Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today’s post is with Elin, who volunteers as a Communications Event Coordinator and Translation Volunteer Manager.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
I currently hold two different positions at the OTW.

For one, I’m part of the Communication committee’s Events Coordination team. As an example for what we do, whenever you see a post on the AO3 homepage celebrating a milestone, or on the OTW website commemorating one of our anniversaries, I might have had a hand in it! We also organize special activities to go with some events, such as a a themed bingo we did recently, the special anniversary skin we released for AO3’s 15th anniversary, or even our annual International Fanworks Day (IFD).

As for my second role, I’m also a volunteer manager in our Translation committee. It’s a very varied position, as volunteer managers pull the strings behind the scenes necessary to keep a 200+ people strong committee running smoothly. That encompasses a lot of different day-to-day tasks. Some of those tasks include: preparing documents for translation, and assigning them to translators, helping translate news posts and posts concerning larger events, such as the OTW’s Membership Drive, and are generally being the first point of contact for any problems a translator might run into. And that’s just a small part of our work!

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

Honestly it varies a lot! Like most OTW volunteers, I have a day job that takes up a lot of my time and energy during the week, so I’ll typically do small, quick tasks on weeknights, if possible. Those tasks that require a sustained amount of focus and effort I try to save for the weekend. It also varies by time of year how much work I do for each of my roles! For example, when IFD rolls around in February (and during the months leading up to it), my workload during the week might increase for a time.

What made you decide to volunteer?

Story old as time, I suppose, but I’ve been reading fanfic on AO3 for a long time (since I was 14 or 15, I believe) without getting into fan communities much. I really wanted to return something to fandom space at large, and AO3 in particular. When I saw that the OTW was recruiting for German translators, I applied, and was accepted!

During my time as an active translator (volunteer managers usually mostly step back from that) my work included translating all these amazing news posts other volunteers had written. I wanted to try my hand at coming up with posts myself, which was one of my motivations to apply as an Event Coordinator. And then I realized that as a volunteer manager I’d have even more varied tasks I could tackle, so I switched roles inside the Translation committee last year!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Probably figuring out how to balance my day job/hobbies/relationships with OTW volunteering! For me personally it’s very easy to head straight into burnout, as I’m very enthusiastic about any new tasks I’ve taken on. However, there are always more things to do, and I’ve had to learn to occasionally take a step back and take a break, the better to sustain my enjoyment of the work I do!

What fannish things do you like to do?

Reading fanfic, primarily! In a variety of fandoms, for a variety of ships (or platonic relationships). More recently, I’ve also started taking more of an interest in other online fan spaces, though I tend to lurk more than actively involve myself. Otherwise, I like creating my own AO3 site skins – ⁠I find it quite meditative – ⁠and I swear one of these days I’ll actually commit to finishing a story myself and posting it.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you’d like, you can check out previous Five Things posts.