What is it like volunteering for TEDxQueenstown?

Well it can be challenging and occasionally frustrating, it involves quite a few Saturday morning meetings and you will become well acquainted with your email inbox and google calendar. Volunteering for any organisation or event means that you are dedicating your time and resources without expecting anything in return. This all comes with the territory of being a volunteer. However as anyone who has ever dedicated themselves to something important knows, the effort you have put into volunteering will come back to you tenfold.

Every moment of frustration is weighed against far bigger moments of inspiration, excitement and accomplishment. After all, TED brings together some of the most talented minds in the world and makes their ideas accessible to everyone, TEDx serves to bring incredible people directly across the table.

Those Saturday morning meetings? Once you get past getting up early you’ll find that you are working alongside some of the most talented and dedicated individuals in your community, and you are now on a first name basis. Volunteer for the 2016 event, Olympia Von Berg, summarizes volunteering for TEDxQueenstown perfectly: “I love that it is all on a voluntary basis and that people are willing to give their time away for free: no one is in it for the wrong reasons. The people I’ve met through TEDx are inspiring, motivating, inquisitive and different.”

TEDxQueenstown has opened up a world of possibility. Aoife McMahon, a volunteer for the 2016 event, explains “I am interested in being part of something in my community that has the potential to have a positive impact locally and globally.”

So if you are keen to get involved and work hard, if you love interesting and inspiring ideas, and if you like muffins and tea at Saturday morning meetings; volunteering for TEDxQueenstown might just be for you.

Come and check out what we’ve been working on at our event April 17! We can’t wait to meet you!