Folk Festival Volunteer

Another item on my bucket list, in so far as I subscribe to that idea, has been to volunteer at a folk festival. I've been going to folk festivals since 1983 - The Winnipeg Folk Festival memorable not only because it was my first, and wonderful, but because Stan Rogers died that June and he was to have performed there. I remember the collective mourning for this Canadian folk music icon, dead at 33. A tremendous loss. I think of Stan sometimes, when I think of people who have gone too soon.

Anyways - volunteers are the heart and soul of folk festivals, and I've always secretly admired their hustle and bustle, the look they have of belonging, and most of all their contribution to an event I have attended an average of at least once a year since then. Volunteer t-shirts are a badge for that. And the myth about volunteering has always been - at least for the Edmonton Folk Festival! - that there is a wait-list to even become a volunteer.

So this year I took the plunge and volunteered for Folk On The Rocks, FOTR being chronically short of volunteers. It was my third FOTR festival - some of you may recall that I wrote enthusiastically about it last year: Folk on the Rocks 2012. Volunteering does make it somewhat of a different experience - less mellow, more connected. On the other hand, when there's a fair bit of indie-rock going, my ears and mind prefer to be removed a bit and doing something.

I signed up for the Environment Team - washing reusable plates, sorting recylables, emptying garbage bins. The Environment Team is organized by Ecology North, a plucky organization which takes seriously its mandate to improve the human footprint on earth. People who work there work hard, and I was happy to lend a hand in this way.

My shifts were from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, and from 8 p.m. to midnight on Sunday. I tried to change the Sunday late shift, since I tend to turn into a pumpkin by 10 p.m., but alas... Not only did I work those shifts but I was co-captain for them, in other words responsible.

The Saturday shift was fun - washing dishes and keeping up with the other duties simply a steady but not onerous stream of work. We rented out Melmac plates ($2) and forks ($1), returning people's fees when the dirty plates were returned (unless they took our broad hints and donated the rental fee to the worthwhile cause that is Ecology North):

And here I am in that coveted t-shirt (you can't see my bare and very dirty feet):

For good measure, in case you missed it (:))a close-up of the "Team Captain" designation:

The Sunday shift, on the other hand...  My patience with and esteem for my fellow human beings did not increase while I was picking up a fair mountain of garbage around midnight, even though the sunset was spectacular. It must be that people are inattentive at the best of times, and the beer consumption at folk festivals, while not necessarily extreme, is no boon to the modicum of intelligence required to NOT throw the wrong thing into the wrong container.

Well, that's not just Yellowknife or FOTR - I'm sure it's the same everywhere. On the late Sunday shift were three young women, high school age I estimate, who showed responsibility in various ways during the early part of it. But once they teamed up driving the ATV around the grounds to pick up garbage, they were unstoppable. It's my best folk festival memory this year - three fledgling women roaring about the grounds on an ATV, pulling a trailer, loading up huge bags and taking great pleasure in checking everything just one more time. They were making their final round when I got to my car at 12:37. Great kids.

All in all, I enjoyed it. Will I do it next year? We'll see.