Do you want to run a group this Beltane? This is your opportunity!
The deadline to apply is midnight on February 3rd.
The useful documents for GO applications are:
Production groups
Photo copyright Gordon Veich for Beltane Fire Society. All Rights Reserved. http://www.beltane.org / http://www.facebook.com/beltanefiresociety
We’re especially looking for applications for production groups, which we absolutely need for the festival to happen. These re Stewards, Tech, and Torchies.
Stewards will have professional assistance from a contractor we’re hiring as a front of house coordinator. This isn’t a replacement for Steward GOs, but a role constructed from the feedback of the last Stewards GOs as to what would have improved things for them.
We currently don’t have an upward limit on GOs for Stewards – the bigger the team, the easier it should hopefully become.
If you want to apply to GO Stewards, and aren’t sure how that assistance will work in practice, send us an email asking this (volunteers@beltane.org). Also email if you would want to run a production group, but see obstacles to this.
Performance groups
Photo copyright James Armandry for Beltane Fire Society. All Rights Reserved. http://www.beltane.org / http://www.facebook.com/beltanefiresociety
If there’s a group idea you’ve always wanted to do, now is the time. Go ahead and apply. We need you to have co-organisers, a plan, and a story that fits with the festival, but honestly, the worst you can hear is ‘no’. Our festivals benefit most from new people and new ideas.
We have a saying in the society that if you have done something twice, it’s traditional, and if you’ve done it three times, we’ve always done it. Beltane typically has processional groups attending the May Queen; a Fire Arch, a gateway to the underworld, which has a themed group attending and running it; classical elemental points; and groups that roam the hill ‘freely’ like the Reds.
This is a recipe, not a formula. Each festival differs. What groups there are, what we call them, and what they look like is up to you, the membership. As a GO, you have control over your own story and how it plays into the rest of the festival; you make the festival what it is, and contribute to shaping its story and its execution.
You’ll shape that with the Event Coordinator, Blues, and other GOs. GOs also have responsibility over the safety of their volunteers in rehearsals, away weekends, and the like. (Your rehearsals are covered by our insurance provided your volunteers have given details like emergency contacts, mind, but don’t hurt your performers.)
The above will hopefully lay out to you what’s necessary from an organiser, and some of how we make our decisions. We look forward to seeing your applications.
Beltane Fire Society 