Festival together! BÁNKITÓ festival 2009 and 2010
Project description
Within the framework of the Grundtvig programme Marom Budapest developed the voluntary project of the Bánkitó festival. The festival promotes the values of mutual understanding and intercultural relations among minorities in Hungary with a special focus on Jewish and Roma cultures. In 2010 a highlighted message of the festival was 'active participation', which involved promoting voluntary engagement. Click here for more information.Volunteers at the Bánkitó festival in 2009
In 2009 Marom Budapest organized its summer festival for the first time in Bánk. The Bánkitó festival was held between 6-8 August 2009. The entire festival was organized based on voluntary work. It had two major different levels: a) the core team and b) the volunteers on the spot.
CORE TEAM 2009
For programme development, advertisement and technical arrangements we needed to set up a core team, which met on a regular basis between February-August 2009. There was a retreat (a training weekend) organized for the voluntary program team at the end of March 2009 where we set out basic principles. Budget, communications and programming were developed as a joint effort of this core team. There were 12 people involved in the organization and each person took on a specific part of the organization. The programme team volunteers met for evaluation after the festival and remained committed to the project. In 2010 most of the original team were still involved and could therefore build on their earlier experiences.
Fields and names of volunteers within the core group were:
1. Festival director (Adam Schönberger)
2. Finances, administration, applications (Réka Kis, Eszter Susán)
3. Workshops, discussions, exhibitions, etc. (Eszter Susán)
4. Jewish programmes (Andrea Sturovics)
5. Music programmes (Dávid Papp, Adam Schönberger)
6. Theater programmes (István Szalai Szabó, Réka Kiss Judit)
7. Press, advertisement (Réka Kiss Judit)
8. Customer services and volunteer coordination (tickets, services, etc.) (Ágnes Kökényesi)
9. Technical coordination (Gábor Fábián)
10. Decoration and technical coordination (Anna Fazekas, Péter Judit)
11. Green festival referent (Kata Piroch)
12. Catering (Dániel Tesfáy)
VOLUNTEERS ON THE SPOT 2009
As an addition to the core team there were 60 volunteers involved in the Bánkitó festival, directly before and during the festival. While the core team was set up based on personal interviews among friends and colleagues whom the Marom team already knew, direct volunteers for the festival were recruited from many other places. We put advertisements on websites, at universities and in newspapers. There was a meeting for the volunteers in Budapest at the end of June 2009 where they met the coordinator team, in particular the technical coordinators. We also invited the volunteers for a site build-up camp in the middle of July 2009 , on a weekend two weeks before the festival. Ten of them joined us for this event. Many of the volunteers also helped advertise the event before the festival, for which there was a meeting organized for distributing flyers and posters among the volunteers in July 2009.
COORDINATION ON THE SPOT 2009
The volunteer coordinator held a coordination meeting on the spot one day before the start of the festival (5 August 2009). Here tasks were distributed. Tasks for volunteers were developed based on discussions among the core team as well as based on direct experiences and unexpected tasks on the spot.
All volunteers had to sign a contract with the organizers, according to Hungarian law.
Most of the volunteers received reimbursement for their travel costs. They also received breakfast and one hot meal per day as well as a T-shirt.
In addition to the chief coordinator there were 3 sub-coordinators of the volunteers on the spot (László Bernáth, Rudolf Piroch and Mónika Bálint). These extra functions emerged spontaneously during the event as we saw the need for them.
The following tasks were done by volunteers at the festival:
- sales of tickets and T-shirts
- ticket control on location
- program support on location
- providing supplies (water, etc.) on location
- cleaning the festival venues
- security at festival venues
- information
- bag check and lost & found
- decoration and site set up
- filling out questionnaires with festival visitors
- exhibition set up
- follow-up tasks
We had a festival follow-up event 3 weeks after the festival (31st August 2009) where all of the core team and on-the-spot volunteers were invited. The festival director thanked everyone for their hard work and we watched two films about the festival. After that there was a party to celebrate together the results of the festival.
Marom tried to keep in touch with the volunteer group during the year as well. We were able to involve some of the volunteers in other programmes and projects, but only a few of them and not on a regular basis. We organized a Halloween party for the Bánkitó volunteers as well, but only a few of them came to the event.
Evaluation 2009
The involvement of the on-site volunteers was successful at the festival. We have not, however, managed to involve them in further work with Marom. Only some of them participated on other programmes as volunteers. Two of the 'regular' volunteers at the festival, however, have become part of the core team as volunteer coordinators; they have been able to translate their experiences of being a volunteer to the organizational level. Concerning the core team the involvement of the volunteers was successful; all aspects of the festival functioned well and the team decided to stay together and keep up the good work.
II. Volunteers at the Bánkitó festival 2010
Marom decided to organize the Bánkitó festival in 2010 as well. In 2010 the main theme of the festival became 'active participation' where we developed even more the voluntary aspects of the festival. And also even more than last year many of the performers and organizers participated in the event on a voluntary basis.
Based on last year's experiences as well as by integrating new members and involving new resources, we managed to differentiate among the tasks and improve the planning and the organization of the event.
CORE TEAM 2010
We added new people to the core team and some functions werehandled by new team members. First of all we separated the coordination of the volunteers from the task of customer services. In 2009 one of our volunteers had told us that she would like to coordinate the next year’s festival. As she has a lot of experience with volunteers and works in the non-profit sector we were happy to give her this task. Another member of Marom, who had been volunteering at the festival, also showed great interest and good skills in coordination, so in 2010 the two of them became the chief coordinators of the volunteers.
Another change in the festival structure was that we increased the number of programme organizers (those responsible for workshops, exhibitions, etc.) within the core team. Whle in 2009 these programs were organized by one person, this year there were 6 people dealing with programme organization on a regular basis. The increase in the number of organizers improved some part of the programme; however, it also showed that “Less is more” - perhaps it would have been better to work with fewer people in order to keep the flow of information smoother. However, one of the main principles of the festival was 'active participation', so having more people on the programming team was all in all a very positive and conscious decision.
Furthermore we introduced a chief coordinator to the core team, whose task was to oversee the processes among the sub-teams, enhance communication between the teams and to solve problems as they arose in the organization's procedures.
The core team was increased to 22 people. As an addition to this we also had new core team members since we started a partnership with a cultural centre (Gödör) and have involved their team as well.
The current core team structure:
1. Director (Adam Schönberger)
2. Finances, administration, applications (Réka Kis, Eszter Susán)
3. Workshops, discussions, films, exhibition (Eszter Susán, Rita Hordósy, Éva Gábor, Anna Bálint, Rita Prihoda, Julia Gottfried)
4. Press, advertisement (Balázs Czifrik, Móni Gábor, Áron Halász)
5. Customer services (tickets, services, etc.) (Ágnes Kökényesi)
6. Technical coordination (Gábor Fábián)
7. Decoration and technical coordination (Anna Fazekas)
8. Volunteer coordination (Mónika Bálint, László Bernáth)
9. Green festival referent and catering (Kata Piroch)
10. Jewish programmes (Andrea Sturovics)
11. Music programmes (Dávid Papp, Judit Péter)
12. Theatre programmes (István Szalai Szabó)
13. Chief coordination (Judit Horváth)
VOLUNTEERS ON THE SPOT 2010
Compared to last year, in 2010 we started to plan the necessary tasks for volunteers earlier.
We increased the number of the volunteers up to 80 people. This was due to a more reasonable distribution of tasks, and also as a result of the increase in the amount of programming.
Most of the conditions remained the same: we provided tickets, T-shirts and one hot meal for the volunteers at the festival.
We professionalized our recruitment process and we succeeded in securing the support of many university student councils for the event by promoting the possibility of becoming a volunteer to their students.
Based on last year's experiences we introduced some changes in the structure of the volunteers so that the following problems could be avoided:
- The time of the volunteers was used effectively.
- Volunteer work was not be too demanding (in terms of tasks and hours).
- Only the volunteer coordinators could hand out tasks to the volunteers.
- Instead of the word 'Volunteer', the word 'Staff was written on their T-shirts.
A new task for the volunteers before the festival was the organization of advertisement tables. This was a result of a cooperative effort with our new partner, Gödör, who enabled us to put up an information table at their central location site. Altogether we organized over 10 occasions when volunteers and the core team provided information and sold T-shirts and tickets for the interested people at these tables.
