Volunteers

PyCon UK is a community conference, run by unpaid volunteers. We need your help! Volunteer here.

To volunteer to help for a particular activity, add your WikiName to the list, (or simply your name and a phone number or obfuscated email) and send an email to the other people in that list.

General Helpers

If you would like to volunteer to help please take a look at the section below and add yourself as a volunteer to the area where you think you can best contribute. If you do not know which area suits you best just add your name to the table below against the times when you are available. We will contact you to let you where you can help (once you have added your name and saved the changes you can click on your name a create a home page with your contact details, then we will know how to get in touch).

Session Chairs

Session Rota

Please edit the table below to add your name to the sessions that you are willing to chair. If you are unfamiliar with Wiki syntax and would prefer not to edit this page directly, please drop me (RichardTaylor) an email and I will add you to the table.

NR - None required (either because there is nothing on in the room or because it is a workshop that does not require a session chair).

Session Chair Duties

What do we do?

The primary duty of the session chair is to make sure that the speakers start, and more importantly, stop on time. It is not fair to other speakers or to delegates if the conference has fallen behind the timetable.

If you'd like to help, but don't want to over-commit, feel free to volunteer to chair for just one or two talks. Every little *really* helps!

So the way that this works is that the session chair controls the room for one session at a time. This includes the following tasks.

Before the Session

• Synchronise your watch!
• Making sure that there are glasses and water for the speaker and session chair (the venue staff should have done this).

Before Each Talk

• Help the speaker with plugging into the projector and/or nodding sympathetically if it doesn't work!
• Putting the mic on the presenter, even if they don't want amplification in a small room, all the talks will be recorded.
• Make sure the mic is on.

During Each Talk

• Make sure the speaker starts and finishes on time. We will have yellow/red cards to help with this.

  • Sessions must finish five minutes before the start of the next slot, to allow time for swapping streams.

• Helping the speaker take questions and answers (many will be fine doing this alone, but you need to ensure that questioners are rotated fairly).

Most talks are within a half an hour or one hour slot, and the last five to ten minutes of the talk should be reserved for audience participation.

We have a tight schedule, therefore we suggest that the next speaker is setting up with the projector (if needed) during question time.

Talk audio recording