WWW94 -- VolunteersWWW94 -- VolunteersIn fact, many more volunteers applied than we could accomodate. In the end, we chose 24 persons.
There was also a considerable change in the set of tasks: there was little need to assist chairpersons, but a lot of other stuff to do.
On Sunday 22, I realised that the task of stuffing the carrybags with the advance proceedings, the information leaflets, the T-shirts etc. was going to be too big to handle without help. So I contacted the five persons who had arrived in Geneva early, asking them to join us on Monday 23 (which was a holiday). Four showed up, and they were promptly put to work on the stuffing job.
This was a difficult task, because we had far more people coming than we had foreseen when we ordered the bags, T-shirts etc. Even though all sponsors had provided us with generously more copies than we had asked for, a lot of effort was spent on trying to be fair and providing those who had registered early with all the goodies, gradually leaving out things as we ran out of first carrybags (switching to envelopes), then T-shirts, then this and then that... All bags and envelopes were individually labelled.
At the volunteer task meeting, there was a brief introduction, and then work started. The path from the CERN entrances to the new registration desk had to be indicated with panels: the welcome reception and registration originally planned in the restaurant number one of CERN, had to be placed elsewhere because the restaurant was still in the process of renovation, a construction job that should have ended in April. The registration desk itself needed to be staffed: four people took the names of the arriving participants, two searched out their individually labeled carrybags (remember, we could not give the same thing to everyone!), and the secretariat people dealt with anyone for whom a special action was still needed (such as late payment...).
During the rest of the conference, the volunteers assisted with whatever task needed to be done, took care of guiding people, indicating changes, looked after the systems in the conference rooms and many other odd jobs. Every evening all the machines of the demo area had to be placed in a safe room and every morning they had to be brought out again, hooked up and booted.
I can only say all of the volunteers did a great job, and their names are listed below in their honour.
I am specially grateful to Timothy Rowe, who immediately perceived we were overloaded, and who grabbed the responsibility of organising the whole of the volunteer group, together with Heinrich Stamerjohanns. Without those two directing, we would probably have had many organisational problems.
Alessio F. Bragadini, abragad@di.unipi.it, Universita degli Studi di Pisa, Italy Shmuel Browns, shmuli@zeus.datasrv.co.il, Israel Gerald Burnand, burnand@cui.unige.ch, Universit de Genve Gaby Choucrallah, chougaby@inf.enst.fr, Ecole Nationale Sup. de Telecommunications Ian H. Cooper, ihc@ukc.ac.uk, University of Kent Andrea DellAmico, adellam@di.unipi.it, Universita di Pisa Jacques Du Pasquier, pasquier@cui.unige.ch, Universit de Genve Andy, Holyer, andyh@cogs.susx.ac.uk, University of Sussex, Brighton Matthew Jeoffroy, is_s475@kingston.ac.uk, Kingston University Gioacchino La Vecchia, gio@di.unipi.it, Universita degli Studi di Pisa, Italy Haakon W. Lie, howcome@hal.nta.no, Norwegian Telecom Research Ari Luotonen, luotonen@www.cern.ch, CERN Laurent Martin, martin@di.epfl.ch, Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, Thomas Quigley, tiquigle@compapp.dcu.ie, Timothy Rowe, rowe@MIT.EDU, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Francesco N. Saguato, biomedia@istge.ist.unige.it, Istitutto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, Alexander Sigel, sigel@phil15.uni-sb.de, University of Postdam, Heinrich Stamerjohanns, stamer@merlin.physik.uni-oldenburg.de, University of Oldenburg, Emmet Townsend, tiquigle@compapp.dcu.ie, Malte Von Rden.