Welcome! Volunteers 2014 For some years now we have been incorporating volunteers into making this event what it is today. This year is no different and we will again begin the selection process to support this years event. Many of you are probably returning and know quite well how this all works. For those who are new to this world we would like you to read through ALL the information carefully and follow the instructions so you can complete your application in a way that we have the most relevant information about you. ***DO NOT FORGET TO UPLOAD YOUR PROFILE PHOTO ON YOUR MYHERRANG ACCOUNT. APPLICATIONS WITHOUT PHOTOS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED COMPLETE AND WILL NOT BE LOOKED AT. What are you Applying for: Our program is an exchange. We exchange your volunteer work for either a full class week, a party week pass, and now have added same week party pass for 2 weekend volunteering. Exchange Value: There are three types of exchanges available this year: 1. Types of Exchange 1.1 Class exchange (including parties) - We have only have a limited number of slots per week available for class exchange volunteers. Exchange: One week of classes for one week of volunteering If you are chosen to volunteer, this option will allow you to have a bed in our Volunteer General Accommodation during your volunteer week. You will also be allowed to purchase meals at the Volunteer Kitchen (breakfast and dinner) during your week of volunteering. During your class week you will be allowed to have a bed in General Accommodation IF you successfully register for your class, AND if you successfully reserve a general accommodation bed for that class registration week. If all General Accommodation beds have been reserved, you will have to make alternative sleeping arrangements. If it is class exchange that you are interested in, please choose that option on your volunteer application. 1.2 Party Pass Exchange - We have a limited number of slots available Exchange: Evening dancing during volunteer week + one additional week Party pass If you are chosen to volunteer, this option will allow you to have a bed in our Volunteer General Accommodation during your volunteer week. You will also be allowed to purchase meals at the volunteer kitchen during your week of volunteering.
Although we do not have a "fixed" or regular schedule, the majority of your working time will be during the morning, daytime and early evening, so you have time to dance during the night. (Note: your sleep is self managed, you are responsible to meet your work time schedules) During your exchanged Party Pass week, before or after your volunteer week, you will need to organize your own food and accommodation arrangements - either camping or private accommodation. All volunteer weeks are allowed to arrive the Friday night before their week begins and participate in the Friday night party as well as eat at Volunteer Kitchen that night only IF you sign up for it/call us/email us at least 2 days before your Friday night arrival, and you take care of your meal card before going to the kitchen. 1.3 Weekend Party Exchange - Only available for weeks (beginning and ending of) 1, 3 and 5 for a limited number of slots Exchange: volunteer Friday, Saturday and Sunday at start and end of the week and get the Sunday night to Thursday night parties free. If you are chosen to volunteer, this option DOES NOT provide accommodation or food during your volunteer weekends. You will only be required to work as needed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday on two weekends on both sides of your party week. Sunday night through to Friday morning is your own time with free entry into the evening parties. (Note: your sleep is self managed, you are responsible to meet your work time schedules) Volunteer days are: Week 1: Fri 27th June, Sat 28th June, Sun 29th June + Fri 4th July, Sat 5th July, Sun 6th July. Week 3: Fri 11th July, Sat 12th July, Sun 13th July + Fri 18th July, Sat 19th July, Sun 20th July. Week 5: Fri 25th July, Sat 26th July, Sun 27th July + Fri 1st Aug, Sat 2nd Aug, Sun 3rd Aug
2. Time-frame: Your volunteer week officially begins on Saturday morning at 09:00 and ends the following Saturday at 21:00. Please organize your travel plans to meet these time frames. If you will have difficulty with those time frames we would ask that you opt not to do volunteering and either purchase a party pass or only purchase a class week instead. 2.1 Cross Over: There is a crossover of new volunteers with the ones from the previous week. The reason being is that day 1 is primarily a learning curve day. We ask the volunteers from the previous week help in training and showing our new recruits what they will be doing over the next week. We ask that volunteers be diligent in their arrival and completion of their obligation. Saturdays are our most hectic day of the week because it is our "changeover" day. The previous weeks campers are on their way out, and the new campers are arriving. We have many needs that must be handled in the morning before the new weekly registration begins. We heavily rely on our volunteers in getting ourselves prepared for this onslaught. Please be on time and be ready to work from the very start of Saturday morning. It is typically a disaster area at our Folkets Hus because of the previous evenings party, which will most likely still be going on. The first task at hand will be to make this disaster disappear! Take initiative and start the cleaning movement. It is at the first Saturday morning meeting that you will find out where you will be placed, who your crew chiefs are, where your bed will be, where to buy your meal tickets, and the general explanation of facilities and key contacts. **Please make sure you bring your own bedding. This consists of a contour or bottom sheet, a top sheet, and a pillow case. We will provide comforters and pillows. You need to bring these even if you have a sleeping bag. ** If you exchanged for a class week and you get a General Accommodation bed during your class week there is still a facilities and services fee of 200 SEK/wk everyone must pay at registration that is not covered by your volunteer work. Your volunteer week is your payment for your classes or your party week. A normal one week of classes is 4300 SEK and party pass is 1300 SEK (approx 498/ 150). We do not do monetary exchange or meal exchange. You may do your volunteering before or after your classes or party week but not concurrently with your classes. If you are exchanging for party pass or weekend pass, you are given time in your evenings to dance during your volunteer week. If you are looking for part time work we recommend writing directly to the Bar/Cafe: BCherrang@gmail.com. We do not run the Bar/Cafe or their restaurant, they are a separate contract. As such, there is no exchange for class or party passes, accommodation or food agreement with HDC when working for that group. **Please remember: This application is NOT a registration for your classes. It is merely an application to enter the selection pool to be a volunteer. There are no guarantees that you will be selected as we have far fewer slots available for volunteers compared to those available for classes.
3. Payment and Deposits: Anyone who submits a volunteer application will find all their volunteer and class deposits automatically set to HOLD. Volunteer hold status overrides ALL other payment requests and you are not obliged to pay that deposit until you either receive a notification email from volunteers admin that indicates you have either been accepted as a volunteer or not accepted. You will then be instructed to go pay either your volunteer deposit or your class deposit. You must pay this deposit within 4 days of this notification or your slot will be released. 3.1 Reason for the Deposit: Typically in the past we have allowed campers to simply register for classes and apply to be a volunteer with the expectation and trust that they will indeed arrive to Herräng and occupy that reserved slot. Unfortunately this has not been the reality of the matter and these no-shows have left many unoccupied slots where another camper or volunteer could have filled. For this reason we have been obliged to develop a pre-payment system and require a deposit for all camper registrations and volunteer applicants. The required deposit for campers only doing classes is 1900 SEK per week of registered classes. For volunteers we discount the regular deposit and ask you to submit a 1000 SEK per week of volunteering that would coincide with one week of class registration. For example: if you apply and are tentatively confirmed for one week of volunteering and have registered for 1 week of classes, you will only be required to deposit 1000 SEK. If you apply for 1 week of volunteering but register for 2 weeks of classes you would pay a 2900 SEK deposit (1000 volunteering deposit + 1900 class deposit). Deposits must be paid within four days of being notified of pending confirmation status of your volunteer application. If it is not paid within this time frame we will release your reserved slot to make room for other volunteer applicants. If you are having difficulties organizing this deposit payment, please write to us at volunteers@herrang.com so we can see to a solution. 3.2 Deposit Return: After you have completed your volunteer week your volunteer coordinator will instruct you as to when and how you can receive your deposit back. They will remind you before, during and at the end of your week that you MUST pick up your deposit at camp. If you do not pick up your deposit before you leave you must find a way to pick it up before the end of camp. We will not do bank wires and transfers for these deposit returns. 4. Class Registration: Applying to be a volunteer is not a class registration or a "party registration", nor does it give you priority for class registration. It is not necessary that you do your registration for classes first, but we leave this responsibility in your hands and expect that you will have read all the pertinent information and have registered accordingly. You do not need to wait to be accepted as a volunteer in order to go register for your classes. By submitting your volunteer application your deposit status will be set to hold so you do not have to worry about paying a deposit without knowing if you will be accepted as a volunteer. Registration for classes can fill up very quickly so we recommend that you be as early as possible so you can get the classes you need to compliment your volunteer week(s) so they do not conflict. If you are having difficulty getting your classes please let us know so we can find a solution to your deposit submission requirement. We will not consider a class registration or volunteer application finalized until all deposits have been paid.
5. Volunteer Weeks: This year camp will be 5 weeks. In the case of volunteer weeks this means we will work 2 additional weeks: 1 week before camp begins and one week after camp finishes. Dates will be as follows: Week 0 (Setup): June 21st June 28th You will want to arrive to Stockholm (not Herräng) by Thursday or Friday to go up to Herräng on Saturday morning. We will try to organize a sleeping arrangement in Norrtalje for these nights if we can manage. Details will come as the setup date approaches. Week 1: June 28th - July 5th Week 2: July 5th - July 12th Week 3: July 12th - July 19th Week 4: July 19th - July 26th Week 5: July 26th - Aug 2nd Week 6* (Crashdown): Aug 2nd - Aug 9th *For Crashdown you will want to schedule your departure to leave on Saturday or Sunday at the end of that week. If we are quick we will finish early and you can make holidays in Stockholm but we cannot be certain how long it will take to take the camp down but your commitment is only until Saturday. ** Volunteers for Crash-down week. We are compensating 1 week of classes + 1 week of party pass for volunteering for crash-down week. This must be pre-arranged by applying, not last minute at the camp itself. If it is arranged at the camp that you work crashdown then you will only be compensated a class week. That week is: wk 6 on the application - Sat Aug 2nd - Sat Aug 9th. When these positions are filled we will close applications for that week. 6. Duration: If you choose to be a volunteer you must organize yourself to be able to begin the first Saturday at 09:00 of your week until the following Saturday at 21:00 (When the first meeting of the new week begins). If there is a conflict in meeting this time frame please communicate this with us so we can see to a solution to compensate any time missed, but please know we will prioritize those who can commit to the scheduled week. Be sure to be at the 09:00 meeting in front of Folkets Hus on Saturday morning for crew assignments and training. 7. Early Arrival: This year we will again allow the opportunity to arrive on Friday night before your first day of volunteering. You will be able to enter the Friday night party for free the night before your volunteer week begins. We will remind you to get your sleep because you will be expected to be at the "very early" 09:00 meeting Saturday morning for introductions and training for the week to come. This arrangement is only for the Friday before you begin your volunteer week. If you choose to arrive earlier than Friday you will be responsible for your accommodation and food arrangements as well as be required to pay for entry into the evening parties. 8. Free Time Yes you may participate in the daily and evening party/activities during your free time, but we ask that you make your volunteer obligations your first priority. Please prioritize and be punctual in meeting your crew leaders (at the times they have organized with you) and in completing the tasks that need to be done. Please check in at whatever times your crew chiefs have requested because there are always missions and emergencies we must deal with on a daily basis.
9. Food: Not included. If you are volunteering you are entitled to buy your food from our Volunteer Kitchen only during your volunteer week. This is an economical alternative to the other kitchens at the camp. Prices are not yet confirmed but an estimation is around 600 SEK/Wk. We will confirm prices at a later date once the details have been worked out. If you choose to eat at the volunteers kitchen, the meal plan can be purchased on Friday or Saturday before your week begins. Please note we will sell the meal plan only for the one week, there is no daily or per meal purchase option. If you choose not to buy your meal from the Volunteer Kitchen you are still welcome to sit with us. Updates and useful information is usually announced during Volunteer dinner times. 9.1 Early Arrivals: If you plan to arrive on a Friday before 17:00, the day before your first day of volunteering, you can meet with the Volunteer Coordinator to buy your meal plan early and join the volunteers at the Volunteer Kitchen that afternoon. You need to contact us a day or two beforehand to let us know of your plans so our kitchen will know how many to cook for. If you arrive later than that, and if you have not contacted us beforehand, you will have to buy your food from the Bar or Cafe or cook your food in the Russian Kitchen. 10. Sleeping: You are entitled to sleep in General Accommodation during your volunteer week and your class week. If you are exchanging for a party week you will need to make your own arrangements such as camping or private accommodation during your party week. If you choose to "hang out" in Herräng before or after your class or volunteer week you will also have to find alternative sleeping arrangements. Be sure to find the General Accommodation Manager to get your bed and bed tag so you don't lose it to another person. 10.1 Early Arrivals: If you are going to arrive on Friday before your first day of volunteering, we will need to know beforehand so we can figure out how many will occupy our early arrival volunteer accommodation area. We will have a tent with beds or mattresses for transitioning volunteers to sleep in for the night and then you will change over to a new bed in the indicated General Accommodation areas the following day. We will send out an inquiry before camp begins to get a head count. 11. Alternative Work: HDC contracts out the bar/cafe as well as restaurant kitchen. As such, we do not organize the work or any exchange arrangements for their departments. You will have to communicate directly with them at BCherrang@gmail.com. 12. When Do We Open?: By now you should have already created your Herräng ID. If not you should go here to Create an Account. We open Registration January 15th, 2014 and we will close volunteers application sometime around mid June 2014. 13. Jobs: We are basically camp support, cleaning, and camp maintenance. We handle all areas and all needs of the camp throughout the week and its duration. We need you for one week of your life to help us maintain and keep this event going in exchange for letting you have a week of classes or a party pass week. We are interested in those of you who wish to make that week the greatest week in the history of Herräng. It is up to you how you will make this happen. If you are the type that brings with you energy and a can do attitude that Herräng is most accustomed to then this is the place for you.
If you merely want to get through the week and do as little as possible so you can get your free classes, then you might want to reconsider why you are applying to be a volunteer because we do notice these things. We would like nothing better than to place people in all areas that are possibly more interesting to them, but obviously we haven't enough slots to accommodate every possible combination of applicable skill that you all might possess. We will do our best to fill our needs based on your indicated skills and our volunteer coordinators will determine where we need bodies. We will do our best to improvise and call upon you at will at any moment during your volunteer week. We will take back a good number of our known talent who know the ropes and can teach the newbies how and what we are looking for. We will try and create a balance between veteran Herräng volunteers and those of you who are new to the arena. Once the week fills up we will close applications for that week then we will put you on a waiting list if you do not wish to change volunteer weeks. 14. Evaluation: Every year we ask our department heads and crew chiefs to evaluate each and every one of our volunteers in the area that they worked. It is our wish to make Herräng the very best place to be during this time of year and we can only do so if we have the very best people collaborating with us. From this evaluation we are quickly able to make our wish list for priority volunteers for the next year or another week during the same year. During your time in Herräng your energy and inspiration adds very much to the creative energy from which we've been built upon. We encourage you all to engage yourself in getting to know how you can contribute to this energy and be one of our superheros for the weeks and years to come. Our rating system is as follows: - Self explanatory. We want you back and will seek you out. - You are welcome back and we would place you as a priority - Your team leaders found you helpful and could use you again - You completed your week but we would prefer new energy. - Self explanatory. We will not accept you in the future. 15. Skills: In this application we ask some basic contact information questions along with some questions related to your skills. There is a small text field in which we ask that you tell us about what you can do. Please use this space wisely. Use BRIEF one or two word descriptions about your skills. Example: childcare, carpentry, network professional, light technician, etc. Be concise and direct as possible. We want to know what you are best at and how you can help contribute to Herräng. Also keep in mind, just because you have a special skill or talent does not guarantee that we can make use of it. But we like to know what talent we have out there so we can utilize it should the occasion present itself. Here is a list of some things we look for: Cleaning skills: This is a very important and useful skill in all areas and departments in Herräng.
Construction skills: can you build, rig, layout, problem solve projects? Do you have experience? What kind of experience? How long? Drawing, painting, and craft skills: We have many decorations needed for our parties, and evening events so we appreciate people with these talents. Sound Engineers: are you a sound Engineer? Do you have experience in sound engineering. Please detail your skills. (this does not mean "I DJ'd a few parties") Lighting: Professional people with experience in stage lighting. Technique: We like to know if there are people with skills in running the technique related to sound, light, and camera. We may ask you to help us up on our bridge Driving: licensed, safe, experienced drivers for our limousine service. Please indicate this option only if you have a clean, safe driving record and can honestly state you have many hours of experience driving for hours on the highways in all kinds of conditions. Can you drive manual/stick? Can you drive a truck and trailer? Do you have a passenger vehicle license? Food Service: Can you cook (as in chef or line cook), bake, food service skills, people/customer service skills. Mechanical: Very adept in utilizing tools, and problem solving mechanical type problems QUICKLY! Rigging, mounting, securing, etc Welding: Have you professional experience using welding equipment? Electrical professional: We many times need those who can trouble-shoot electrical problems, sound equipment issues, can do wiring. Stage-managing: we need people with experience in stage-managing, Intercom, curtain, lighting, improvising Computer skills: those who can troubleshoot and maintain networks, database and data collection, programming type skills. Logistics: We are in need of those who are very well skilled in logistics, statistics, scheduling Graphic design: Are you a Graphic designer? Are you experienced in layout, creation, and print/web media? Retail: Have you worked in retail? Have customer service experience? Fashion, clothing, shoes, memorabilia Sewing/textile design: Can you sew, work with textiles? Medical: are you a doctor, nurse, physiologist, physical therapist? Other?: Perhaps there are things you know or can do that is not in this list. These are just some of the things you should keep in mind when you tell us what you can do for Herräng. Please keep in mind **YOU MAY NOT REQUEST TO VOLUNTEER THE SAME WEEK AS YOU WISH TO TAKE CLASSES** We request that you volunteer before or after classes, but not both concurrently.
16. The Application: We receive many many applications and unfortunately we cannot conceivably take more applicants than we have positions for. We are offering very few class exchange slots each week and the remaining slots are party or weekend party exchange slots. Once those slots for class week exchange run out, we can only offer slots for party pass or weekend exchange. We will fill the class exchange slots first and then seek out those who can fill our party pass exchange slots. If you really want to be in Herräng you need to let us know that you are flexible by choosing "Any" as your preference in the application. This will let us know that you will do whatever exchange we can fit you into with class exchange being the preferred choice. Please keep that in mind when filling in your application. We have had some complaints that it is not "fair" that we do not offer accommodation to those who are doing party pass exchange. Our reality is that we are offering what we are "able" to offer. We are not like other camps where there are hotels and unlimited accommodation options. We essentially take over a small village and try to fit as many people as we can in this village for 5 weeks. We do not have more beds in Herräng to utilize, yet we want to offer something to applicants if they really want to be in Herräng. If you really want to be in Herräng you will find a way to be there. If you are not comfortable with finding your own accommodation during the weeks you are not in classes or are not volunteering then you should choose "Class Exchange" as your preference and hope that we can find a volunteer slot for you. 16.1 A request from the Herräng Volunteers Admin: When you fill out your application we ask that you omit/exclude information about your step step triple step, dance history, skill, level, and/or fame associated with your Dance World. We are specifically interested in your work ethic, your work skills, and mastery in relation to those skills. 16.2 What we need from you: - picture: We do not consider your application complete without your photo being uploaded to your myherräng profile. Please login to your myherrang and upload your photo to your account profile. This makes our life easier to get your passports ready when the time comes. Make sure you've included your picture on your account profile. We want a nice close up picture of your face. It should be 80x100 pixels (21.2mm x 26.5mm) and not more than 100kb file size. - reference - this reference is not you or your contact information. We are asking for a name, and contact information of someone who you might have worked with in another job that can vouch for your character and work ethic. - week choices: This is important. We need a clear idea about your plans and how you foresee your camp experience unfolding. The following points on the application we would like to clarify. Work Weeks: This is the total maximum number of weeks you personally would like to work in Herräng. Remember the system checks to see if your wish weeks coincide with the number of work weeks you selected so make sure they calculate correctly. Available Weeks: We would like to know which weeks you are available. It may be that you can only manage to go to Herräng IF you can be a volunteer. But many times the classes are full or the volunteer week is full and you need to change one or the other. So if you are going to be in Herräng a total of 4 weeks and you want us to know you are flexible to work any of those 4 weeks, please indicate this in this area provided. Wish Weeks: We would like to know what your best case scenario is. Meaning what is your preferred choice of week(s) to volunteer if the availability is open?
- your patience: We receive hundreds of applications and emails so this does take time to get to and read each one. Once you have submitted your application and received the auto reply email of successful submission of a pending confirmation, you can expect to wait up to 2 or 3 weeks once we get started on the process. - to apply: make sure you are logged in first then go here: Application Link: http://www.herrang.com/myherrang/volunteers Fill out the application as completely and don t forget the magic key (this is case sensitive) : GubbenVteers2014 17 Processing Applications: We review the applications as they come in and decide if and how we might be able to use you based on how many slots we have available. If and when we are able, we let you know you have been chosen to join us for all or part of your wish weeks we will send you an email requesting you to submit your deposit to reserve your volunteer slot. When you receive this email, it will be up to you to act and pay your required deposit within 4 days of this notification to confirm that reservation. At that moment your payment hold is removed and the normal payment period count down begins. If we feel we cannot use you this year we will suggest that you go pay your normal class deposit within 4 days if you wish to still keep that class. If we think we can use you but all the slots for your requested week fill up, we will place you in one of your available weeks slots. If all your available weeks are full then we will place you on a waiting list. Should a slot open up we will transfer those on the waiting list to the open slot based on our needs. Please do not forget: you will have 4 days from the time you receive a volunteer deposit notification email to pay the deposit of 1000 SEK per approved volunteer week. Please also make sure that if you have additional class weeks that are not covered by volunteering you will need to pay those deposits as well. If we do not receive your deposit within this time the system will automatically release your slot to make room for new applicants. If you are having difficulty completing this requirement please contact us BEFORE your deposit payment time expires so we can see to a solution. Lastly & Most importantly!! If you have not been to Herräng before, we encourage each and everyone of you to come prepared to bring to the table your talents, strengths, incredible positive energy. We are a melting pot of talents from all over the world. There is no better place in the world for creative collaboration. Your mission while in Herräng is To do and to create, not to come to Herräng as consumers. Good Luck, See you soon! Eddie & Fiona Herräng Operations & Coordination volunteers@herrang.com