please empty your brain below
Years ago I used to volunteer and have guided people around the following. Picture House, Stratford, Granada Woolwich, Dominion Tottenham Court Road, Odeon Muswell Hill among others.

John | 19.09.20 - 8:15 a.m. | #

Thanks, DG. I'm on a rail replacement bus to my Open House site right now. It feels a lot different from previous years. We've had to tweak things quite a bit but I hope people still enjoy what's on offer.

Ann Gavaghan | 19.09.20 - 8:35 a.m. | #

A very interesting account, and good to know about this event! I'm curious, though, to know when "queuing" was renamed as "waiting in line".

Cau1khead | 19.09.20 - 8:57 a.m. | #

I had my another day in the office yesterday and, given the way the numbers are heading, felt very much more nervous about it than before. Open House seems too much of a risk for me this year. Stay safe everyone.

Andrew | 19.09.20 - 8:59 a.m. | #

I've been a volunteer at two venues on Open House Weekend for several years now -- and not once have I ever received anything from them.

Tomorrow was going to be spent in a grand hall, but that got cancelled for obvious reasons.

I do it because I enjoy showing the buildings and their history to people, but it would be nice to get the queue-jump badge for the day of the weekend I am not volunteering, or least a thank you email.

ianVisits | 19.09.20 - 9:03 a.m. | #

Ian - are the badges colour-coded or limited to a day? I don't remember that being the case when I did it a few years back.

martin | 19.09.20 - 9:11 a.m. | #

Open House is a brilliant event and I have enjoyed discovering fascinating buildings every year since it started. BUT, the admin and comms is somewhat below par, with cockups every year. Did anyone who had paid long in advance for this years programme receive the promised password for early access to the listings website?

David | 19.09.20 - 9:30 a.m. | #

Don't let this experience put you off volunteering more generally, whether as a guide or in another way. It can be a very rewarding thing to do, and there may come a time when you want or need to scale back your jaunts. The way things are run and the overall feel of the organisation can vary immensely of course, so some judicious shopping around would be advisable!

Andrew S | 19.09.20 - 10:15 a.m. | #

DG seems to have had a disappointing experience, but I wonder whether it was compounded by the involvment of 'Eventbrite'?

dg writes: No.

I am in one of the major transport enthusiast Societies, who normally host (free) physical meetings for members, but recently said that due to the crisis they would be running 'virtual' meetings which you were welcome to join, but this required prior registration with Eventbrite.
I duly registered with Eventbrite for a particularly significant and interesting meeting and received a ten digit "ticket number" which presumably was intended to give slick entry to the 'meeting' at its date and time.
Attempting to do so 40 minutes prior to the meeting 'hit a brick wall' due to Eventbrite's repeated insistence on a Password ( the ten digit ticket number was not mentioned anywhere ! ) After 90 minutes of frustration, with the 'meeting' presumably now well under way, I gave up.
Hopefully the Society concerned will print a summary of the 'meeting' in the next issue of their printed magazine.

pierre | 19.09.20 - 10:33 a.m. | #

I had a similar experience with over-supply of volunteers at one of London's largest summer events last year. When it became obvious I'd not be at the main event but at a different location, I joined up with someone else, we changed back out of our volunteer t-shirts and used our wristbands to join the event as participants. A lot of fun in the end, but still disappointing. Needless to say, the event was cancelled this year, so we didn't have the opportunity to try a different strategy to ensure we were part of the fun as volunteers.

EskimoPie | 19.09.20 - 1:15 p.m. | #

I've volunteered at LOH for the last 5 years, having been a normal punter for another 10 years prior.

The volunteering experience is different every year - sometimes too many at a site, sometimes not enough. Some really strange volunteers, some really lazy volunteers, plenty of really good ones.

I tend to go for smaller sites, and one which I suspect won't be overly busy.

Today I turned up at my site to be told that they hadn't requested any volunteers! They still found some use for us for a few hours.

It's a hugely worthwhile charity - and a really challenging event to organise (so big, but just one weekend).

ADS | Homepage | 19.09.20 - 6:54 p.m. | #

It's not as if Open House weekend is in its infancy but there's probably something in the fact that it's a once-a-year mad 48hrs of culture/nosiness/casing the joint.
Still, I'd have thought that someone would have grabbed it by the collar and stemmed these recurring schoolboy errors whenever they'd popped up in the past three decades.
But it's marvellous that they're recurring oversupplies of volunteers. Good old humanity/us/Britain. Hearteningly cockles~warming.

JP | 19.09.20 - 7:51 p.m. | #

David - I got my password giving early access to the website - it was emailed to me and I took advantage of it to book a couple of visits.

I went on a tour of City Island yesterday, and both the guides (local residents) and the volunteers were there usual cheery and informative selves. So some things worked.

Baldassaro | 20.09.20 - 7:31 a.m. | #











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