Become a Festival Volunteer

During the Festival and in the run-up to October, the Festival Staff are helped by a small army of volunteers without whom the Festival wouldn't be possible. More help is always welcome!  If any of the volunteer roles appeal to you or you have time on your hands and would like to help please download and complete our volunteers form or contact us for further information

Once we have received your form, our Volunteers Coordinator will get in touch with you direct.

Volunteer roles include:

EVENT STEWARDS
Event Stewards come for an evening or for all day/ an afternoon or morning session during the day at weekends.
They meet and greet members of the public at Festival events.
They take tickets, answer queries, give directions, move chairs (when needed) and help seat the audience
They sit in on the Event

CHILDREN'S EVENTS STEWARDS
Children's Event Stewards come for Saturday 7th Oct/Sun 8th Oct or at other timeswhen Children's and young people's events are on. They can choose to do all day or an afternoon or morning session.
They meet and greet members of the public and their children.
They take tickets, answer queries, give directions, move chairs (when needed).
They sit in on the Event
Experience of dealing with children and families, as a parent, teacher, playworker, grandparent, older sibling etc etc is useful in this role.

WORKSHOP STEWARDS
Workshops Stewards look after the authors and participants in our workshop event. These are usually held on a weekend morning or afternoon.
They look after the author leading the workshops, make drinks and do photocopying.
They meet and greet members of the public and may need to take latecomers money.
They take tickets, answer queries, give directions, and are likely to need to help move chairs in the workshop room
They sit in on the Event
This role is fairly active

OUTDOOR EVENT STEWARDS
Outdoor Event Stewards accompany authors and members of the public on outdoor events: eg. around Ilkley on a family story walk, or up on the Moors for a poetry wrting walk
They take tickets, support the author in charge and help deal with any emergencies
You need to be happy to be outdoors in all weathers.
Outdoor events last up to 2 hours and you need to be happy to be walking throughout that time

INFORMATION STEWARDS
Information Stewards staff the Festival Comments Box and Friends of The Festival stalls and provide information to members of the public about events, directions and local facilities
This is a less physically active role

TEA BAR STEWARDS
The Festival sometimes needs volunteers to help run the Festival tea bar, making and serving tea, coffee and biscuits or cakes. The Tea Bar can be hectic at busy times!
Duties include making tea and coffee, serving members of the public and authors and washing up afterwards

QUALIFICATIONS FOR ALL STEWARDING ROLES
No previous experience is needed but you will need to be:
Punctual and reliable
Practical and hardworking
Have a courteous, calm approach to the public
Enjoy dealing with people
Support the Festival in its committment to making events accessible and welcoming
Some Stewards need to be more active than others- pick the role which suits your needs

TRAINING AND REWARDS FOR STEWARDS
We provide a Festival Briefing In September, covering a range of issues including Health and Safety and Festival Procedures, which prospective Stewards need to attend.
In return, Stewards get in free to the Event they are stewarding and are invited to the Festival Stewards' cheese and wine get togethers.

HELP WITH MAILINGS
Although the majority of our programmes are sent out by a mailing house, we still mail over 1,000 envelopes ourselves.
Volunteers are needed in mid- June and mid-late August to help stuff envelopes.
The Mailing volunteers are a friendly group who meet in the Manor House Education Room.  Plentiful supplies of tea, coffee and biscuits keep us going.

If any of these volunteer roles appeal to you, please click here to contact us