Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2012 17:35:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael Black
To: pdonnell@ montrealgazette.com
Subject: Fringe Volunteers need some recognition
A whole other area that doesn't get much mention is the volunteers. Yes, years ago Geoff Brown got some notice, the year he won the first volunteer award. But I noticed Amy is still being listed as "long time volunteer, now Producer", which seems misleading. I can remember when she first appeared, I can't remember if she volunteered, or it was more to visit her friend Nancy Brown (Geoff's sister, their father brought them to volunteer in 1997, rgwue father was a rover on rollerblades, and then father lasted a decade until he moved away from Montreal). Amy's involvement seems less deliberate then the official stories go, and while she was memorable as a person, I don't remember her as some gung ho volunteer or even taking that big a role until relatively recent years, when it seems like she was already picked to be the new producer.
Amy never got mention as a volunteer until she was staff.
But so long as she gets listed as "long term volunteer", it almost seems like if you volunteer long enough, you get moved up. Reality is, if you don't move up after a couple of years, you never do. Nancy K. Brown, a different Nancy Brown, has always been a volunteer, nobody ever acknowledges her long term service. The only people who have been around as long as her, or longer, they all got upgrades.
Tristan said he was volunteering the first year but he's long been upgraded, Jeremy hasn't been a volunteer in a long time (indeed, he was a volunteer for only a few years). Kristi in the counting house has been around since before I can remember, she was definitely there in the infamous Pepsi wagon in 1995 when there was no outdoor beer tent, but she's come and gone, and has been paid some years.
I remember people who had seemed to be volunteering "forever" about 1996, people like Wendy Furtenbacher and Maev Brennan, yet they have all moved on. They pulled me into the Fringe, I'm sure they did that to other people too. On the other hand, there are volunteers who have been around for a decade or so now, a newer wave. Antoine has done something like 12 Fringes, as a venue manager. Robin must be close to that. Shayne Grin has been around that long, but I think he's been on staff a few times. Alouette Lark must be the oldest volunteer now, and has been around for a good part of a decade. I'm sure Doris May held the title oldest volunteer but she died a few years back. Other people too, sometimes I need to actually see them in person to remember how many years they've been volunteering, but nobody recognizes their longevity. When Jeremy "retired", there was talk that it was a logical time to retire too, yet some of those saying it a couple of years ago keep getting dragged back in. Cindy Lopez has been involved since 1998, much of that time a volunteer, though finally she got an upgrade to Fringe Photographer.
I've seen people who I knew when they were under ten years old grow up and volunteer at the Fringe for a year or two, then move on. Most of the time, we never hear from them afterwards (likely they actually move out of town). But someone showed up in the box office a couple of years ago, she hadn't been seen in a few years; she said she'd moved to Vancouver and was just visiting, yet she took her proper place as a volunteer for a short time.
People have come as the audience, and then volunteered the next year. For a few years, one family came to the shows, and then suddenly the father was handing out bagels to the volunteers. That's why the line between audience and artists and volunteers is flexible, not because the Fringe has a slow dance night.
The thing is, the Producer gets a lot of attention, the rest don't. The technicians get paid, but they live in those dark spaces during the Fringe, barely able to get out, but without them, the shows couldn't go on. I can remember the first time I put the Fringe away, in 1997, we worked two days. Jeremy's friends (or so I imagined) would show up in their cars, we'd load the truck, then we'd get in the cars and follow the truck, putting the chairs back in a theatre at Loyola, including screwing the straps to secure the chairs. One thing about a larger budget is that there are more technicians, for the larger number of venues, but also a spare or so to fill in, so they can get a break. But that means they work harder, the volunteers having to lug less when we put up and put down the Fringe.
The volunteers are the ones the public is most likely to interact with, selling beer (Shaun sold beer tickets for almost a decade, then just disappeared), selling tickets, providing information, sometimes taking tickets. Contrary to one objector, volunteers want the tshirts, a little perk and a souvenir of the time they work the Fringe. Well except that time the volunteer coordinator ordered pink tshirts for the women, and they were very tight fitting.
Staff has gotten bigger, yet they are often in the background. In the early days, there was no difference between volunteers and staff, as the staff gets bigger the difference seems larger. Last year when the other festival came by, Mr. Security told me to go inside the beer tent, while the eager young staff, with virtually no Fringe experience, rushed out to see the excitement. As if I'm "merely" a volunteer, apparently not knowing that I've been an object of the other festival's comments, not as bad as some people but still there.
Without the volunteers, the Fringe couldn't happen. It's not just because the money isn't there, but I'd assume a premium price would have to be paid due to the short period of the Fringe.
When one venue manager told me a few years back that she'd had a horrible time, I realized volunteer time is playtime. That doesn't mean they can be irresponsible, but it means that the best volunteers are the ones who can have some fun out of the whole thing. They are the ones most likely to be friendly the public, and setting up the beer tent is a lot more fun when people are having fun. A couple of years ago, one venue manager got a paper cut from the tickets, I was there and had a bandaid for her. But then another time I passed by, she was struggling to keep track of the tickets and take the money, not because she was incapable, but because it was that one time when a venue manager really needs an assistant, the last minute rush before a show. That and someone to guard things for a quick break every so often. Sometimes there aren't enough volunteers for that.
Last year when the fence and tents and chairs had all been sent back to where they live the rest of the year, the rush over and a sort of lull came in, the always seemingly endless task of moving things back to HQ and sweeping up the park. Along comes some guy telling of just getting his medical marijuana, he suffered from some heavy pain, and he was in a good mood. Suddenly he starts sweeping the park, just throwing himself into it, and getting other people into it. I said afterwards I didn't know whether I hoped his condition continued till next year or not, it would be good to have him back, but not at the cost of continued pain. He said something about how everyone else had sort of moved away when he appeared, I didn't. That's the Fringe, ten days when there's a high density of people you know, so you assume anyone approaching is within that circle, even if you don't recognize them. That's where the summer camp metaphor comes from.
That's the odd thing. In the early days, we made our own fun, it was such a different experience. In more recent years, there's been a manufacturing, a lot less manic promotion, the audience isn't even partciluarly welcome when the artists poster the beer tent anymore. There's a perceived need to create fun for the volunteers, when they bring their own. I'd much rather know what a volunteer is reading (and that isn't uncommon among the venue managers), than go to some faux prom night. It's an odd thing, the older volunteers feel alienated by it (and the older volunteers are the ones with the longest time served, since they weren't going anywhere when they first volunteered), suddenly it feels like we are less a part of the Fringe because we don't go to the parties. It isn't helped that the parties now seem to start so late.
But the tattoos and dyed hair is just veneer, the good volunteers are having fun, and are good with the public if they are dealing with the public. One time we were moving beer kegs and Tristan hands out beer tickets, and there was one extra, so it was passed to a vllunteer who was just passing by at the moment; a fair method of allocating the extra ticket, nobody needed to debate it. Some of the best volunteers are those that keep coming back, to provide a familiar face to the public, but also to provide continuity and some sense of history. Some people volunteer for the sake of volunteering, or some other reason, rather than because they are interested in the shows, as odd as that seems. But the ones who are gung ho about the shows can obviously help to promote shows, to instill a sense of Fringe on the public.
There is a lot of turnover with the Fringe, not must volunteers but staff. Not really a surprise, they generally are in a transition age, having some time for a year or two, then moving on. How many thousands of volunteers have we gone through over the years? Unless I've missed someone, they are on the 8th volunteer coordinator since I first volunteered. Not that I'm the good volunteer, but i've put the Fringe away since 1997, put it up for at least a decade.
The Fringe is fair with the volunteers, yet they can also be lacking. We've lost a few in the past few years because nobody has bothered contacting them. Nobody tells me directly about the volunteer party, nobody asks me if I'm helping out. But on the other hand, the people guarding the beer tent overnight get money for pizza.
Yet the volunteers don't get as much acknowledgement as they should. There was the volunteer award for a few years, but it seemed to encourage people to overwork themselves, rather than acknowledge volunteers. The only time I remember a real treat for the volunteers was the time Maisoneuve Magazine was a sponsor, and they had a table at the beer tent most days. The business manager was there, and the last day she handed out loot bags, cheap things like water pistols, to the volunteers. I was never sure if that was a plan or she'd though of it while watching the Fringe. Some little things have been worked in recent years, discounts or free meals, but for all the visiblity of the volunteers, they are invisible next to the staff when it comes time to write about the Fringe.
The Fringe couldn't happen without volunteers.
I remember one year, I think the year of the murder mystery contest, where Jeremy had the staff come up on stage at the end of the Fringe for All, and while that was a unique acknowldegement of the staff, it ignored the volunteers.
But considering the importance of the volunteers, the cheap labor but also the face they put on the Fringe, they barely get a mention, while the Producer gets constant mention and the staff treated higher. When we put the beer tent up on Tuesday, there'll probably be chili for the volunteers, something I've done before, yet I sure didn't get an invitation to that press conference and I sure wasn't asked about making chili for the contest.
Nobody's asked me if I'm coming to put up the beer tent on Tuesday, though that may not be a fair way to judge things, since I think there's some very fine print somewhere that says I'm obligated to show up, and the Fringe can't go on unless I appear.
Michael