The art of volunteer wrangling

With great number of volunteers, comes a great deal of responsibility 

The LSPU Hall's Cox & Palmer Second Space Bar as viewed from the stage.
Cat Burke and Danielle Hamel spoke about the volunteer problem here.
Melissa Wong/My Online Journalism Blog

By Melissa Wong
My Online Journalism Blog

Cat Burke was hired a few months ago to manage the LSPU Hall's box office and coordinate the ever-growing number of volunteers.

Burke's greatest challenge is managing the volunteers.

"It's not a terrible, terrible situation, but it definitely results in a lot of confusion," Burke said.

The LSPU Hall, referred to as the Hall, is a Newfoundland heritage site in downtown St. John's. It is owned by the Resources Centre for the Arts (RCA), a theatre organization. The Hall and its many volunteers have supported over 100 theatre productions and the local arts community. 

Cat Burke is the LSPU Hall’s box office manager and volunteer
coordinator. Burkefinds wrangling volunteers is a challenging
job. Melissa Wong/My Online Journalism Blog

Communication

Inside the Hall, is a bar called the Cox & Palmer Second Space.

In the bar were black plastic chairs and black foldable tables that faced a small black stage. Bathed in the bars' orange and purple light was Burke. She sat at one of the circular tables, taking a break from her duties as the volunteer coordinator.

She described volunteer wrangling as "just a lot of emailing. Umm, that's how most of the volunteers get in touch with me."

According to Burke, keeping up with all the emails is difficult "because everyone is on a different schedule and my job is nine to five, so if I get an email pass five o'clock or on the weekend, I don't always get to answer it promptly."

"There have been times when people have wanted to get in touch with me… outside of my office hours," Burke said. She said that though the other staff members will sometimes check the emails, it is often not enough to keep up with the tide wave of volunteers’ incoming emails.

The communications problems can lead to confusion behind the theatre’s black curtains.

"I think its just miscommunication, eventually it will get sorted out maybe someone is supposed to work a shift and they don't make it in for their shift and someone else can cover," Burke said. "The next time I am scheduled and (I) catch up on everything and see if I can smooth things over… (I) apologize for not being able to check in.

"I usually check my email on weekends, just to stop that from happening," Burke added as she described her woes at the Hall's gin joint that sold five kinds of local Quidi Vidi beer when the bar was open for business. 

always get to answer it promptly."

Danielle Hamel is the communications officer for the LSPU
Hall. During her two years, the number of volunteers has
increased, which brings with it challenges. Melissa 
Wong/My Online Journalism Blog

"The times they are a'changing"

According to Danielle Hamel, communications officer, there has been an increase in the number of volunteers required for this theater location during her two years of working there. Hamel sat in the bar with her legs crossed and her water bottle balanced on her knee with both hands holding it firmly.

"We have a lot of volunteers that have been here for many years, decades even," Hamel said. "Through word of mouth, I suppose they find out- other people find out about the volunteer opportunities… We thank our current volunteers and let people know about signing up.

"I would say… (our volunteers) use to skew more in the older range," Hamel added. "But now we are getting young people as well, so we are getting a full spectrum of ages."

When asked what in heaven's name brought so many volunteers to the Hall, Burke replied: "I guess word got out that it's a cool place to volunteer.

"If you volunteer here you have a duty," Burke added. "You either take tickets or hand out programs or help patrons to their seats, but you essentially get to see the plays for free."

Hamel said that volunteers have training, so they can check fire exits, oversee evacuation, tear tickets, hand out programs, assist with the lift and help the staff.

Volunteers and staff have different work hours and keeping everybody on the same page with uniformed procedures and policies, which can be a challenge to enforce.

"We would see as many volunteers as possible and as many active and engaged volunteers who care about the space and care about bringing that sense of focus," Hamel said. "(And) responsibility to the job so they would care the about rules, regulations and procedures and that would show through their volunteer shift here."

Hamel said she is considering having more volunteer appreciation events so that they can speak to their volunteers face to face to "wrangling a huge diverse group."

The Hall needed to hire someone to do the job full-time.

"(Ian Campbell is) one of our ah, causal box office (bartending) staff and he's now the volunteer coordinator and he has a lot more flexibility to his schedule,” Burke said. “(He is taking it) on as its own job and so he's able to answer emails, he's given out his number for the volunteers to contact him to have quicker communication with them. So, I think that's great.

"He is able to check his email, he doesn't have work hours, he can make his own hours," Burke added. "He can check his email at any time and… he has established some new protocols, I think."

A full time job

The Hall seemed to have realized that rounding up and herding volunteers is no longer a side job.

Yet, despite all the problems controlling volunteers, Hamel said the number of volunteers needs to keep rising. Volunteers are the lifeblood of the Hall's work, the thing that keeps it alive, even its very blood dissolved into chaos.

"If there's a long run of shows, say ten of each one… (then) we need volunteers every single night,” Hamel said. “Some shows definitely find it harder to get volunteers than others even though we have a large group.

"We need people to fill all the positions to make sure we are not scrambling the night before realizing that we are one short for tomorrow's show, which happens quite often," Hamel added as she cradled her water bottle, so she could free one of her hands. "The more… (volunteers we have the more likely) it would decrease that possibly, that we would be scrambling last minute to find that volunteer… (if) we have a bigger pool."

"It's a lot of fun working at the place with a lot of disciplines coming through and you get to see so many things. It feels like it is the epicenter of the arts in downtown St. John's in a way," Hamel said.

Managing and coordinating the volunteers is its own production, but the show must go on.

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