Helping Out

Arcanacon is entirely volunteer driven - everyone from the organisers to the game writers to the people who help out randomly are doing it for the love of the hobby. So, as you'd expect, Arcanacon is always looking for more folks to help out around the place.

Right at the moment, what we really need is more organisers - folks that are willing to throw their hat into the ring to help make Arcanacon happen. Helpers are also valuable, so if you only have a small amount of time to offer, please let us know too.

So.. what does it entail?

The short answer is :

• showing up to meetings during the year
• being able to take on some of pre-con tasks
• committing to being available for the majority of the convention to take on tasks

Meetings

The orgs get together to discuss plan for the next year - what games are going to be run, what sort of promotion stuff should happen, what food will be bought and available, who wants to be writer wrangler during the year, what the trophies will be, and the thousand little details that go to making a four day convention work out.

The meetings are spaced out to begin with, but as the con approaches there might be one as often as one every 3 weeks. In January before the convention, there's usually two meetings to cover all of the outstanding details.

PreCon tasks

There's a certain amount of preparation that needs to be done before the convention. The venue has to be confirmed, events have to be procured, advertising needs to be designed and distributed, trophies have to be agreed on and assembled, food and drink purchased, and much much more. A lot of these tasks are completed well before the con starts, and so if you want to help out, its best to have a bit of time you can commit to organising free in your schedule.

During the Con

At the con, orgs are needed to set up the site the day before the con, to help sort out all the entry forms, help gms with questions, book rooms for games running, do boring data entry of player's change of timetables, chop up vegetables, serve drinks, empty bins, answer questions, deal with emergencies, cook on bbqs, make sure player lists are up to date, distribute trophies, print certificates, run the prizegiving and clean up the site, plus 4000 other tasks that crop up over the weekend.

Mostly these things are predictable, and under control, but they do need bodies to make them happen. That means that orgs are needed during the weekend, and have to large amounts of time that they might otherwise be playing or running a game. This isn't to say that there's no time to kick back or jump into a session if you're free, but it does mean making running the con your first priority.

So....

If that sounds like your sort of deal, then give the orgs a yell.