Countdown...

I've been working for the last few months to help coordinate the partnership with Festival Republic after I was given the fab opportunity by Rebekka and Caroline who seemed to think my endless experiences of running around in a muddy field with 3 day old make- up and a radio manically glued to my ear might be worth something...I certainly hope so! I've worked for lots of festivals before, from helping out with my parent's mega hippy 'One World' festival since being a wee tot to helping run the U.K.'s student festival 'Beach Break Live' since it started in 2005 (a challenging year this year if you read any of the press...moving a festival for 10, 000 excitable students all the way from Cornwall to Kent in a week. Google it! Festival history!)
I joined the team working to take over 200 students to Latitude and Leeds festivals about 4 months ago and have been doing all sorts ever since. I particularly loved meeting all the students (yes you!) at our recruitment interviews where it really was an eye- opener to hear all the amazing things that students at LeedsMet get up to at University and in their various projects. Definitely not just sitting around and getting pissed...no-one should underestimate the potential of students to make a huge success of a whole range of interesting projects that make a real contribution to their own development and to communities and organisations aswell (if we're going to get into that one!). Unfortuantely, in my experience lots of people still have a rather negative view. Projects such as this one with Festival Republic are an example of students working really hard for a large organisation and making a genuine positive difference to the event. We'll have a few drinks too but who says you can't work hard and have fun?! Shifts with hangovers, yes please. I've worked on various projects to involve young volunteers in relevant and genuine opportunities with established organisations and this is DEFO one of the best I've seen. I've learnt so much about how to make a success of partnerships and volunteer involvement that I'll be taking on to future jobs and have already passed on to other people I work with.
Anyway, enough of the gushing...the last few weeks I've been prepping for Latitude and organised a big knees up for our volunteers and people associated with the partnership last week. You can read about that below but it was nice to see everyone together and to throw around a few quiz prizes to the brainiacs amongst us!
We leave for Latitude tomorrow and I'll be helping manage the volunteers with the lovely Patsy, particularly concentrating on the The Lake Stage that's overseen by Radio 1's Huw Stephens. Mega excited about that one...
Well I'm off out to buy balloons, batteries and a pink feather duster. Good times. Look out for updates from the site after tomorrow!

Isla Brown
PG Dip International Events Management