Volunteers

The heart of a non-commercial convention is the volunteers who contribute all the minute-by-minute labor. Volunteers process paperwork, hand out badges, move boxes and equipment, set up rooms, post signs, check badges, hang art, serve food and bheer, run errands, and generally make the convention happen. Recruiting people to do all these jobs often involves offering inducements of various kinds, but some people do it just because it's fun. Those are the twisted individuals you want on your concom.

Commercial conventions are run on a more business-like basis, and so are more likely to have a paid or compensated staff, though volunteers may be used in some places there as well.

Volunteer Benefits

Benefits for Gophers vary from convention to convention. Options include:

• Prizes for things like most hours volunteered
• T-shirts
• Free memberships or membership reimbursement once a minimum number of hours (at least 6 -number varies) have been served
• Gopher Bucks that can be spent in the dealers room or for hotel concessions
• A pizza party, usually Saturday night at the con.
• A Gopher Hole where volunteers can sleep for free
• Access to the Green Room or a Staff Lounge

Reimbursements are sometimes made contingent on the convention's having made money. If the convention's in the black at the end of the weekend, the first thing it will do under that arrangement is reimburse the Gophers.

Benefits of this kind usually do not apply to Concom or Staff - only to volunteers who are recruited at the convention.