Annmaria Fagan, Bord Bia
One of the most things which all Bloom visitors remark on is the friendliness and helpfulness of the volunteers. Annmaria Fagan manages, recruits and oversees the 200 plus ambassadors each year who volunteer at the bloom festival. This is the 7th year Bloom is using Volunteer Ambassadors.
Annmaria comes to the task with experience of her own as a volunteer from other events/organisations. She says she’s always recruiting would-be volunteers – “I’ve recruited people from various clubs I am involved with along with horticultural colleges, event management and various horticultural organisations and fellow friends/family and neighbours of previous bloom ambassadors” – to make sure there’s a broad mix of ages and backgrounds participating in the volunteer programme.
“It’s all like-minded people, from school-leavers or horticultural students who want a bit of work experience for the CV to the older generation who keep coming back year after year.”
Annmaria is delighted to see the familiar faces returning to Bloom to work each year. “You get about 50% of the volunteers coming back year after year because they enjoy it so much. One lady, Peggy, keeps coming back year after year. We’d be all wrecked after a long day and Peggy is the one going ‘where’s the party? How I’d love to have her energy when I get to her age’”
Some of the long-term volunteers are now team leaders or involved in the Co-ordination Team which help Annmaria on site with the Ambassador programme with sometimes a couple helping out during the lead in days before the show. “They’re usually people who’d done it for a few years and had gone above and beyond their stations and stood out. Again, it’s all ages.”
Those who volunteer will find themselves working at various stations around the site. “We have a preview on the Monday before the show”, explains Annmaria, “and we invite all the volunteers. As volunteers are all not based in Dublin and come from all over Ireland or maybe working and can’t turn up on the preview day, we therefore have a quick brief on the morning prior to the show opening after registration with a quick tour of the site before all hands are on deck and the visitors start to flood in and then the fun begins.
“The preview day is always interesting because the site isn’t complete so they get to see what it’s like and what’s involved and get a feel for the site.”
Managing the Bloom ambassadors, is just one of the jobs which this Bord Bia stalwart does around Bloom. Annmaria also oversees and co-ordinates the exhibitor awards on-site in the nursery and food village area, looks after ticketing/ticket analysis, promotional codes/competitions, assists the bloom project manager with all aspects of bloom, managing and keeping an eye on various financial elements of the bloom accounts, etc along with work on other horticultural projects which are on-going at this time.
A keen photographer herself, she started an initiative a couple of years ago to bring photography clubs to Bloom. “It’s our third year doing it and we always invite some of the clubs to come along and photograph various aspects of the show. We’d photographers from five photography clubs around Dublin.”
Does Annmaria ever get a chance to use her own camera at Bloom? “I try to take a few on the set-up days and if things calm down in the evenings. Mostly landscape and flowers, would take photographs in the marquees where the exhibitor awards take place as well and a few generic shots at bloom mainly on the last day when things are less hectic.”
