Oxfam Shift Swap

[Billy Shears]

I was lucky enough to get a stewarding place with Oxfam this year. It'll be my first year working with Oxfam and have heard / read about the ability to swap shifts with other stewards.

From what I can gather you have to swap all your shifts (not just the one that's the biggest hindrance to you) which makes sense, but I was wondering if anyone knows the actually process of swapping shifts;

- Is it a question of just asking about in the 'Oxfield' as you arrive at the festival?

- Is it something you need to have organised prior to the festival?

- Do you need something in writing / to be Ok'd by a supervisor or is just a case of agreeing something verbally with another Oxfam volunteer?

- Also as a side not, when does the shift pattern allocation get announced.

Cheers. 👍🎪

[incident]

17 minutes ago, Billy Shears said:

- Is it a question of just asking about in the 'Oxfield' as you arrive at the festival?

- Is it something you need to have organised prior to the festival?

- Do you need something in writing / to be Ok'd by a supervisor or is just a case of agreeing something verbally with another Oxfam volunteer?

- Also as a side not, when does the shift pattern allocation get announced.

Cheers. 👍🎪

- There'll be some whiteboards up where you and others can advertise what you have / what you want.

- No, you can't really plan this ahead of time.

- It absolutely needs to be done in writing. This will likely be explained in training & the on site briefing but essentially both of you need to meet and go to Admin team who will change it on the database and print you out new shift sheets.

- You'll get given your shift details when you register on site on the Monday or Tuesday.

[Billy Shears]

3 hours ago, incident said:

- There'll be some whiteboards up where you and others can advertise what you have / what you want.

- No, you can't really plan this ahead of time.

- It absolutely needs to be done in writing. This will likely be explained in training & the on site briefing but essentially both of you need to meet and go to Admin team who will change it on the database and print you out new shift sheets.

- You'll get given your shift details when you register on site on the Monday or Tuesday.

That's great - Thanks for your help!

[SecretFish]

12 hours ago, incident said:

- There'll be some whiteboards up where you and others can advertise what you have / what you want.

- No, you can't really plan this ahead of time.

- It absolutely needs to be done in writing. This will likely be explained in training & the on site briefing but essentially both of you need to meet and go to Admin team who will change it on the database and print you out new shift sheets.

- You'll get given your shift details when you register on site on the Monday or Tuesday.

Very useful! Thank you. 
 

 

[jfaragher]

As an aside to this - it's not a bad idea to have a 'fuck it, I get what I get, see what I see' attitude going in.  I've seen people be desperate to change shifts to see a specific band, get frustrated and upset when they can't, and you risk having a negative impact on the festival overall because of the focus on what is not OK for you.

That said, if Kendrick plays, and I'm working, I'm going sulk all weekend...

[SecretFish]

47 minutes ago, jfaragher said:

As an aside to this - it's not a bad idea to have a 'fuck it, I get what I get, see what I see' attitude going in.  I've seen people be desperate to change shifts to see a specific band, get frustrated and upset when they can't, and you risk having a negative impact on the festival overall because of the focus on what is not OK for you.

That said, if Kendrick plays, and I'm working, I'm going sulk all weekend...

This is what I’ll be doing. None of the confirmed sets excite me so I’ll just enjoy whatever I get assigned on the mom/tues. 

 

(unless Metallica play) 

[March Hare]

I don’t look at the day to day line up until after I get my shifts. That way I’m only looking at the stuff I’m free to watch.  Odds are you will have a 2pm-10pm shift on one of Fri/Sat/Sun.

[balti-pie]

1 hour ago, March Hare said:

I don’t look at the day to day line up until after I get my shifts. That way I’m only looking at the stuff I’m free to watch.  Odds are you will have a 2pm-10pm shift on one of Fri/Sat/Sun.

That worked out perfectly for me last year - I was most excited about seeing Gojira who played the Truth stage at 10:15, followed by IDLES at about 11:45 - just after my shift ended round the corner.
Quick piss, sank half a bottle of rum, got right in amongst it. Magnificent! 

[Lycra]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:54 AM, jfaragher said:

As an aside to this - it's not a bad idea to have a 'fuck it, I get what I get, see what I see' attitude going in.  I've seen people be desperate to change shifts to see a specific band, get frustrated and upset when they can't, and you risk having a negative impact on the festival overall because of the focus on what is not OK for you.

That said, if Kendrick plays, and I'm working, I'm going sulk all weekend...

The perfect attitude to have. Some of my best GF memories are from making a discovery on a minor stage....or even a main one. Headliners can be so so unless you're a diehard fan.

[SecretFish]

On 2/14/2020 at 2:48 PM, balti-pie said:

That worked out perfectly for me last year - I was most excited about seeing Gojira who played the Truth stage at 10:15, followed by IDLES at about 11:45 - just after my shift ended round the corner.
Quick piss, sank half a bottle of rum, got right in amongst it. Magnificent! 

Gojira were amazing last year. Only band I was really excited about 

 

 

[amfy]

On the year I worked with Shelter my shifts were on Friday, Saturday & Sunday. 
 

It not only meant that I had limited time on the main days, but the time I did have was somewhat hampered by aching feet!

So - Rather than trying to charge halfway across the site to catch acts that might have been a big deal to me, I looked for stuff that was relatively near to the bar I worked, & stuff where I could sit down for half an hour and have some food to recover a bit (e.g. - West Holts & Leftfield)

It turned out to be the most ‘Glastonbury’ Glastonbury that I’d had this century. The need to ditch big names in favour of something nearer/with more space that simply looked like it might be interesting, took me off track to some really random stuff that I loved.
 

The Mavericks at Avalon on Friday night when I only knew ‘Dance the Night Away’ & they did it first so I thought it was a write off, & didn’t even think I could stand up any more after 8 hours behind The Glade Bar, but ended up dancing In my bare feet right through the whole set is one of my favourite Glastonbury memories - despite the fact that before I got my shifts I thought my dilemma that night was Flaming Lips v Radiohead!

[PickledCarl]

On 2/24/2020 at 3:43 PM, amfy said:

On the year I worked with Shelter my shifts were on Friday, Saturday & Sunday. 
 

It not only meant that I had limited time on the main days, but the time I did have was somewhat hampered by aching feet!

So - Rather than trying to charge halfway across the site to catch acts that might have been a big deal to me, I looked for stuff that was relatively near to the bar I worked, & stuff where I could sit down for half an hour and have some food to recover a bit (e.g. - West Holts & Leftfield)

It turned out to be the most ‘Glastonbury’ Glastonbury that I’d had this century. The need to ditch big names in favour of something nearer/with more space that simply looked like it might be interesting, took me off track to some really random stuff that I loved.
 

The Mavericks at Avalon on Friday night when I only knew ‘Dance the Night Away’ & they did it first so I thought it was a write off, & didn’t even think I could stand up any more after 8 hours behind The Glade Bar, but ended up dancing In my bare feet right through the whole set is one of my favourite Glastonbury memories - despite the fact that before I got my shifts I thought my dilemma that night was Flaming Lips v Radiohead!

Love this outlook to Glastonbury.

I've found it can take a bit of bravery to make that initial choice to abandon the bands you 'believed you should see' and discover the bands you were meant to.