Our event volunteers primarily help out at our two national events, our annual Alton Towers event which takes place in April and our Big Weekend event.  However they also help out at other events and conferences, for example in 2017 we supported a Car Gala Fundraiser and provided thirty volunteers to help run the event.  Additionally we attend various conferences throughout the year and will make use of volunteers donating their time to help man a stall so that more staff time can be used in the office.  We only have a small staff team at Alopecia UK and so we rely heavily on volunteers to help us make our events a success as well as helping us maximise our office hours. 

What does volunteering at events involve?

Roles at the Big Weekend range from admin, helping attendees as they arrive and giving them their packs or signing them up to workshops, to being a welcoming friendly face and going round chatting to people and helping to put them at ease.  Some volunteers also do room management, ensuring all activities are being run on time and that speakers etc know where they need to be and when. 

Our Alton Towers volunteers help to facilitate groups to go around the park.  Their main role is to keep the groups together, ensure they get to the meet ups, and most importantly provide a friendly face and help encourage chat between attendees.  Many people can be very nervous coming to our events for the first time and so volunteers help to allay some of those nerves and put people at ease.  We also have volunteers help out with the sale of merchandise and giving out of packs.

We do use skills based volunteers at both events when available, typically on photography and film making.

The Car Gala fundraiser event involved manning games stalls, an Alopecia UK information tent, raffle ticket sellers as well as various marshalling and stewarding roles.

Attendance at a conference typically involves chatting to medical professionals about the work of the charity as well as the experience of alopecia.

Typical event volunteer numbers required:

Big Weekend	25-30
Alton Towers	20-24
Extra events	30
Conferences	3