Why Volunteer?
Everything Open is a grass-roots, community-driven event, which wouldn’t be successful without the wonderful people who are willing to lend us a hand.
This year, we are once again seeking volunteers to fulfil a variety of roles to make this conference a success.
Volunteering at Everything Open is a great opportunity, and can be deeply rewarding.
Additionally, volunteering at Everything Open can add to your professional portfolio in many ways,
making this an ideal opportunity for highschool and university students, and recent graduates.
But, older hands are welcome too.
Your benefits
- making great new friends, as well as gaining “brownie points” within the community.
- Meeting exceptional people, many of whom are recognised experts in their field and industry luminaries. They’re just normal people, and will be happy to chat with you.
- Great networking opportunities with people working in the free and open source community
- Gaining practical, hands-on experience and skills in event management, customer liaison, public relations and operation of audio visual equipment; skills which are invaluable to future employers
- Free conference registration at Hobbyist/Student level, and finances permitting we’ll include the Penguin Dinner as well, making it a Professional registration!
- Morning Tea, Lunch, and Afternoon Tea provided during the conference
- A written reference covering your experience and duties - useful for job interviews!
So, fed and watered you will be.
What’s required of me?
Well, yes. You don’t get a free lunch just for showing up.
On the good side, this is in the summer holidays! No worries about school terms or university semesters during this time of year.
To be eligible for Volunteer Registration at Everything Open you need to be:
- age 16 years or over, and if you want to attend the Penguin Dinner you must be either over 18, or be accompanied by a responsible adult (separate dinner tickets will be available).
- willing to commit to three full days of volunteering. Don’t worry, you will get some “time off” along the way as well.
- able to attend the mandatory training and induction earlier in the week before the conference (most likely Tuesday 19 January).
- able to arrive at the conference at 8am each conference day, depending on the role.
- participate in communications and online meetings before the conference. If the volunteer coordinators feel you’re not committed, you’re out. It’s simple. We have to be able to rely on people. It won’t cost you that much time before the week of the conference, but you will need to be responsive to communications, and participate in planning meetings.
The following is a high level indication of the tasks available across the conference week itself:
| Day |
Tasks available |
| Tuesday 19 January (and possibly Monday 18 January) |
Conference bump-in (general set up duties) |
| Wednesday 20 January |
Conference room monitoring, room announcer, AV, and general assistance |
| Thursday 21 January |
Conference room monitoring, room announcer, AV, and general assistance |
| Friday 22 January |
Conference room monitoring, room announcer, AV, and general assistance |
| Saturday 23 January |
Conference bump-out (basically, carrying stuff and cleaning up) |
We would also like you to have one or more of the following skills and/or aptitudes:
- the ability to meet and greet people and provide assistance (such as directions to a session room, or sorting out the video connection for a speaker) with a friendly, cheerful disposition
- some familiarity with audio visual technologies
- confidence addressing an audience, such as introducing a speaker
- some familiarity with technology such as chat systems, online document sharing, social media, etc
Role Details
- Room announcer
- Prior to the conference, fill out speaker notes in the run sheets to decide how to introduce each speaker. We don’t want either people’s resume (the speaker themselves will probably have intro slides, and a big resume does not give a speaker more credibility; a good talk does) or abstract (attendees can read the program information too).
- Chat to the speaker(s) 10-15 minutes before the talk starts to confirm how they wish to be introduced (ask for preferred pronouns), whether they want to take questions, etc.
- Introduce speakers to the audience at the beginning of each presentation.
- Time keeping for the talk: give 5, 2, 1-minute warnings, and definitely ensure that noone goes over, regardless of whether they have slides left.
- Thank speakers at the end.
- Audio/Visual
- Look after video switching for each stream, perform tech checks to ensure speakers can present with decent quality audio.
- Volunteers with previous skills and experience in AV related work preferred, but you can work your way up.
- Room Monitors
- Responsible for monitoring the rooms within the conference venue, including watching the chat stream for issues and queries, and relay questions from online viewers.
- Field general questions about the conference.
- Escalate to the core team where necessary.
Sign me up!
You’re eager: an honest day’s tucker for an honest day’s work, right? That is a good attitude to have!
Volunteer applications will open in just a short while, we just need to have the Calls for Sessions out first.
Please keep an eye out on our announcements over the coming months and apply once they are open.
Any questions in the mean time? Email us at volunteers@everythingopen.au