, Pipine said:

That was me!  I got an oxfam place the friday before the festival..  so I'm not giving up hope this year either..

I remember that! It was the same day my nephew got his place. I got mine the Monday before. Lots of people have change of circumstances close to the time. 

[jfaragher]

Boomtown lineup has just dropped, and its strong, in case anyone was waiting to apply for that one...

[Gilb]

17 hours ago, DJL said:

So has anyone successfully set-up a page alert? has anyone heard of any coming up since they came up sold out?

@Pipine said distill didn't work, @e_p and @crazyfool1 are waiting on @eFestivals to set one up? I'm up for paying for one via here...

 

I have set up a page-checker using my own crafted macro running in Excel with Selenium.

It opens the Oxfam festival selector page in Chrome, then reloads every 30 seconds.
If the text 'Glastonbury - Sold Out' is found in the page text then it carries on with the refresh loop. However as soon as that disappears it will proceed to select Glastonbury/Steward/tick the boxes/click Proceed. 
Which is great...but I can't make it autofill the payment details (opens in a secure frame so my macro can't see it).
Since I can't run this from my work pc it's therefore of no use as it'll just sit on my home pc at the payment page all day.

I'm going to update the macro tonight to instead email me at work as soon as it sees Glastonbury available. So it'll be hit or miss if I see an email alert in time to go in and fill in the details (if - a very big IF - places become available and I'm in front of my emails).

 

I have a similar macro ready for resale day which I've tested - refreshes the landing page until the registration page appears, then fills in all the reg/postcode details, move on to the payment page, fills in the card number/expiry/ccv, tick the checkbox and submits...only thing it can't do is ensure I get through to the registration entry page - that has to be F5 untikl I get lucky!

 

Sorry to all non-nerd-geeks if that sounded very nerdy-geeky 

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, Gilb said:

I have set up a page-checker using my own crafted macro running in Excel with Selenium.

It opens the Oxfam festival selector page in Chrome, then reloads every 30 seconds.
If the text 'Glastonbury - Sold Out' is found in the page text then it carries on with the refresh loop. However as soon as that disappears it will proceed to select Glastonbury/Steward/tick the boxes/click Proceed. 
Which is great...but I can't make it autofill the payment details (opens in a secure frame so my macro can't see it).
Since I can't run this from my work pc it's therefore of no use as it'll just sit on my home pc at the payment page all day.

I'm going to update the macro tonight to instead email me at work as soon as it sees Glastonbury available. So it'll be hit or miss if I see an email alert in time to go in and fill in the details (if - a very big IF - places become available and I'm in front of my emails).

 

I have a similar macro ready for resale day which I've tested - refreshes the landing page until the registration page appears, then fills in all the reg/postcode details, move on to the payment page, fills in the card number/expiry/ccv, tick the checkbox and submits...only thing it can't do is ensure I get through to the registration entry page - that has to be F5 untikl I get lucky!

 

Sorry to all non-nerd-geeks if that sounded very nerdy-geeky 

I’ve no idea what it means ... but sounds incredible  

[jfaragher]

14 minutes ago, Gilb said:

I have set up a page-checker using my own crafted macro running in Excel with Selenium.

It opens the Oxfam festival selector page in Chrome, then reloads every 30 seconds.
If the text 'Glastonbury - Sold Out' is found in the page text then it carries on with the refresh loop. However as soon as that disappears it will proceed to select Glastonbury/Steward/tick the boxes/click Proceed. 
Which is great...but I can't make it autofill the payment details (opens in a secure frame so my macro can't see it).
Since I can't run this from my work pc it's therefore of no use as it'll just sit on my home pc at the payment page all day.

I'm going to update the macro tonight to instead email me at work as soon as it sees Glastonbury available. So it'll be hit or miss if I see an email alert in time to go in and fill in the details (if - a very big IF - places become available and I'm in front of my emails).

 

I have a similar macro ready for resale day which I've tested - refreshes the landing page until the registration page appears, then fills in all the reg/postcode details, move on to the payment page, fills in the card number/expiry/ccv, tick the checkbox and submits...only thing it can't do is ensure I get through to the registration entry page - that has to be F5 untikl I get lucky!

 

Sorry to all non-nerd-geeks if that sounded very nerdy-geeky 

That's neat.  Have you thought about using an email to SMS service as well - I think some of them have some free initial messages to test with, which is probably all you'll need?

[Gilb]

16 minutes ago, jfaragher said:

That's neat.  Have you thought about using an email to SMS service as well - I think some of them have some free initial messages to test with, which is probably all you'll need?

That's a great idea. Hadn't thought of that. Now signed up with 'TextMagic' and will test it out tonight

[DareToDibble]

3 hours ago, marathonsteve said:

Never give up Hope. One Oxfam volunteer on Glastocast said that someone obtained a place in the week before the festival started.

I don’t know if it was that close to the festival but I’m pretty sure @Ozanne got a volunteer spot fairly last minute for 2019 too, it definitely happens!

[Havors]

7 minutes ago, DareToDibble said:

I don’t know if it was that close to the festival but I’m pretty sure @Ozanne got a volunteer spot fairly last minute for 2019 too, it definitely happens!

I got a spot for my mate on 15th May last year. I just kept checking randomly throughout the day most days i was in work. 

[SecretFish]

Sounds like stubbornness is required here!

[gazzared]

49 minutes ago, Havors said:

I got a spot for my mate on 15th May last year. I just kept checking randomly throughout the day most days i was in work. 

16th of June I got my place. One boring Sunday 12hr shift in work I was refreshing the page throughout the day when it changed from greyed out to black 👏👏👏

[Havors]

10 minutes ago, gazzared said:

16th of June I got my place. One boring Sunday 12hr shift in work I was refreshing the page throughout the day when it changed from greyed out to black 👏👏👏

Yep... it really does happen if your persistent and have a little luck. 

[Pipine]

I hadn't thought about trying to autocomplete the oxfam form once glastonbury places are back up, that's next level geekiness!  

I'll settle for an email notification they're up, I've set the page to an icon on my phone home screen so I can get to it quickly. I just need a more workable page monitor now for the days I'm not sat at my home PC.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Pipine

[marathonsteve]

5 hours ago, Pipine said:

That was me!  I got an oxfam place the friday before the festival..  so I'm not giving up hope this year either..

Well Done You

[amfy]

Last year I was one of the magical chosen few who got pre festival shifts, and I thought it had maybe happened because I was quick off the mark, or maybe even that they had liked me the previous year.

However, One of the guys working pre festival with us on our team had never worked with Oxfam before and only got in about 6 weeks before the festival.

So don’t give up - anything can happen!

[Pinhead]

Put myself down for pre-festival shifts for the last 15 years and mever got one!