Logistics

Basic Department Description

What do you do for the convention/What is your purpose?

• Your job is to make sure all the needed supplies and equipment get from storage/warehouses/pick up locations to the convention.

What skills are handy for those in this position?

• Communication skills as you will be emailing and phoning plenty of people.
• Organizational skills as you will need to make a form and keep data organized to make sure you have all the right places for pickup and drop off, on a schedule, etc.
• Knowledge of google drive/documents or the willingness to learn and use it.

What is your staff email?

• [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.)

• Familiarize yourself with the staff contact sheet and check who your executive is! (If you do not have one at this time, other executives will likely be splitting the responsibilities. Contact them or the chair to see who you should contact if you need help and who you should check in with once a month.)

Yearly Responsibilities

What do you need to do during the year for your department to function BEFORE CON and AT CON?

• Create a form for staff to subject to to request equipment pickup and drop offs.

• Make sure the form requires multiple ways to get in contact with said staff
• Make sure it has places to put times and locations for pickup and drop off.

• Look around for deals on booking trucks and possible volunteers to drive said trucks or to supply their own to help with logistics.

• Make sure you are actively looking for and communicating with the volunteer coordinator to find volunteers to help you load in and load out!

• You can contact social media to put notices out for you to get volunteers! Remind people that they get more time towards a free reg helping with load in and load out. They get 1.5 hours per 1 hour worked!

• Confirm with all of the staff where and when their pickups and drop offs will be so they know its happening and planned. Having some way to contact them at con for when you drop their stuff off will be helpful.
• You will also be picking stuff up from the convention and packing it back to the storage facilities. So many sure you confirm with staff and hotel to know when rooms are closing and what time it is expected to get your team to each room to clear it out and pack it up.

Are there things you need to order during the year?

• Trucks to transport items in

Do you need a function space map created for your department?

• No but you can ask for the function space map so you know where you are dropping things off at and picking them up from!

• How many volunteers do you need to function well AT CON? (make sure everyone has proper breaks in their at con schedule!)

• I would make sure you have at least a 2nd to help you manage the communications with other staff
• Aim to have 10 or more people on your team to pair up with truck drivers and to pack up stuff from storage, to unpacking at cone, and vice versa at the end of the con! The more people you can get to help, the easier it’ll be!

What staff will you be working with AT CON?

• You will be working with almost all At Con departmetns

• Dealers Den / Con Store (their sellable items)
• Art Show (Their art show peg boards and supplies.)
• Registration (Their registration supply boxes, etc)
• IT (Computers for all at con needs and all the odds and ends that go with it)
• Operations (Any operations boxes and equipment)
• Theater Equipment (speakers, mics, trusses, etc. Some of these things may come from Scooby BUT he may need transport. Ask him! He may have his own transport.)
• Security possibly
• Programming (Projectors, etc.)
• etc!

• Make a note of which updates/prompts should be sent to Social Media. (Remember, they can send out notices for more volunteers, due date reminders, opening dates, etc!)

• Social media needs to know how many volunteers you need
• Remind social media to talk about how many volunteer hour credits a loadin/load out volunteer gets

Your Department on the Website/in the Conbook

• Do you need a website/conbook page/blurb for your department/event? What information do you need on this page/blurb? Do you need to provide a layout design?

• You do not. Your staff get your names on the staff page though!

• Make sure to test the contact page (website) that the form sends an email to you.
• Make sure that your email is listed on the contact page (website) outside of the form.

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

• Add in items your department should have completed by this time and items to finish ASAP.

• Start reminding people to be thinking about what they will need to get picked up. You wont need to worry about much until closer to the con but make sure you are looking for trucks and deals.
• Put together a budget to propose to the chairs for the department needs!

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

• Do you have enough volunteers?
• Make sure you have sent out a form to gather the logisitcs information from all departments at this point and inseesently remind people to do it. Remind them you will not be taking late orders! Their shit just wont show up at con if they dont communicate with you and that would suck.
• Make sure you are asking where items need to be picked up from and are organizing a route for you and your team.
• Order trucks ASAP! The longer you wait the harder it will be to find available trucks!
• Schedule your team and make plans for where and when everything takes places and make sure to schedule in breaks if its going to be a long trip. They will need food and drink and a rest a few times during the logsitic heavy days.(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.)
• Communicate with the Hotel lead to make sure you know what rooms are going to be available when so you can figure out your order of unloading and where things may have to be stored until the next day.
• Communicate your plans with your team and do any last minute volunteer searching now!

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

• Make sure you know where you are able to unload your equipment
• Finalize your schedule as best you can.
• Communicate with your team and make sure they know whats happening
• Make sure you have communicated with all the departments who are getting stuff from you and confirming when you plan to have things and where.

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 reciepts to [email protected] & [email protected] and then fill out [[1]]

Break down of contacts

Who on staff do you need to be in contact with regularly for your department to function?

• Hotel
• The departments that need you to bring stuff for them
• Volunteer coordinator & Social media

Who is your executive contact?

• [email protected]

Do you have contacts outside of VF staff that you should be in contact with?

• The places you order trucks from
• Or any other equipment you may need

Department Inventory and Ordering Resources

• U-Haul Moving & Storage at 84th Ave (Map)

• 13554 - 84th Ave, Surrey, BC V3W7P9
• (604) 591-2313

Do's and Do Not's of the Department

• DO drive safely
• DO secure the internals of the truck
• DO take care of sensitive and fragile equipment
• DO respect the items you are entrusted with delivering
• DO NOT schedule tight deadlines
• DO NOT speed or rush, people can wait

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.
• Make sure you know who your Executive is! They are there to help you and oversee the branch of departments you are in. Contact [email protected] / [email protected] to check or check the contact page on the website! You can also use the contact sheet for the year