Hello from the Eastercon 2027 Unconfined team.  If you were at this year’s Eastercon, Iridescence, as many of us were, I hope you had a great time – we certainly did!  Maybe you’ll have seen us at our fan table and said ‘hello’?

But now … the king is dead – long live the king! Unconfined would like to thank you for volunteering, or thinking about volunteering for next year’s Eastercon. We have some exciting roles that could do with filling fairly soon, if you’d like to consider them.

Pre-con Volunteer Roles

Volunteering is a great way to gain or build on your experience and knowledge. And there will be freebies for volunteers! The time commitments given are rough, flexible and may change as we get nearer to the con. Here’s a few roles we’re looking for right now.

If any sound like they’re up your street, please do email us at volunteers@easterconglasgow.org and we can tell you more.

YA / Kids’ Programme Ideas Team:

Are you an actual young person (age 13+) with an interest in or experience with YA Programme? If you have an hour or so a week, we would love to have you on our Ideas team!

Logistics lead:

Are you a crack problem solver? We need someone for our logistics lead to coordinate shipping needs and solve problems. (No logistics background needed, just a willingness to learn.) You don’t need to be Glasgow-based, but we would love it if you were available for a monthly committee Zoom meetings and post-con.
###Insurance wrangler:
Do you know event insurance? Are you organised, love research, and a great communicator? We’re looking for an insurance wrangler to identify the con’s insurance needs and help find solutions.

Discord Moderator/Administrator:

Hey discord kids, this one’s for you! If you have a spare hour a week (more at-con) we’re looking for Discord mods and admins to help manage the server and keep an eye on things. Previous experience desirable.
###Leaflet promoters:
Are you a bookstore regular? A game café denizen? A library ghost? How about dropping off flyers at your local fandom hotspots, to let people know about us. Help us create an un-bee-lievable buzz!
###Con presence coordinator:
Let’s be honest: you spend a lot of time at cons, right? Would you be interested in coordinating con presence? This role involves organising tables and volunteers at other conventions, booking tables, organising flyers and fan-bait, and keeping us organised in our quest to take over the world.

##Eastercon 2027 Online Book Club needs you!
We had our first Book Club livestream on April 14^th, reading The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by our Guest of Honour, P Djèlí Clark. These book clubs will be going every month right up to the convention.

We’ll be streaming chats about recent and classic works from our Guests of Honour and others. Next is Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh. Want to get involved? Hop into the #online-bookclub channel on Discord, or give us a shout!
##Tell us why you volunteer
We have started a wee ‘Why We Volunteer’ social media campaign to try and encourage more people to volunteer with us at Unconfined. Please might you contribute something to this?

You may have seen a couple social media posts recently from Kate and Marc, who each wrote a short piece about how they got into volunteering and what they enjoyed about it. We are looking for similar things to share from people outside of the committee to try create a bit of a buzz around volunteering and encouraging others to do it.

We’re looking for max. 200 words, with your photo, about how you got into volunteering and what you enjoy about your role. We’re wanting responses by 6th May, but also this is an ongoing monthly thing so the more the merrier – do keep sending them in. Could you please send any submissions to promotions@easterconglasgow.org.

Your replies, possibly edited, will appear on our social media and maybe the general newsletter.

Next volunteers’ newsletter

These come out roughly monthly, so you’ll find another dropping into your mailbox around late May/early June.

And finally … Reading Recommendations

Kate has been reading - a lot! Starting off this month were Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine, a thrilling tale from T Kingfisher about a monstrous invention, a war nobody really wanted and the forger, assassin, paladin, and … teenage scholar(?) sent to end it. I won’t say too much about the plot, but let’s just say it shows off Kingfisher’s particular genius. If you’d like something a little less gruesome, may I suggest Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett? A sweet and cosy tale about an illicit magic shop, a slow-burning romance, the start of emergence from grief, and an entire city’s worth of stray cats given a magical glow-up on the way to their forever homes.

If you’ve got any questions, suggestions, want to volunteer for the above or other roles, or if there’s anything else you’d like us to know, please email us at volunteers@easterconglasgow.org.

Best wishes from

Lesley Scott, Unconfined volunteers coordinator