Like many folk festivals, May Heydays is run completely by volunteers.
To keep the festival alive and open to change, it is a good thing not to get stuck in a rut with the same people for too long; we are therefore looking for new volunteers to take on some of the tasks that make the festival run smoothly.
Currently, the core organizers are Mecki Testroet (programming), Monty Crook (admin), Brian Stanton (treasurer) and Colin Hume (Webmaster). Other volunteers are Malcolm Jowett who deals with TicketTailor, Mike Tozer (steward co-ordinator), Peter Dunkley (on-site steward coordinator), and a lot of stewards.
Some of these jobs take a few hours a year, others take a few hours a week during the majority of the year (we mainly have our summers off, though).
We all find our jobs rewarding as it is lovely to see a sea of happy faces during the festival and the majority of our feedback is positive.
Our PR person, Helen who helped us out for a couple of years is moving on to other things, so we need someone to fill this role.
Monty, the quiet but efficient admin 'Boy Friday', wishes to retire by the end of next year's festival. He has been carrying out a multitude of tasks, and we would suggest these are taken over by a few individuals (unless there is someone out there who loves organising as much as Monty does). We have therefore split his role into parts.
Please have a look at the job descriptions below and consider if you could take on one of these tasks for a few years.
This close to the festival, we don't have the time to provide you with all the detailed descriptions. This will be done in the weeks after the festival. Anyone interested can go up to Monty during the festival and have a chat with him.
No one currently involved in running the festival has the will or the capacity to take on Monty's roles: therefore if none of you come forward to take on his tasks, there will be no more May Heydays after 2026. A working group of volunteers is needed by 31 January 2026; if this is not forthcoming no preparations for 2027 will be made and the festival will be wound down. The only way to avoid this happening is by coming forward and stepping up to the bar. We look forward to hearing from you.
Mecki, Monty, Brian and Colin
Click a heading to read about a job you might be interested in, and click the “Print” button to print the details.
Please note: This page is not yet complete.
Programme Director 
Networking with other festival organisers, bands, callers and 'fringe' artists, sourcing performers, agreeing sessions, planning and adjusting the whole programme; liaison with Finance, Ticketing and Steward coordinator.
March: Arrange headline artist line-up for following year (needed for the T-shirt which needs to be ordered in mid-April), discuss fees (ask past director for guidance) and requirements (we offer a bed with a 'friend of the festival' — Brian or Meg — indoor or outdoor camping, we do not pay for performers' accommodation), record negotiation results in spreadsheet (needed for contracts later). Have a budget to hand (previous budgets available from director/treasurer) and stick to it as much as possible.
April: Help with final preparations for festival, finalise programme, arrange for A3 prints of programmes (in colour) and workshop descriptions, 5 each to put on display outside the four major halls and the festival office. At the Festival: Be available for trouble- shooting/queries, make announcements, mingle.
May: Deal with post-festival correspondence (often including feedback), analyse the attendance figures for the events to see what worked and what didn't.
June to September: Network at festivals, fill the rest of the slots with recommended performers (make sure to keep a tally and don't overbook), aim for a balanced programme:
- English (must include Playford and Modern): 10 workshops.
- American: usually at least one caller from the US: 10 workshops
- Mixed English/American: 10 workshops (be clear to callers that a mix is required) — try to have one of each of these categories at all times of the festival.
- Evening dances: 3 American dances, 2 Playford Balls, 1 mixed dance is the core requirement, if more than 300 attendees, an extra dance can be added on Saturday and Sunday; these should be Mixed (this to be done in April when numbers are clearer). Friday evening tends to be relatively quiet as people are still arriving.
- Scottish: 2 workshops and one dance in a workshop slot (or ask the teacher if they prefer 3 workshops).
- International: one major Balkan teacher (ideally native to the country whose dances they teach, Bob Robinson is a good adviser) (6 classes) additionally other genres like Argentine Tango, Indian etc. (see previous programmes) 4 classes, 3 evening dances (one Western European/Balkan mix, two mainly Balkan).
- French/Scandi: two to four workshops, one or two (Euro-)Bals, usually in the Large Hall in the evening break on Saturday and Sunday.
- Singing: 2 to 4 workshops (watch take-up).
- Music workshops: 2 to 4 (find out which of the musicians you have on site does music teaching workshops).
- Callers' workshop(s) and Showcase.
- Have at least one new event every year.
September/October: Fill the programme grid. Currently the director fills in the online grid (tuition by Colin or past director available). As there tend to be a lot of changes, this is the most time-efficient way of dealing with the programme (rather than having to explain to Colin where a change is needed — quicker to fill it in yourself). First programme draft needs to be complete by end of October, tickets go on sale on 1 November, dancers really appreciate having a programme to look at when they book.
January: Send out contracts, give performers a deadline, say end of January, always include a link to the programme grid and tell performers to look at it. There are often queries (wrong room, wrong band, wrong time etc.) — you want corrections now, not three days before the festival!
February: send a mass reminder to those who haven't returned their contract.
March: second reminder
Forward returned contracts to ticketing and treasurer as they come in.
Treasurer
Handling the treasurer and reserves accounts, keeping an eye on expenditure and income, agreeing a budget with Programme Director, paying performers, sound crew, school fees, and reporting on financial position after each festival.
The Treasurer's role is to reconcile incoming payments to the tickets sold, to pay bills in relation to the administration of the festival, to ensure prompt payment of amounts due to the performers and to provide the Director with an annual report detailing income and expenditure to facilitate planning of future events.
Tickets 
Involvement in all aspects of ticketing — setting prices, agreeing and updating application forms, designing tickets (this task could be outsourced if we got tickets printed rather than making them ourselves), announcements to long-term supporters and each year's ticket purchasers, processing concessionary tickets including roll-overs, performers' groups and 'specials' agreed by Programme Director, ongoing liaison with Ticketing Agency Coordinator, reporting on sales, preparing ticket lists and tickets/lanyards for on-site distribution and paperwork for on-site ticket sales, collating requirements such as indoor/outdoor camping, T-shirts.
Full description not yet available.
Ticket Agency Coordinator
Setting up ticket sales via the selected agency (currently TicketTailor), advice on production of reports etc.
Full description not yet available.
School Liaison
Keeping school aware of our needs (such as performance rooms, indoor/outdoor camping), checking for changes the school may have made (security, access, agreeing support such as 6th form parking assistance), overnight school security.
Full description not yet available.
General Admin
Updating previous festival's paperwork such as on-site signs and posters, maps, contents of the Festival Office and Venue Folders.
Full description not yet available.
Steward Coordinator
Receiving steward applications, welcoming stewards, devising rota in liaison with Director.
- Receive booking forms and send standard welcoming letter. Forward forms to ticketing person.
- Keep an eye on numbers: once there are enough (and a few to spare) to run the festival, tell Colin to close bookings on Stewards page.
- Starting in April: allocate stewards to events. This is based on stewards' declared preferences. If unclear, or too many people want to steward for the same events, communicate with stewards and find out where else they wouldn't mind working.
- Create a draft rota, liaise with Director, tweak rota. There are often late programme changes, so an eye has to be kept on the live programme online.
- Send draft out to stewards and ask for their feedback. If swaps are suggested, try to accommodate them (it is important to have happy stewards).
- Finalise rota in the week before the festival and send out to all stewards and Director.
On-site Steward Coordinator
Supervise stewards, handle steward queries/issues during the festival.
This role is to be the troubleshooter and coordinator for stewards during the festival.
Deal with queries, guide, call Director only when absolutely necessary.
Venue Stewards
For those who like to be at the dance / singing / music events etc.
See the
Stewards page for more information.
Office Stewards
A small, dedicated group who would like to work 'behind the scenes' but who would have a more in-depth knowledge of the ticketing / information etc.
See the
Stewards page for more information.
Refreshments Stewards
Staffing of tea / coffee stations during the breaks.
See the
Stewards page for more information.
Publicity Manager
Advertising the festival via flyer and T-shirt design, use of social media, arrange for adverts in selected folkdance publications both hard-copy and on line, info to Evesham Tourist Information, sorting the best festival photos to put onto the website, sourcing and updating information to go on website (Tourist Office data on local transport, hotels, B&Bs, cafes, restaurants, etc).
Full description not yet available.
Webmaster
Maintain website.
The Webmaster needs a good knowledge of HTML, as the site doesn't use a Content Management System. Instead it uses Colin Hume's
WebEdit program, which has many advantages. Pages are quick to load because they're static rather than generated on the fly by a CMS. You can update pages on your own machine, check that they look the way you want them, and then upload them to the server to be available to the world. There is special code in WebEdit to simplify updating the programme grid, used by both Webmaster and Programme Director. There is also special code to generate the Performers page from an RTF (rich text format) file containing all performers past and present, so updating this can be as easy as switching on some entries and switching off others. These two functions are linked together, so when you update the programme grid and then run Performers.rtf the Performers page automatically shows what events each performer is appearing at. You will probably also be searching Facebook and other websites for photos and descriptions to go on the Performers page, and the photos may need to be cropped, resized and possibly edited.
First Aiders
Provide First Aid on-site.
Full description not yet available.
