Cheering for Volunteering
Each year, a family of over 350 quick-thinking, hard-working, people-pleasing, festival volunteers come together to help create the ashland independent film festival, right here in our idyllic Southern Oregon surroundings. It takes some elbow grease to make the fest a fun, informative and enlightening experience for the thousands of filmgoers who attend, and for the past eleven years AIFF volunteers roll up their sleeves to make it all magically happen.
And the magic happens in so many different ways…
- It’s the shared conversation that a transportation volunteer has on I-5 with a filmmaker just coming in on a red-eye.
- It’s the painstaking film submission check-in process that an office volunteer dedicates hours of time to when the films come rolling in.
- It’s the seven production crew volunteers working as one, to heave-ho the giant screen into place on the stage at the Armory.
- It’s the volunteer team who spread the AIFF love by trekking hither and yon, all over the valley to deliver membership brochures, posters and film guides throughout the year to hundreds of venue outlets.
- It’s the fast and furious audience award ballot-tallying volunteers, whose accuracy and efficiency help determine the festival winners.
- It’s the people on the street; directing, cajoling, informing and joshing with festival patrons, ensuring smooth-as-silk theatre traffic flow.
It’s the hundreds more, no, thousands more tasks that get doled out and cheerfully scooped up by the wondrous juggernaut of AIFF volunteers all year long.
It has been said over and over, so many times, and it even borders on being cliché, but the honest to goodness, doggone simple truth is…there is no way on earth this festival could transpire without VOLUNTEERS!
We are humbled, we are grateful and we have deep love for the tremendously loyal and incredibly generous team who make up the AIFF volunteers.
If you have been thinking about what it would be like to join our merry band, we encourage you to fill out a volunteer form and join us for the New Volunteer Orientation Meeting, Wednesday, January 9th from 6:30-8pm at the Historic Ashland Armory. Come and meet the Staff and Board and learn the many ways that you can get involved and be a part of the best film party in town!
