Fee For Service Programs: Event Volunteers
"Many festivals and events depend upon volunteers to make them possible. Volunteers put the community into community events." Steven Wood Schmader, CEO of the International Festivals & Events Association.
New South Wales has hosted some of the biggest and most successful events in Australia, including the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Part of the secret of the success of these events has been the dedicated volunteers who've helped make them happen. The Centre for Volunteering has linked many event organisers to skilled event volunteers and we can do the same for you.
What does being an event volunteer involve?
Many of the biggest and most successful events depend upon event volunteers, as do numerous awareness-raising and fundraising activities conducted by not-for-profit groups such as Red Nose Day, Daffodil Day or the Red Shield Appeal. Event volunteers also get involved with public events like festivals, forums, seminars, street fairs, tickertape parades, and all sorts of sporting, cultural and art events.To make sure these events run smoothly, event volunteers are usually recruited by not-for-profits, councils or government bodies and event organisers to undertake a wide variety of roles. Our pool of event volunteers are experienced in all aspects of event management including:
- Spectator services
- Marshalling
- Drink station attendants
- Logistics
- Pre-event office assistance
- Registration
- And many more.
We recommend that volunteers only support local government, community groups and non-profits in their events rather than commercial event organisers–to ensure volunteers are not exploited or involved inappropriately.
Events we've supported
The Centre for Volunteering has made its mark and referred on potential volunteers to a wide range of events in Sydney including:- The Royal Easter Show
- Daffodil Day
- Red Nose Day
- Masters Swimming events at Homebush and Blacktown Swimming Pools
- St George / BRW corporate triathlon at Mrs Macquarie's Point
- City to Surf
- Surry Hills Festival
- Haldon Street Festival
- CERES Festival
- Wesley Mission's Spirit of Mission dinner
- The Sydney Swans Community Games at Telstra Stadium
- Museums Light Up Sydney!
- The Bali tribute ceremony – collecting money for The Red Cross at the Domain
- City of Sydney NYE
- NSW Premier's Forum on Spinal Chord Injury and Conditions, Keynote speaker Christopher Reeve (January 2003)
- The Flora Sydney Marathon
- Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games
Find out how our volunteers benefited these events by reading about our past events.
Advertise your event and for event volunteers
Are you a not-for-profit organisation and holding an event or are you involved in a not-for-profit fundraising event? Members of The Centre for Volunteering can advertise their event and their request for volunteers on our volunteering website for free! Complete our Job Advertisement Form – making sure you include the details of your event, how many volunteers your need and what they will be doing.Juliana Collins, Community Volunteer Coordinator, Manly Council wrote...
"Thank you so much for your support in assisting me with volunteers for our Manly Jazz Festival - I can't express how appreciative I am!!! We had such a fantastic result with some amazing volunteers assisting us, we had a total of 38 volunteers during the 3 day event and 13 of these were Event Volunteers from Volunteering NSW, with many other enquiries that we simply could not fit on the roster!!!! It was an amazing outcome, we will definitely use your Event Database again especially for such large scale events, the (money) would definitely be money well spent.It was useful having volunteers who have been exposed to the event environment before, our events team provided fantastic feedback, even stating we had the best bunch of volunteers this year EVER."