Volunteer Basic Info

Some of this info is out of date due to new venue

A/V Room

The A/V Team will be based out of Catalina B. The room will be locked and you will usually have to knock to be let in. There is usually someone in the A/V room during volunteer hours. A couple of people will have keycards for the room.

Communications

Please note that cell reception can be pretty bad inside the hotel. Don't rely on being able to call people who are at the hotel. Depending on the state of the wifi, e-mail may be better for communications.

At the conference, we will be using two-way radios to communicate when we're outside the A/V room. There will usually be someone in the A/V room at all times, and we'll have a whiteboard to leave messages.

Registration

Registration for volunteers is handled by the team lead. You should just go through the normal check-in in the registration area to receive your badge. If the computer asks for an e-mail address, it would be the one you used to sign up on the volunteer form.

If you encounter problems, you should ask for Lan at the A/V operations center. Please come by the A/V room at your earliest convenience so we can meet and you can see what we're about. We'll also hand out a SCALE A/V t-shirt, depending on whether you had already signed up for one or if we have extras. Ask at the registration desk for directions.

Check-in for rooms

SCALE provides a small set of hotel rooms for volunteers who work most of the conference. This is a privilege offered to volunteers who have done good work for us before.

If you are staying at the Hilton, you can check-in at the front desk. You should've received room confirmation details with the dates of your stay. They will require a credit card on file to cover any extra charges. If you have a room at the Hilton, parking should be covered through the room. Be sure to let them know if you need a parking pass. You should also ask about whether the room includes free Internet access, and if so, what the code is.

Parking

You should park at the Hilton. Don't necessarily believe the "lot full" sign; go through the parking structure anyway.

The parking rate through SCALE is $10/day for attendees. I don't remember how that is handled. If you are a volunteer, you should get your ticket validated by Bala at the registration desk.

There are parking pay stations in the hotel near the parking elevators. You should take care of your ticket there before you return to the car. If I recall correctly, you insert your parking ticket with the validation ticket and you receive another ticket in return that will allow you to exit the parking garage.

If you are staying at the Hilton, parking is covered by the room, and you can use the parking pass they give you to leave the hotel parking.

Meals

Your meals are covered for the shift you work. Meal vouchers will be handled by Lan. Meal vouchers cover Friday (?) through Sunday. Dinner will be provided on Thursday(?). (This might have changed since we changed from a 3-day to a 4-day conference.

Shifts

According to the SCALE schedule, talks begin at 10am and end around 7pm. We try to meet up around 9am to go over some training and check over all the rooms.

You are expected to be available during the time periods you agreed to work. You may be needed to troubleshoot rooms or relieve someone to go off to lunch or take a break. Unless you are operating cameras, monitoring rooms, or manning Radio Central, you have some leeway to go off for a bit and come back. There will be a mechanism for you to leave messages so we know when you will be back.

If you fill out this form with your time constraints and the talks you want to see, Lan will have a better idea of how to schedule you.

Training

TBD. Tom will handle the audio training. This will include how to handle the microphones and radios. We'll be training each other, for the most part. We'll all be busy, so please ask if you have questions, but don't be offended if we can't answer right away. Just be patient and find someone to shadow.

Questions, concerns, complaints

You can aim most questions, concerns, complaints at Lan before, during, and after SCALE.