Volunteering
On-Site

Want to help us get PyCon-2012 going? Great!

Have a quick look at the Schedule of Volunteering Events!

One of the things that makes PyCon a community event is that people who attend the conference also work together to make it a great event.

Once you've registered for the conference, please register as a volunteer - it will help organizers find you when they need you! (qr)
Also, don't forget to monitor @pycon on Twitter while at the conference.

You can also see who's volunteered.

Some big things we need help with:

Note: Some require additional signup.

SESSION STAFF ^ - Sign up (click S on the schedule)

Session Chairs and Session Runners are present for an entire session (the group of talks - usually 2-3 - in between breaks).
Session Chairs say "Please be seated. Our next speaker is..."
Session Runners get speakers from the blue-room, to their session room.

Confirm which talks you are staffing, or which tracks have staffing needs by heading over to the Sessions Schedule.

TUTORIAL SUPPORT and TAs ^ - Sign up

Help people with setup and installation of packages the evenings before tutorial days, and with common problems as they arise during tutorial sessions. We need people from 6:30-8:00PM on Tuesday and Wednesday March 6-7, in the Open Spaces area.

See the messages on setup and preparation from the Tutorial instructors. See the Welcome Uncommittee page for more information on evening sessions.

We also need people available during tutorial sessions on Wednesday and Thursday to help:

  • Many tutorials have TAs (Tutorial Assistants) this year, but there may be a few more needed. Read more and volunteer on the Tutorial Assistants page.

  • We're also looking for one "Tutorial Host" for each of the 8 tutorials in each time slot to help welcome participants as they arrive in the room: be sure they're in the right tutorial, give them any printed handouts, ask them if they need any more help setting up their laptop, and answer questions. This need is for approximately 20 minutes before tutorials start until about 20 minutes after they start, i.e. about 40 minutes. In some tutorials TAs can fill this role, but in others they'll be busy with laptop setup, and some tutorials have no TAs. See guidelines at Tutorial Hosts.

REGISTRATION DESK ^ - Sign up (qr)

Someone needs to say "What is your name?", print the persons name tag, hand them their stuff.

Please consider signing up for an hour on the registration desk. It's a great way to meet people and answer basic questions. If this is your first PyCon, it's a good way to get into volunteering!

Note: CTE manages registrations, but volunteers man the registration desk to greet and print badges.

SWAG TEAM ^

Someone needs to stuff the stuff into the stuff holders, typically bags.

SWAG BAG STUFFERS Thursday 4PM - 8PM (or until we're done)

Help in quick sprints with lots of other people. For the big event, look for us at the end of tutorials on Thursday - 4:00PM to help setup the work area, 5:00PM for the bag bash. Our goal is 5 bags/minute (can you guess how many things go in each bag? - close to 1/4M items to bag!). Are you agile - in a crowd? We'll need between 100-120 volunteers for this sprint.

Come stuff 10 bags - this will help!

SWAG BAG HANDOUT Friday 7AM - 9AM

We'll also need help distributing swag on that busy first morning of the conference. If every 10th person to hand out swag to 10 people, it'd be great (the service: grab the right sized shirts to go with people's swag bags)...

We also need some more dedicated people, to keep the flow of bags and T-shirts flowing. We'll need between 10-20 dedicated people. Put your name down for Friday, 7AM-9AM:


  • Paul Hildebrandt (will be managing the handout counter)
  • Yarko Tymciurak
  • Vaidik Kapoor
  • Ankur Saxena

NETWORKING STAFF ^

The night before tutorials, the night before the main show, and at the end of the show, help with wiring, taping down, and placing network gear. Add your name below (edit this wiki page) if you're available Tuesday PM, Thursday PM, or Sunday PM.


  • Minesh B Amin: S
  • Martin Siniawski: Th
  • Juan Gomez: Th
  • Angel Medrano Th
  • John Morrissey (@johnmorr): Th

LAST MINUTE MOB ^

Electrical cord tapers / untapers and other last minute help.
We may be taping down power strips in the tutorial rooms, the ballrooms, and need other last minute help. Watch @pycon on twitter, walk around.

community/volunteer/onsite Recently modified by jwm: March 8, 2012, 12:26 a.m. (History) Edit