SIB Great Northern Beer Festival 2012

On Saturday 27th October 2012, I volunteered at the SIB Great Northern Beer Festival 2012. Robinson, et al (2010) notes that volunteering is an unpaid role at an event, where you can take part in many tasks  to help out such as:  fundraising, promotion , organizing events, administration, committee work, first aid and warden duties.

Whilst attending the Beer Festival, I was part of the fundraising team for ‘After Adoption’ charity. As part of the fundraising team I took part in two activities for example:

Job role one was where me and a colleague walked around the festival interacting with the attendees. Me and Jordan had to ask “would you like to take part in raising money for After Adoption, by donating £1 and in return you get the chance to win £50!”.  The prize money could be won by the customers handing over £1 for our donation bucket as they then choose a brewery. On the board which we carried around with us there was 150 names of different brewery’s. The male/female must then select a brewery to be in the chance to win £50. Once selected they then placed their name and number down on the board. On Monday 29th October a member of the After Adoption team will pick a brewery name out of a hat and the customer who picked that certain name then they would win £50.

I have volunteered many times before, but this was a whole new experience to me. As the customers we had to interact with, were under the influence of alcohol.  Therefore some guests came across as lovely and attentive where as others came across as very rude!

 Shone et al, (2004) describes that the Chief Steward at the event should have a fixed rota in place to control the volunteers so that no one spends too long a period of time doing the same repetitive task.  This was taken place at 3pm where Sophie the ‘Chief Steward’ announced that we could swap roles to allow us to try something new. I am glad she allowed us to do so as me and my colleague became frustrated with job role one, as it was difficult to find new people to donate.

Job role two allowed me and Jordan to swap roles with other volunteers at the event. In the second hour we stood by the entrance of the festival and offered the guests a chance to buy programs for the SIB Great Northern Beer Festival 2012. The programs were sold for £1 each and half of the money made, went straight to the After Adoption charity and the other half went back to the festival.

I found this job role a lot easier as the guests where entering the event hadn’t consumed any alcohol at this stage. Also the guests seemed more willing to donate to us as they where receiving a souvenier from the festival in return.

The SIB Great Northern Beer Festival 2012, was held at the Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel. This venue was in a fantastic location as it was situated in the heart of the city centre and is next to the main bus station in Manchester and tram stops. The festival was based in the ‘International Suite‘ which is “made up of the Terrace and the Ballroom, situated on the 3rd floor with it’s own private reception area, bar and stage. Can also cater for 700 for a reception/buffet. With natural daylight and wheelchair access.”  (My Mercure. (no date) :Online) This room was extremely spacious and catered well for the amount of guests which attended. When I first entered the venue the festival hadn’t begun, so there was me thinking this room looks far to big and wouldn’t be filled easily, but I was wrong! By 2pm the 814 m²  area was buzzing and was crowded.

I really enjoyed being part of this event as it was a new experience for me. As I said previously I hadn’t come in to contact with alcohol fulled guests before whilst volunteering so this was entertaining to say the least! For example one attendee asked if she could become our adopted Nan. This was an example of the more polite and positive customers and made the experience even more enjoyable.

Above shows an email which was sent to myself thanking me for taking part in volunteering in the event. Within this document it notes that After Adoption raised £2,600 over the three days, which is outstanding!