Picking up from yesterday –
So, we were told to put out cards during the speech. I threw one on one of the back tables, but felt wildly weird about it.
My attitude was, “I’m not here to run the event and figure out when I think things should happen. Sure, I’m trying to help when I see needs, but if the producers/people in charge are saying pass out these cards during a speech… well, it’s not my job to argue, but to just do it.”
Thank goodness for the other volunteers who stood up and said, “we’re not doing this during the speech. We’ll pass them out at the very beginning of the auction.” Really, they were right. And perhaps I was being a little too meek not standing up for this person’s moment.
While we’re on the subject of the speech – one of the incredibly cool things about this concert is that Quincy Jones himself was supposed to be the presenter of the speech. Quincy Jones! Whenever I tell people why I went to Berklee (if I’m giving the shortest version), I simply say, “because Quincy Jones went there.”
He’s Quincy Jones! And let me tell ya, I was gonna do everything in my power to be the volunteer who took care of Quincy Jones and led him to the stage.
Quincy.
Jones.
But alas, he was not there and had to send in a video message instead.
The auction went off fine. The auctioneer was great. We rallied the volunteers and got him everything he needed.
Another volunteer and I wrote down all the numbers of people who won things. This was obviously quite an easy job – until we just started taking donations because Mark (the auctioneer) would talk about a level of donation and ask how many people wanted to donate at that level. Then we’d have to write down all the numbers in the room at once.
(They had two people doing it so they could compare lists and make sure nothing was left off.)
However, Mark was awesome and read each of the numbers for us. We wrote fast, and everything was good and accounted for.
After the event, I went down to the hotel bar with the auction guys and another volunteer, and we had a grand ol’ time!
I had planned on just going for my first shift, getting home, and doing boring housework and such. I realize sometimes you do need days to clean and organize, but in the end, I’m glad I decided to stay twice as long. I met fun people and enjoyed the event.
It was certainly interesting, to say the least. But we made it all happen. So, yay!