Tall Ships Victoria BC
Volunteers needed for Tall Ship Festival
As many as 20 historic sailing vessels will dot the horizon as they approach Vancouver Island from around the world next month, on their way to the Victoria Tall Ships Festival, June 23 to 26.
Festival organizers are looking for 250 volunteers to help host crew and ships when they arrive, and to support the volunteer functions.
Marc Lavoie, co-chair of the volunteer committee and training coordinator for the event, is asking DND employees to consider signing up to assist with traffic flow, crowd control and safety patrols. Other volunteers are needed to sell food and drink vouchers to the general public and visiting VIPs, or to cook for volunteers.
The festival needs volunteers who can commit to a minimum of eight hours over the course of the four-day event. Safety team volunteers are asked to commit up to 20 hours of their time. In return, volunteers will receive a festival t-shirt and ball cap, free snacks, and a four-day, full-access pass to the festival worth $25. They also get to take part in an insiders-only volunteer shindig at Ogden Point on the Monday following the final day of the event.
"At the moment we have about 450 volunteers in our database, and we’re short in a number of areas," says Lavoie.
Between 150 and 200 people are needed to be part of the festival safety team.
"Part of downtown will be cordoned off to traffic, so the streets will have barricades and traffic flow will need to be managed," explains Lavoie. "So part of the safety team is responsible for manning those barricades, directing traffic, and directing the public to where they can participate in activities. The barrier guards will be the festival’s first greeters so we are looking for friendly people with mature personalities."
Besides barrier guards, the safety team will consist of "pirate patrollers", teams of two who will patrol the perimeters of the festival, and answer visitor questions; "jetty sentries", who will ensure the safety of the crowds on the jetties and provide crowd control in the Inner Harbour area and along Dallas Road during nightly mock gun ship battles; and "Admiral’s Club sentries", who will control access to VIP areas.
Also needed are people with basic cash handling experience to help sell food and drink vouchers, t-shirts and other merchandise to benefit the Tall Ships Festival Society and the Maritime Museum of B.C.
Finally, 20 skilled cooks with their Level I or II Food Safe certification are needed to prepare barbeque lunches and dinners for other volunteers. "We are looking for people with the food prep skills, who are used to putting meals together for large numbers of people, for whom this would be a piece of cake," Lavoie says.
Cooks can expect to feed about 500 volunteers a day with hotdogs, hamburgers and other grill staples, between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., or 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.
During the four days of the festival, Wharf and Government streets running from Yates Street to the Inner Harbour will be closed off from traffic, except for those businesses that work out of the Inner Harbour, and the sights and sounds of arts, entertainment, food, and nautical spectacles will take over.
The festival will be an opportunity for Maritime Forces Pacific to show off its oldest sailing vessel, HMCS Oriole, which will be on display for the public at the Inner Harbour. As well, HMCS Saskatoon will act as the saluting vessel during the Parade of Sails at the festival’s opening ceremonies, when the full battery of tall ships first sails into the Inner Harbour June 23.
Lavoie says the number of people expected to attend the festival could reach well over 200,000.
"A tall ships festival has never been done here before, so it’s an opportunity that’s unique in Victoria," he says. "We’re also the first leg of the Tall Ships Challenge race this year, so we have the opportunity to make a first impression."
The Tall Ships Challenge is an annual event put on by the American Sail Training Association (ASTA), the organization of tall ships enthusiasts and racers that asked the City of Victoria and the Maritime Museum of B.C. to host the upcoming festival. The Tall Ships Challenge is a series of races held between predetermined ports on the Great Lakes, the Eastern seaboard and the Pacific coast each year in a three-year rotation.
The ships participating in this year’s Challenge are coming to meet in Victoria from as far away as Russia, New Zealand and Mexico. The largest ship is the Russian vessel Pallada, which is about 360 feet long and boasts masts more than 100 feet high.
If ASTA and the Challenge competitors who visit Victoria are impressed, they could name Victoria a preferred port city for future Challenges held on the west coast, making the city a shoo-in to host future Tall Ships Festivals.
"We’re really trying to make it a family atmosphere; loud, upbeat and jovial," says Lavoie, who is rooting for this festival to be the first of many.
To make the festival a success, an army of committed volunteers must be ready to go when the hoards of visitors and guests get here, he says.
Anyone interested in volunteering must sign up online by May 27 through the festival’s website at www.tallshipsvictoria.ca, and click on the link for volunteers. DND personnel interested in the safety positions should select "Event Safety-Safety & Security" as a first choice when prompted, likewise cooks and food prep personnel should select "Operations-Volunteer Support", and cashiers and sellers can select one of the positions under "Business Development". DND employees must then go to the Tall Ships Festival office in Bastion Square to have their military ID photocopied. Members of the public can also volunteer, but must bring in two pieces of ID and submit to a criminal record check.
