One of the most important things to any non-profit event or festival is the support of volunteers. We currently have the greatest groups of volunteers we could ask for, but as the festival approaches, the yearly push for more is on.

Dan Fox, Volunteer Coordinator for the festival is one of the most approachable people I've met in my life; a vital concern for any volunteer. He's accommodating, easy going, and will go out of his way to let you know how important each volunteer is.

Working the festival last year, one volunteer felt comfortable enough in his role to kick Dan out of a theatre… kinda.

After a couple nights of being loud and addressing large lineups of people and corralling, it was almost automatic for him to go outside and start doing his thing.

One night, he headed outside, and started giving an announcement. Half way through, one of the volunteer team leads came to him and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Giving them an announcement," Dan replies.

"No you're not! This is my show, I've got it covered. Go relax!" the volunteer exclaimed.

As a good Volunteer Coordinator, Dan obeyed orders and watched the volunteer parlay the required information and corral patrons like the best of them. In telling this story, Dan said, "It was so great to have volunteers who had made this festival their own, and felt ownership and duty behind the simple need to show up and follow orders.

"I tell volunteers quite often that they RUN this festival, they make it happen, so this is their festival. It's nice to see volunteers understand that and internalize it."

After working with the festival last year, Dan used some of his spare time to blindly wander around the Appalachian Trail, and, post-shaving, re-joined the festival again this year.

Dan will routinely tell his volunteers on a regular basis, "We couldn't do this without you!" And when he says it, you can see he truly means it from the bottom of his heart. Every volunteer is essential to the Film Festival's success.

In exchange for their precious hours, volunteers are also well taken care of by Victoria Film Festival. On top of the truly positive atmosphere, volunteers can also receive free film fest tickets, a t-shirt, great networking opportunities, references, experience, and most importantly, have a great time (unless you really love collecting t-shirts, then that may be the most important aspect).

Mr. Fox has two upcoming volunteer orientations for anyone that may be interested; Wednesday December 9th and Thursday December 17th at 6pm. Give him an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and he can help you out from there.

After the orientations, Dan also leads the interested to Fort St Cafe for a chance to meet one another and get some discounted drinks and food. Dan states that, "The socials are a great taste for the Big Volunteer Psyche Party that we have right before the Film Festival starts where we show a Film Festival favourite Feature Film."