Lahti Regional Session is over. This time I was not a delegate or a chair. I was on the organising team, and my job was food. Officially Food Organiser.
The Forga
In the team we made a joke out of it together with the head organisers. You take the first letter of your department and put it in front of "orga". So I was the Forga. It sounds stupid when I write it down, but it was literally the running joke of the whole session.
What feeding 100 people looks like
The session had around 60 delegates and around 100 people in total with officials and the team. Feeding that many people is more work than it sounds. Checking the allergy list again and again, going to pick up the food, making sure it arrives on time, making sure the person with the allergy gets the right plate and not someone else's.
Delegates don't really see this part. For them food just appears. That's how it should be, but it means a lot of running behind the scenes.
Doing everyone's job
Food was not the only thing I did. I carried stuff, cleaned, showed delegates where to go, helped committees when they needed something. If I saw something that needed doing, I did it. At some point I was doing a little bit of everyone's job.
Looking back, that was my biggest mistake. One person can't do everything. When you jump into every task, you get tired faster and other people don't get the chance to do their part. By the last day I was so tired I felt almost sick. I still finished it, but my body was clearly done.
When things went wrong
Some things went wrong too. At some points we fell behind the schedule. In a session, being late in one place pushes everything after it, food included. We didn't panic. We talked it through properly as a team and fixed it.
What I take from it
In the end the session finished well. I worked really hard and I'm proud of myself for it. Being an organiser showed me EYP from the other side. As a delegate I never really thought about who carries the boxes or who checks the allergy list. Now I know.
Next time I want to work just as hard, but let other people carry their part too.