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Volunteering 2020


DJL

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3000 new members of the Oxfam festivals Facebook since the weekend!

Oxfam only take about 1000 volunteers so this isn’t gong to end well!

glad I got priority by doing 2 last year but I think they may be upping the priority qualification next year and I’’m not entirely sure my leave entitlement is up to it!

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On 10/6/2019 at 7:08 PM, March Hare said:

Missed your question about what to do when applications open. Pay your deposit, then you get a week to provide information such as a reference etc. Got to book onto some training too, takes half a day.  They are all over the UK but there are also a handful of online options (the latter book out quick from what I’m told)

Thank you again for all the information @March Hare You've really helped.  Me and my husband will see what happens when places open up. We've decided we would prefer it to a general ticket :)  We live in Manchester so hopefully there will be training somewhere near if we do manage to get a place. X

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I would totally recommend Oxfam to anyone considering it for next year. I've only done it once, last year when I failed in the sales. We were fortunate in the sales this year but but it's something I'd do again.

It was a great experience. I felt really well looked after. I worked with amazing supervisors and my shift buddies made the whole thing a real laugh. If there was anything we weren't comfortable or happy with we were encouraged to raise. The facilities were great, the people were great.

Whilst in my opinion there is nothing like being there as a paid customer, it's a good enough alternative that I am already thinking of the bits I'll miss by not working it.

Also if you work the ped gates you get to see the wonderful sights of the early arrivals and their happy faces on the Wednesday, the ticket blaggers and the runners! An awesome way do the festival if all other avenues fail. 

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22 minutes ago, miffmiffy said:

I would totally recommend Oxfam to anyone considering it for next year. I've only done it once, last year when I failed in the sales. We were fortunate in the sales this year but but it's something I'd do again.

It was a great experience. I felt really well looked after. I worked with amazing supervisors and my shift buddies made the whole thing a real laugh. If there was anything we weren't comfortable or happy with we were encouraged to raise. The facilities were great, the people were great.

Whilst in my opinion there is nothing like being there as a paid customer, it's a good enough alternative that I am already thinking of the bits I'll miss by not working it.

Also if you work the ped gates you get to see the wonderful sights of the early arrivals and their happy faces on the Wednesday, the ticket blaggers and the runners! An awesome way do the festival if all other avenues fail. 

Sounds great. Just a shame we have to wait so long to find out. 
 

Sounds like a lot of folk will do this ??

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I really enjoyed working for Oxfam and hope to do lots more festivals for them.  Wondering whether to also apply other places though as 3000 new members is alot! Given that a certain amount of places will go to the priority stewards from last year there's definitely a smaller chance of getting a place compared to last year! 

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1 hour ago, amfy said:

3000 new members of the Oxfam festivals Facebook since the weekend!

Oxfam only take about 1000 volunteers so this isn’t gong to end well!

glad I got priority by doing 2 last year but I think they may be upping the priority qualification next year and I’’m not entirely sure my leave entitlement is up to it!

It's more like 2500

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1 hour ago, JW91 said:

I’m gearing up to volunteer next year and anything else (e.g. resale) is a bonus. Does anyone have any information on the WaterAid shift patterns and how it differs to Oxfam?

Can only say for the toilet crew. You will either be assigned Tuesday arrival or Wednesday arrival, with a training shift on the evening you arrive. Judging by the amount of tents last this year, I would guess it's a 50/50 split as to which day you get.

After the training (which was particularly useless (although not as useless as the pre-festival training)) you have four six hour shifts to work, with a guarantee of one day off. If you get there on the Wednesday I think you're supposed to work the Monday - can't confirm though. 

Most toilet teams have shifts that go from either 6am - noon, noon - 6pm or 6pm - midnight. WA aren't too fussed about punctuality, so don't mind if you sit around the campsite until twenty minutes into your shift, we never figured out why. This also works the other way - show up back at base half an hour early? Sweet, drop yer hi vis off and go enjoy yerself laddeh. 

If you're assigned an area in the SE corner you have been unlucky, your shifts will be noon - 6pm, 6pm - midnight, midnight - 6am. And you have to work the SE corner. Silver Hayes shifts during the evening also suck. I would have hated a shift finishing at 6am this year in that heat. 

Generally though, toilet duty is fairly laid back and not that bad. Aside from cleaning the first round in the morning when they've been unattended for six or seven hours overnight, they're basically a good level of clean. Crowd control can be a bit annoying (I got pushed, shoved and verbally assaulted trying to litter pick in a urinal one evening) but that's basically the worst of it. Having been in a fair few sewers in my time I find it funny when people turn their noses up at toilet cleaning at the festival. It's really not that bad, the work isn't hard and it's a fairly good deal. 

WA organisation is a bit lacking, but last year was the first year that they have done all the longdrops on site, so maybe they'll do a better job this year. They give you one meal per shift, which my mate found out the hard way having misread the comms pack and thought they fed you every meal. You get free use of recycling crew's showers and they have some various snacks in their charging tent that are free. 

Edit - forgot to say that if you get she-wee your shifts are a bit bonkers - something like 8pm - 4am, 4am - noon, noon - 8pm but with two days off. I think if you have done a festival or two with WA before you will be more likely to go in the water tap shed things. 

 

TL,DR: 24 hours of shifts + useless pre-festival training, don't get south east corner for better shift patterns, no-one should turn their nose up at toilet cleaning. 

Edited by sirjonnyp
adding she-wee info
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33 minutes ago, sirjonnyp said:

Can only say for the toilet crew. You will either be assigned Tuesday arrival or Wednesday arrival, with a training shift on the evening you arrive. Judging by the amount of tents last this year, I would guess it's a 50/50 split as to which day you get.

After the training (which was particularly useless (although not as useless as the pre-festival training)) you have four six hour shifts to work, with a guarantee of one day off. If you get there on the Wednesday I think you're supposed to work the Monday - can't confirm though. 

Most toilet teams have shifts that go from either 6am - noon, noon - 6pm or 6pm - midnight. WA aren't too fussed about punctuality, so don't mind if you sit around the campsite until twenty minutes into your shift, we never figured out why. This also works the other way - show up back at base half an hour early? Sweet, drop yer hi vis off and go enjoy yerself laddeh. 

If you're assigned an area in the SE corner you have been unlucky, your shifts will be noon - 6pm, 6pm - midnight, midnight - 6am. And you have to work the SE corner. Silver Hayes shifts during the evening also suck. I would have hated a shift finishing at 6am this year in that heat. 

Generally though, toilet duty is fairly laid back and not that bad. Aside from cleaning the first round in the morning when they've been unattended for six or seven hours overnight, they're basically a good level of clean. Crowd control can be a bit annoying (I got pushed, shoved and verbally assaulted trying to litter pick in a urinal one evening) but that's basically the worst of it. Having been in a fair few sewers in my time I find it funny when people turn their noses up at toilet cleaning at the festival. It's really not that bad, the work isn't hard and it's a fairly good deal. 

WA organisation is a bit lacking, but last year was the first year that they have done all the longdrops on site, so maybe they'll do a better job this year. They give you one meal per shift, which my mate found out the hard way having misread the comms pack and thought they fed you every meal. You get free use of recycling crew's showers and they have some various snacks in their charging tent that are free. 

Edit - forgot to say that if you get she-wee your shifts are a bit bonkers - something like 8pm - 4am, 4am - noon, noon - 8pm but with two days off. I think if you have done a festival or two with WA before you will be more likely to go in the water tap shed things. 

 

TL,DR: 24 hours of shifts + useless pre-festival training, don't get south east corner for better shift patterns, no-one should turn their nose up at toilet cleaning. 

This is really useful! Thanks for taking the time!

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12 hours ago, sirjonnyp said:

Can only say for the toilet crew. You will either be assigned Tuesday arrival or Wednesday arrival, with a training shift on the evening you arrive. Judging by the amount of tents last this year, I would guess it's a 50/50 split as to which day you get.

After the training (which was particularly useless (although not as useless as the pre-festival training)) you have four six hour shifts to work, with a guarantee of one day off. If you get there on the Wednesday I think you're supposed to work the Monday - can't confirm though. 

Most toilet teams have shifts that go from either 6am - noon, noon - 6pm or 6pm - midnight. WA aren't too fussed about punctuality, so don't mind if you sit around the campsite until twenty minutes into your shift, we never figured out why. This also works the other way - show up back at base half an hour early? Sweet, drop yer hi vis off and go enjoy yerself laddeh. 

If you're assigned an area in the SE corner you have been unlucky, your shifts will be noon - 6pm, 6pm - midnight, midnight - 6am. And you have to work the SE corner. Silver Hayes shifts during the evening also suck. I would have hated a shift finishing at 6am this year in that heat. 

Generally though, toilet duty is fairly laid back and not that bad. Aside from cleaning the first round in the morning when they've been unattended for six or seven hours overnight, they're basically a good level of clean. Crowd control can be a bit annoying (I got pushed, shoved and verbally assaulted trying to litter pick in a urinal one evening) but that's basically the worst of it. Having been in a fair few sewers in my time I find it funny when people turn their noses up at toilet cleaning at the festival. It's really not that bad, the work isn't hard and it's a fairly good deal. 

WA organisation is a bit lacking, but last year was the first year that they have done all the longdrops on site, so maybe they'll do a better job this year. They give you one meal per shift, which my mate found out the hard way having misread the comms pack and thought they fed you every meal. You get free use of recycling crew's showers and they have some various snacks in their charging tent that are free. 

Edit - forgot to say that if you get she-wee your shifts are a bit bonkers - something like 8pm - 4am, 4am - noon, noon - 8pm but with two days off. I think if you have done a festival or two with WA before you will be more likely to go in the water tap shed things. 

 

TL,DR: 24 hours of shifts + useless pre-festival training, don't get south east corner for better shift patterns, no-one should turn their nose up at toilet cleaning. 

Thanks for this - very detailed and useful. Can I just ask a few more things?

So for toilet crew the work basically involves litter picking in the long drops/urinals, hosing the toilets down and refilling the handgel etc? Any other particular tasks?

Roughly what proportion of teams would be assigned the SE corner?

When you apply to WA, do you apply for toilet crew / water crew individually or do you just apply and you could get put onto either?

Do you know anything about the shift patterns for the water crew?

Thanks again!

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44 minutes ago, Kashkin said:

Thanks for this - very detailed and useful. Can I just ask a few more things?

So for toilet crew the work basically involves litter picking in the long drops/urinals, hosing the toilets down and refilling the handgel etc? Any other particular tasks?

Roughly what proportion of teams would be assigned the SE corner?

When you apply to WA, do you apply for toilet crew / water crew individually or do you just apply and you could get put onto either?

Do you know anything about the shift patterns for the water crew?

Thanks again!

Loo crew is pretty chilled, spray, wipe and a quick mop. General tidy and top up hand gel (Although they lost it last year).

When you apply you can select what you would want to do, but unless you’ve got previous experience with wateraid you will be on loocrew regardless of what you select. It makes up about 75% of their volunteer spaces irrc.

Your day off will probably be Thursday unless you’re very lucky! 

I turned it down last year based on it being 4x6 hours shifts rather than 3x8, but my mate still did it and had a good time.

hardest thing is keeping the drunk people at bay while dragging a mop bucket around, especially if a nearby stage act ends 

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15 minutes ago, Old_Johno said:

Loo crew is pretty chilled, spray, wipe and a quick mop. General tidy and top up hand gel (Although they lost it last year).

When you apply you can select what you would want to do, but unless you’ve got previous experience with wateraid you will be on loocrew regardless of what you select. It makes up about 75% of their volunteer spaces irrc.

Your day off will probably be Thursday unless you’re very lucky! 

I turned it down last year based on it being 4x6 hours shifts rather than 3x8, but my mate still did it and had a good time.

hardest thing is keeping the drunk people at bay while dragging a mop bucket around, especially if a nearby stage act ends 

 

Is there a 'So Solid' Loo Crew and a 'Runny' Loo Crew?

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1 hour ago, Kashkin said:

Thanks for this - very detailed and useful. Can I just ask a few more things?

So for toilet crew the work basically involves litter picking in the long drops/urinals, hosing the toilets down and refilling the handgel etc? Any other particular tasks?

Roughly what proportion of teams would be assigned the SE corner?

When you apply to WA, do you apply for toilet crew / water crew individually or do you just apply and you could get put onto either?

Do you know anything about the shift patterns for the water crew?

Thanks again!

Old Johnno got most of the detail, although this year - perhaps due to the inflated size of toilet teams - every one seemed to get one of Friday, Saturday or Sunday off. 

We never given a set way to do the toilets, but we had a litter picker, wet mop and dry mop. The wet mop does the disinfecting and cleaning. You're responsible to keeping the whole toilet area tidy and the hand sanitiser. Somehow WA messed up the delivery of it this year until the Sunday. If you do get loo crew I recommend taking your own comfortable gloves. WA ran out of rubber gloves and the ones they have can be uncomfortable / blistering when tackling a particularly crusty turd that has burnt on to the longdrop. 

Can't say for sure about the number of teams working the SE corner, but I would have a guess about 2 or 3 in 12.

We applied for all of the roles and of course got toilet duty as first timers. Someone I was with managed to get she-wee as a first timer. She originally had horror shifts which would have been very, very limiting in terms of what she could do, but upon arrival found out that she had been switched to the day team. 

 

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47 minutes ago, dondo said:

Seen this on FB if of any interest to folks:

 

image.thumb.png.2521f04931e0b2d7e67cff2b2617f7cd.png

Interesting I haven’t heard of this one. Has anyone volunteered with them that could say a bit about their experience?

Didn't realise there were so many volunteering opportunities at Glasto

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2 hours ago, sirjonnyp said:

WA ran out of rubber gloves and the ones they have can be uncomfortable / blistering when tackling a particularly crusty turd that has burnt on to the longdrop

 

I was onboard until this post....and having thought carefully about your offer...

7VHFyg.gif

 

???

Edited by Gilb
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23 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

just to be clear there is nothing I can do or need to do at this stage for any of them is there ?

Just register your interest. Can only talk about Oxfam with confidence - but as long as you are registered with a profile in their site when places become available in Feb it’s like ticket day all over again.

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