Operations Room

Basic Department Description

• Ops is the information center of the convention. We coordinate with all the different departments to make sure the convention runs smoothly and on time.
• You will need to have good negotiation skills, time management and a broad understanding convention organization.
• [email protected] & [email protected] (These are the forward facing “job” emails that get posted to the public and forward emails to your personal VF email. Your personal VF email is what you log in to and use to read and respond to emails.)

Yearly Responsibilities

• You will need to recruit staff for the ops room. There will need to be training sessions for ops (how to use CM and any other equipment) over the year to ensure that everyone is comfortable with their job at con and know the do’s and don’ts. They will also need to take any security training sessions run by the security lead. Lastly, you need to schedule everyone for their shifts (do your best to schedule them the time frames they want and politely ask for help from staff during times they said they couldn’t, just incase they are actually ok with working an extra hour or two when you need them.) If they want to work for the badge comp next year, they need to be scheduled for 12 work hours over the weekend and all of this needs to be logged into CM’s volunteer hours for it to count.
• You will need to buy candy and gaff tape. If there is a room cleaning contest there may be things to grab there as well like paper towel and floor cleaner.
• No special room setup at convention, there is really only one table in the ops room as well as the volunteers room. Setup is based on personal preference.

• To function at convention, you will need to source 5-6 staffers for operations room. You can go lower but run the risk of running yourself and staff ragged. If operations is open 24 hours per day, more staff will be needed than the minimum stated.
• For equipment, make sure the ops box makes it to the convention from the storage locker.
• Do remember that you will be working with almost every “At Con” department. This should factor into your choice of staff.
• Contact Social media to do a shout out for volunteers once every month or so.

Your Department on the Website/in the Conbook

• Other than the usual names in the conbook for the staff listing, Ops doesn’t need anything on the website other than a general contact on the contact page, like every other main staff lead. (People usually just sent it to the general staff email and it gets forwarded to the appropriate departments anyways though.)
• Make sure to have someone look over the information before sending it to the respective lead.
• Send it to the respective lead.
• Make sure to test the contact page (website) that the form sends an email to you.
• Make sure that your JOB email (Operations@) is listed on the contact page (website) outside of the form.

6 Months before con, what do you need to have done?

• Make sure you have been recruiting staff for Ops.
• Review all AUPs and codes of conduct with chair and vice chair. (This should be done as early as possible in the year so that we have an up to date AUP/CoC sooner rather than later.)

3 Months before con, what do you need to have done?

• Do you have enough volunteers? You should be looking like a full house by now.
• You should start building a schedule for your operations team. (Use the Master Schedule for the year! Programming lead sets this up every year and it houses our event schedule as well as the work/team schedules for at con departments.)
• Ask who is running the dead dog and what is their plan.

1 Month before con, what do you need to have done?

• Send in your BEO’s to Hotel Lead. (Banquet Event/Equipment Order. This is what the hotel needs to set up for your room if applicable. Tables, chairs, etc. You also need a layout of how the room is to be put together with those items.)
• Make sure to contact Logistics to get any equipment from the VF storage locker to the hotel for your use.
• Logistics should have their cut off soon to have ample time to get an itinerary together so make sure you contact them about your needs as soon as you see their forms go out.
• Make sure to contact IT to organize when your equipment and Tech needs can be setup in your department area.
• Have a slightly solid, but flexible schedule for Ops. (Some on call/backup staff might be good to have.)
• Have a meeting for ops to train on CM and protocol. (Can usually be done during the bag stuffing weekend as they will be doing reg tests and everything else.)
• Send in any needed information to the Conbook for print. (This usually is just the ops at con contact number/what hotel extension if any, that attendees can use to send in reports/get help. If the AUP/CoC was updated during the year it should already be updated on the website but be sure that the conbook has any changes that were made so its up to date in the book.)

After the Convention/Before the Firing Party

• Make sure all your volunteers (and yourself) got inputted into the system for their hours.
• Update your guide with any new/relevant information/changes.
• A staff feedback survey will be emailed out and sent into the staff chats. Please fill this out ASAP!
• Make any staffing suggestions to the next years’ chair. (If you want to work again, staff who excelled and where, etc.)
• If VancouFur owes you money for department spending, PLEASE PLEASE send your receipts to [email protected] & [email protected] and then fill out [[1]]

Break down of contacts

• You will be in contact with most of the at con leads. (Operations executive branch as well as the vendors and much of the events branch. They will come to you if they need to find someone, have a problem that needs to be radio-ed to the appropriate staff, etc. You are the nerve center of the event!)
• Your Executive (Operations executive) is there to help you! Bounce idea’s, your first direct contact when you need help, etc.
• Contact with storage locker, Trapa and the board may be needed for equipment and storage.

Department Inventory and Ordering Resources

• You may need to buy gaff tape at HollyNorth in Burnaby. Expect to buy 10 rolls at $20 a roll. You could also look into ordering online to save money. Other things like candy and supplies should be bought at Costco. See Tylor, Afion and others who may have a membership.
• All inventory should be stored in the locker and accounted for. Inventory should be done by Ops and Logistics every year.
• Check Amazon for things like gaff tape and painter’s tape. Candy may be cheaper as well.

Do's and Don'ts of the Department

• We had the room party meetings and that proved very successful.
• Ops room in board room C and having the volunteers room down the hall was convenient.
• The fursuit training worked but I would keep the security staff as the only enforcers.
• I wouldn’t recommend Tokar as a security staffer for numerous reason including but not limited to violating hotel policy and disobeying staff policies.
• Do not take last minute logistics requests.
• Get a Mini fridge.

Other Resources

• List any other websites the dept staff may need (for example, Social Media needs a list of all the places that vancoufur has access to or an account on to run social media and who to ask for password resets for if a new person takes over the job in the future.
• Resources for how you organized your time, any apps that were helpful to you, etc.
• Advice on how to work with certain companies if they prove to be difficult. (Some companies we order from, it is best to contact a rep directly instead of doing a straight up online order. )

PLEASE REMEMBER

• Always respond to emails/contacts, even if it is just to say “I recieved your email and will get back to you soon!” / “I don't know the answer but I am looking into it for you!”
• Be sure to contact the Chairs or Admin to make sure you have access to the materials you will need for the year like your Staff Email, Access to any folders/sites with materials, etc. (Be on the lookout for invites or emails to these things and check your junk mail too!)
• Make sure you TEST your new staff email (if any) and report problems immediately to the Chairs! (if you haven't gotten any emails in a while, do another test!)
• Make sure you keep all of your information up to date with the convention staff! Contact the volunteers lead to update your information if the volunteers spreadsheet is not available for direct editing!
• Do not WAIT for someone to contact you. If you have a moment to reach out, do so! Depending on who you are working with, the communication road may not be a 2 way street and you will have to do a lot of poking. Please be proactive!
• Do not edit any staff members’ documentation without permission!
• Keep all VancouFur related documents INSIDE the VancouFur Materials folders. Keeping things on your own gdocs and not inside the VancouFur specific folders makes it incredibly difficult to find needed information for all parties without hassling a lot of staff.
• If you need to make something private in the materials folder (Googledocs or wherever it moves to in the future) Make sure that the Chairs, Admin and Executives CAN STILL SEE IT. We need to know where you are and if your files are all hidden we cannot proactively offer help, guidance, or corrections. Otherwise, just keep things public/view only to prevent people from messing with your info.