Volunteering 2024

[philipsteak]

I think there were a few people on the Oxfam Facebook page saying they'd got places recently.

[goldfishboy]

3 minutes ago, This_Fields_Good said:

 

 

I'm actually wondering if Oxfam have sort of over/double booked for Glastonbury, and are absorbing any returned places; perhaps this could be a consequence of the Shindig offer.

Despite a suggestion that someone got a place a few days ago, I personally am unconvinced that there has been ANYTHING on offer since the 'resale' release. There are plenty of people from this site running page-checkers, and if there had been even one or two places, I'd expect it to have been corroborated.

 

Not what people (including me) want to hear, I know, but by this time last year there had been dozens of occasional places.

I'm still trying to get Oxfam places for people, but my confidence is taking a bit of a beating now !

yeah i've not known it to be this quiet but i still expect there to be a rush of last-minute cancellations so wouldn't give up just yet

[stuie]

8 minutes ago, This_Fields_Good said:

 

 

I'm actually wondering if Oxfam have sort of over/double booked for Glastonbury, and are absorbing any returned places; perhaps this could be a consequence of the Shindig offer.

Despite a suggestion that someone got a place a few days ago, I personally am unconvinced that there has been ANYTHING on offer since the 'resale' release. There are plenty of people from this site running page-checkers, and if there had been even one or two places, I'd expect it to have been corroborated.

 

Not what people (including me) want to hear, I know, but by this time last year there had been dozens of occasional places.

I'm still trying to get Oxfam places for people, but my confidence is taking a bit of a beating now !

someone on the WhatsApp group got one the other day

[balti-pie]

I got the fabled early shifts in 2022, it was kind of good - lovely to get the whole festival off obviously, but the three shifts were on a locked gate and it is a seriously long time in a tent; nine nights! I was running dangerously low on grundies and socks. Three shower tokens is a bit mingy for those on earlies as well (though you can always use the main site for showers too, to be fair) so I’m not too disappointed to have swerved them, fingers crossed we have a couple of lucky early bods in here 

[Booker]

Unfortunately, I didn't get the early shifts but glad I can at least get my trains booked now as prices will only go up closer to the time.

[stuie]

29 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

I got the fabled early shifts in 2022, it was kind of good - lovely to get the whole festival off obviously, but the three shifts were on a locked gate and it is a seriously long time in a tent; nine nights! I was running dangerously low on grundies and socks. Three shower tokens is a bit mingy for those on earlies as well (though you can always use the main site for showers too, to be fair) so I’m not too disappointed to have swerved them, fingers crossed we have a couple of lucky early bods in here 

Tbh, especially after reading your post, I don’t get why the earlies are in so much demand. Three shifts on a locked gate sounds like my idea of hell… I’d choose a busy gate during festival time over that every time! Meeting punters, helping happy arrivals and chatting breeze to loads of people is part of my festival these days.  Love it! 

[malcombe]

The DJ on my local radio just proclaimed this year will be one of the wettest Glastonbury 's on record!? Perhaps that might free up some volunteer slots. Did make me check out the weather thread on here.

I'm sceptical of such proclamation ,but have experienced some awful weather at Glasto especially in the mid ninties. 

I 'll keep refreshing both the Oxfam page and the weather thread 😉

[philipsteak]

2 minutes ago, stuie said:

Tbh, especially after reading your post, I don’t get why the earlies are in so much demand. Three shifts on a locked gate sounds like my idea of hell… I’d choose a busy gate during festival time over that every time! Meeting punters, helping happy arrivals and chatting breeze to loads of people is part of my festival these days.  Love it! 

 

I guess it's just the thing of knowing you've got the whole festival to enjoy with no shifts. And definitely no shifts clashing with acts you want to see.

The only people I know who've really had anything negative to say, and in one case haven't applied to do them again were people who had 3 night shifts. I mean they've all said it's pretty boring, day or night. Although you can still get boring roles on normal shifts. I speak from experience. The last two years I've been on Stickleball Gate, a vehicle only service gate at the back of Sticklinch. With two stewards. It's very very dull. Wednesday mornings aren't quite the same at a place like that

[philipsteak]

Just now, malcombe said:

The DJ on my local radio just proclaimed this year will be one of the wettest Glastonbury 's on record!? Perhaps that might free up some volunteer slots. Did make me check out the weather thread on here.

I'm sceptical of such proclamation ,but have experienced some awful weather at Glasto especially in the mid ninties. 

I 'll keep refreshing both the Oxfam page and the weather thread 😉

 

It might put off some people from your local area.

[malcombe]

11 minutes ago, philipsteak said:

 

It might put off some people from your local area.

That said my local catchment area is rather small, 65k population (the  Channel Islands). But we shall see.

[balti-pie]

20 minutes ago, stuie said:

Tbh, especially after reading your post, I don’t get why the earlies are in so much demand. Three shifts on a locked gate sounds like my idea of hell… I’d choose a busy gate during festival time over that every time! Meeting punters, helping happy arrivals and chatting breeze to loads of people is part of my festival these days.  Love it! 

Ah, it went by, they were all 6 till 2pm so it was quite nice to see the sun coming up and warming everything, there was precious little traffic passing (and none coming through) with basically everyone being sent down to Mary’s Gate. We had a small flurry of excitement when the local council turned up, but we just followed procedure and got them escorted to the offices, and otherwise it was 24hrs of chatting amongst ourselves really. The shifts absolutely do go by quicker if it’s busy and there’s tons to do, but I’m quite patient so don’t mind either - busy or quiet, I’ll just crack on 👍

[Pinhead]

Yeah I don't mind the boring shifts at the end of the day they're just there by agreement with site and Oxfam get their fee whatever, then they're out the way and free festi time!

[stuie]

1 hour ago, philipsteak said:

 

I guess it's just the thing of knowing you've got the whole festival to enjoy with no shifts. And definitely no shifts clashing with acts you want to see.

The only people I know who've really had anything negative to say, and in one case haven't applied to do them again were people who had 3 night shifts. I mean they've all said it's pretty boring, day or night. Although you can still get boring roles on normal shifts. I speak from experience. The last two years I've been on Stickleball Gate, a vehicle only service gate at the back of Sticklinch. With two stewards. It's very very dull. Wednesday mornings aren't quite the same at a place like that

I guess youre right, it might happen to me this time… I’ve been blessed with a busy gate C for several years now! I’m not sure if that’s by chance or if they try to place people where they know what they are doing (sort of 😂 ) sometimes.

1 hour ago, balti-pie said:

Ah, it went by, they were all 6 till 2pm so it was quite nice to see the sun coming up and warming everything, there was precious little traffic passing (and none coming through) with basically everyone being sent down to Mary’s Gate. We had a small flurry of excitement when the local council turned up, but we just followed procedure and got them escorted to the offices, and otherwise it was 24hrs of chatting amongst ourselves really. The shifts absolutely do go by quicker if it’s busy and there’s tons to do, but I’m quite patient so don’t mind either - busy or quiet, I’ll just crack on 👍

Happy to leave the earlies to others! I also would be paranoid of running out of socks etc 

[Drew3232]

I'd like to volunteer for a day shift, any idea the best chance of where they might still have one available? Got my ticket already. Arrive Thursday.

[Leyrulion]

4 hours ago, This_Fields_Good said:

 

 

I'm actually wondering if Oxfam have sort of over/double booked for Glastonbury, and are absorbing any returned places; perhaps this could be a consequence of the Shindig offer.

Despite a suggestion that someone got a place a few days ago, I personally am unconvinced that there has been ANYTHING on offer since the 'resale' release. There are plenty of people from this site running page-checkers, and if there had been even one or two places, I'd expect it to have been corroborated.

 

Not what people (including me) want to hear, I know, but by this time last year there had been dozens of occasional places.

I'm still trying to get Oxfam places for people, but my confidence is taking a bit of a beating now !

I think this is likely. 

 

All the reports I can see on the various groups are people saying they "heard" about other people getting tickets. 

 

It was a lot slower last year as well, I think there were rumours Oxfam didn't like the use of page trackers etc so this might actually have been their way to put a stop to that. 

[stuie]

2 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

I think this is likely. 

 

All the reports I can see on the various groups are people saying they "heard" about other people getting tickets. 

 

It was a lot slower last year as well, I think there were rumours Oxfam didn't like the use of page trackers etc so this might actually have been their way to put a stop to that. 

Do you mean they thought ‘well, we usually have roughly 200 cancellations so let’s make 200 more places available than normal’ or something like that? 

[Leyrulion]

6 minutes ago, stuie said:

Do you mean they thought ‘well, we usually have roughly 200 cancellations so let’s make 200 more places available than normal’ or something like that? 

More likely this year something like "we need another 150* Shindig stewards, let's put an offer out allowing new shindig sign ups to go to Glastonbury, we'll also open it to the 80 existing sign ups who aren't already going to Glastonbury a priority way in, and that should cover the usual 200ish Glastonbury cancellations"

 

But yeah I wouldn't be surprised if they do start over recruiting based on a conservative estimate of a consistent drop out rate. 

 

If they over recruit by 1% in a year I don't think that would be the end of the world given their relation with the festival.

 

*Numbers may vary

[incident]

7 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

More likely this year something like "we need another 150* Shindig stewards, let's put an offer out allowing new shindig sign ups to go to Glastonbury, we'll also open it to the 80 existing sign ups who aren't already going to Glastonbury a priority way in, and that should cover the usual 200ish Glastonbury cancellations"

 

The reason I'd doubt that, is that even after the Shindig window, they still opened up Glastonbury as a free-for-all where a fair few others also got places.

[Leyrulion]

6 minutes ago, incident said:

 

The reason I'd doubt that, is that even after the Shindig window, they still opened up Glastonbury as a free-for-all where a fair few others also got places.

Point still stands though about the lack of places since. 

[stuie]

19 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

More likely this year something like "we need another 150* Shindig stewards, let's put an offer out allowing new shindig sign ups to go to Glastonbury, we'll also open it to the 80 existing sign ups who aren't already going to Glastonbury a priority way in, and that should cover the usual 200ish Glastonbury cancellations"

 

But yeah I wouldn't be surprised if they do start over recruiting based on a conservative estimate of a consistent drop out rate. 

 

If they over recruit by 1% in a year I don't think that would be the end of the world given their relation with the festival.

 

*Numbers may vary

they only get paid for people provided though, so even in the situation you describe, if they are one, two, or twenty people short of the agreed number then random illusive places might pop up! Who knows!?

[incident]

Just now, stuie said:

they only get paid for people provided though, so even in the situation you describe, if they are one, two, or twenty people short of the agreed number then random illusive places might pop up! Who knows!?

 

And they very definitely won't want to risk being over, even by one - as either going to the Festival begging for more wristbands, or telling people "actually sorry, we don't have room for you after all" would both cause them numerous issues.

[Leyrulion]

10 minutes ago, incident said:

 

And they very definitely won't want to risk being over, even by one - as either going to the Festival begging for more wristbands, or telling people "actually sorry, we don't have room for you after all" would both cause them numerous issues.

Not an issue if you know you have a consistent drop out rate. And I think not as big a problem in reality, would cause issues yes but not insurmountable ones given the history and relationship they have with the festival. 

[Leyrulion]

14 minutes ago, stuie said:

they only get paid for people provided though, so even in the situation you describe, if they are one, two, or twenty people short of the agreed number then random illusive places might pop up! Who knows!?

Yeah they get paid for their 2500 stewards but they will obviously have to factor in numbers for their own staffing and stewarding operation into the contract bid. Specifically full time Oxfam staff and onsite caterers they won't be paid for. 

 

What I'm saying is there is probably much more flex than is being suggested in the unlikely event Oxfam recruited say 2506 volunteers.

 

And that all signs seem to be so far that they may have accounted for a predictable amount of drop outs after the resale in the numbers recruited post ticket resale which means the secret spaces popping up could be a thing of the past. 

[TitchyMitch]

Gf got offered a Water Aid spot yesterday …. a few days after committing to a different holiday …. oh well

[ravermum]

I've just accepted a last minute place with Wateraid. I've tried every possible volunteering and working route and waitlist over the last several months. I'm completely delighted. Posting this to others still holding on, hoping. Keep going. Keep checking. Keep trying.