Volunteers for the Beijing International Horticultural Expo Are Ready to Start

The reporter learned from the Beijing International Horticultural Bureau(BIHEB) that the 2019 Beijing International Horticultural Expo(BIHE) will open in 30 days. Nearly 2,000 volunteers for the opening ceremony and trial run of the BIHE have been recruited successfully and systematic training is being carried out. They come from China Agricultural University, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Communication University of Chin, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing University of Agriculture and other universities. They are among the top candidates. Not only have most of them had volunteering experience in large-scale activities, but also have fluent English communication skills. Many volunteers are also proficient in language communication skills such as French, German, Spanish, news and publicity, communication knowledge and horticultural knowledge. In these days before the opening of the BIHE Park, they will work together with staff to carry out trial operation, find out what gaps remain in the operation process, experience from the perspective of visitors, and put forward suggestions to improve and perfect the services.

Volunteers for BIHE will be recruited in batches and trained on a rolling basis

The BIHE will be officially opened on April 29. During the 162-day grand event, 20,000 volunteers will participate in the Park operation and tourist services. Nearly 600 volunteers will be on duty at the same time every day. Each volunteer will serve for no less than 7 days continuously. At that time, the volunteers of the BIHE will interpret the vivid connotation of volunteerism to the world through their smiles and services in every corner of the Park. Due to the long duration of the BIHE and the large number of volunteers, volunteers will be recruited two months in advance and trained one month in advance in an orderly manner. At the end of this month, both the training of volunteers who will serve from April and May and the recruitment of volunteers who will serve in June will be launched. In order to provide voluntary emergency support services in special periods, such as trial operation, opening and closing ceremonies, major events and extremely large passenger flow, the BIHE has also recruited and reserved 2000 general volunteers in Yanqing District, and reserved 90 students majoring in foreign languages, 30 in media and 30 in communication as volunteers in relevant colleges and universities, who will be on duty at any time to ensure emergency needs.

Since January 20 this year, the BIHE has released the information on the social recruitment of volunteers for the first time. It has received a positive response from the vast number of young volunteers, and has received more than 3 million clicks. More than 100,000 people have registered through offline, telephone and on-site consultation. So far, more than 15,000 people have successfully completed online registration. In Beijing, 47 universities, 16 districts and 60 enterprises have set up leading groups under the general command of responsible leaders to organize and carry out the recruitment of volunteers in their own units, carefully plan the work programme of voluntary services in their own sessions, and will adhere to the best standards and do a solid job in voluntary services for the BIHE.

Each volunteer will receive at least 30 hours of systematic training, including general training, professional training and on-the-job training. General training includes knowledge of volunteer role recognition and mission, volunteers’ rights and obligations, voluntary service standards for large-scale activities, etiquette standards, emergency responses and self-emotion regulation, etc. Professional training includes exhibition status and special exhibition projects, large-scale activities and viewpoint introduction, transportation network inside and outside the Park, smart BIHE, tourist service information and so on, to help volunteers familiarize themselves with and master the knowledge of the operation of the BIHE and improve the quality of voluntary services; the BIHE, in order to enable volunteers to quickly grasp the skills of post services, also innovatively shoots the content of post services into live-action demonstration videos to ensure seamless connection and operation under the circumstances of large-scale weekly rotation of volunteers. All the training contents are decomposed into different knowledge points and made into micro-classes, which is convenient for volunteers to use their spare time for online self-learning.

Volunteer recruitment and promotion campaign: running towards the BIHE

The BIHE will polish the golden card of volunteers even brighter

The BIHE is a big classroom for young volunteers to learn Xi Jinping’s ecological civilization thought and a big stage for them to adhere to the concept of building a green home and beautiful China. Volunteers are an important force in running the BIHE. Through voluntary service projects, the BIHE will enable volunteers to achieve their all-round development while serving, so that the spirit of the BIHE and voluntary services will be widely popularized in the whole society. Through voluntary services, it will show the achievements of ecological civilization construction in the capital to the world, display the good image of Beijing services and polish the golden card of volunteers.

In order to do a good voluntary job and achieve fine management, the BIHEB organized large-scale activities and voluntary service experts more than a year ago to carry out thematic research on voluntary work in recent years, held more than ten demonstration meetings, formulated a perfect voluntary work programme in accordance with the characteristics of the BIKE, and carried out the “three top, three bottom” volunteer recruitment work, to analyze and study the needs of volunteers one by one with the employing departments. After referring to the number of volunteers for similar exhibitions in the past, taking into account the demand for volunteers, meeting time support ability and passenger flow tide analysis of various business departments, we insist on carrying out work under the leadership of full-time staff according to the principle that volunteers do not have image posts, do not participate in commercial and service outsourcing projects, do not engage in major management responsibilities, economic responsibilities, personal injury risks and confidential posts. According to the principles, the volunteer posts of the BIHE will be determined.

According to the operation demand of the event, there are three types of volunteers in the Park: the backbone volunteers who are required to have strong work enthusiasm and organizational management ability, continue to serve for at least two months, be relatively more familiar with the business, and lead ordinary volunteers to work, to form the core team of volunteer management of various service departments; one is professional volunteers who are engaged in professional work such as VIP reception, exhibitor service, language translation (including sign language), media service, etc. There are also general volunteers who are engaged in assistant work such as order guidance, consultation and answer, reception and assistance, services for the disabled, activity organization and so on.

100-day countdown volunteer mobilization conference for the Expo 

Keeping the volunteers’ mind on their work

The voluntary work of the BIHE is different from previous major competitions and has its unique characteristics. Firstly, the operation time is long. The official duration of the BIHE is 162 days. With the trial operation and the final stage, it is estimated that it will take about 200 days before and after the BIHE. Secondly, there is a large demand. Every day, hundreds of volunteers are required to participate in the services, involving 8 categories, 18 sub-categories, 98 post points, a variety of posts. Thirdly, high professional requirements. Serving seniorl politicians, exhibitors and media journalists from more than 100 countries requires a large number of volunteers in language, media and horticulture. Fourthly, it is difficult to organize. The vast majority of volunteers need to be organized from urban areas, need long-distance transportation and long-term multi-batch operation, and need 25 rotations, and seamless convergence also need to be ensured. Fifthly, there are many influencing factors. In 2019, there will be many big and important events in Beijing, which may have an impact on the recruitment of volunteers for the BIHE.

In order to keep the volunteers’ mind on their work, the Executive Committee of the BIHE has done a lot of work to provide thoughtful and meticulous service guarantee for them. In terms of accommodation, Yanqing District has overcome various difficulties by providing 696 beds in the dormitories of Party School of District Committee as the volunteer residence of the Park; in order to guarantee the volunteers’ travel, a ferry bus from the volunteer residence to the Park has been arranged; the meals of volunteers during the service period are in line with the official staff; each volunteer is equipped with raincoats, floral water, throat candy and other necessary support equipments; 30 volunteer service booths were set up for volunteers to work in the relatively dense spots of the Park; the City Volunteer Service Federation included the volunteers in the Park into the unified protection of volunteers throughout the city, which was insured by personal insurance and property insurance, providing personal injury insurance of 1.5 million yuan per person; and a volunteer home was established in the Park for volunteers to carry out team building, service guaranteem, exhibitions, workgroup offices, meeting places; each volunteer who completes voluntary service as required will receive certificate and souvenir of voluntary services issued by the BIHE.

Volunteer service booth 

Volunteers will be another scenic spot of the BIHE Park

The garments of the volunteers in the BIHE Park are mainly colored with volunteer blue. They organically integrate the cultural elements of China Pavilion, International Pavilion, Performance Center, Great Wall and Plants in the BIHE. They are bright in color and novel in fashion. They embody not only the solemn and magnificent beauty of “the roofs like bird’s wings”, but also the beauty of ecological civilization of “flowers competing in splendor”.

The volunteers’ uniforms use a large number of green environmental protection technology fabrics, which not only are breathable and easy to dry, but also function as kind of sun protection, reflecting the modern beauty of the application of international design language, and even embody the environmental protection concept of being detail and technology-oriented.

The clothing style adopts the design of “asymmetric method”, which makes it look fashionable and harmonious. The overall color of the garment is golden section composition. The wearing effect shows the healthy, enthusiastic and energetic spiritual outlook of young volunteers. The style design fully takes into account the coordination of the inside and outside as well as the top and bottom, so as to achieve the uniformity of the image of volunteers. Long sleeve jacket and short sleeve POLO shirt are uniform in color and appearance, coordinated in tone inside and outside, with flashing reflective ironing marks around to ensure the safety of volunteers’ night travel activities. At noon, when the temperature rises, the volunteers take off their long-sleeved jackets and wear short-sleeved POLO shirts, and remove the legs of removable trousers to turn them into shorts, which fits the characteristics of volunteers’ daily work wear. The clothing styles can meet all kinds of body types, their proportions are harmonious, broad and flexible, loose and moderate, suitable for volunteers with large workload characteristics.

The volunteers of the BIHE will contribute their strength to the construction of beautiful China on the grand stage of the BIHE with their neat, youthful, vigorous and healthy spiritual outlook.

Volunteers in uniforms

Recruitment tidbits - I want to contribute to the voluntary services of the BIHE

For Zhao Ziyi, a first-year graduate student at the School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, this is her first voluntary service in a major international conference. After the opening of the BIHE, she will serve in the Performance Center for 10 days to assist the staff in guiding their work. Zhao Ziyou is very proud to be able to stand out from many students. She also remembers that after passing the preliminary screening, the university also organized an interview with five people as a group to select core volunteers. “My major is Garden Architecture both as an undergraduate student and a graduate student. My research interest is plant landscape, which fits the content of the BIHE very well. I want to contribute to this grand event in the form of voluntary service.” Zhao Ziyi confidently introduced her good points to the interviewing teachers. Although she has participated in the voluntary service of the International Garden Construction Festival of Beijing Forestry University and other garden activities, Zhao Ziyou still feels nervous in the face of such a high-level event as the BIHE. During this period, she quickly reviewed the contents of job training and etiquette training. “This is a rare opportunity. There are so many different theme exhibition gardens on the BIHE site. It is a concentrated display of garden culture with Chinese characteristics. It can also promote my professional learning.” Said Zhao Ziyi.

Wang Yixi, a 21-year-old student at the School of Broadcasting and Anchoring of Communication University of China, mainly undertakes voluntary work in media service posts at the BIHE. This time, 90 volunteers were recruited from Communication University of China. In dealing with people, Wang Yixi, an outgoing and open-minded person, is very good at it, but this is the first time for her to serve in an international platform like the BIHE. In February this year, Wang Yixi was very excited to see the recruitment announcement issued by the Youth Association of her university. “Since I am studying in this city, I want to participate in its development and major events.” It is conceivable that the competition is fierce. Wang Yixi remembers that in the first round of resume screening, the elimination rate reached 50%. “When visitors come to the BIHE, they first come into contact with us, and most of them come into contact with us in the process of visiting the Park. We hope that through our professional services, visitors will feel the enthusiasm of volunteers at the moment they enter the Park, so that they can come back with pleasure and satisfaction.” Wang Yixi said that in the near future, she plans to accumulate more French vocabulary for media and gardening majors in case of emergencies.