In the volunteer editorial team, Volunteers for Chemnitz 2025 publish reports on their experiences, assignments and adventures around the European Capital of Culture.
Bettina lives in Neukirchen in the Ore Mountains and works in the volunteer editorial team. Bettina has been a volunteer since 2024 and contributes her valuable volunteering experience to Kulturhauptstadt gGmbH. A former bank clerk, she previously worked as a hardware and software developer.
The opening of the ibug art festival was planned for Friday, 22 August 2025, at 3 pm sharp in the empty former Scheffel Hospital in Chemnitz. The chosen location was already very interesting and steeped in history: built in 1910 as the administrative building of the Presto-Werke, from 1935 the headquarters of Auto-Union AG and after the war a hospital with around 800 beds!
Many volunteers were really looking forward to it and had already been briefed by those responsible at ibug on the previous Tuesday and given an explanation of this special place. We quickly toured the premises to gain an initial insight and be well prepared for the visitors. See you at the opening!
We met punctually at the entrance before the start on Friday to go to our supervisory positions. However, the bad news slowly filtered through: The ibug could not be opened because the building permit was missing. What a shock! It was obvious to those responsible, the artists and ibug volunteers, who had been working on the preparations for weeks and had sometimes taken unpaid leave to do so. Everyone was stunned and had to digest the situation and regroup.
Now we volunteers were standing here and also looked a bit perplexed - what now? Since we were there, many of us decided to stay and simply lend a hand so that ibug could at least open on Saturday.
After a brief "crisis meeting", the tasks were distributed: Clearing rubble, sweeping corridors, cordoning off forbidden zones, putting up emergency exit signs etc.. My husband and I helped Alisa from the ibug team to put up the emergency exit signs. We walked through all the corridors and stairwells and looked at where it was important to place them. As the building was old, damp in places and very dusty, it wasn't always easy! So imagination, creativity and improvisation were required, but with adhesive tape and mounting glue, everything was solvable.
The great thing about our assignment was that we met so many familiar volunteers who tackled the tasks with huge enthusiasm and commitment. A brief smile, a friendly nod and the feeling that we could really help here united us all and also made us a little proud.
We volunteers were always fully accepted and recognised. This was also evident, for example, in the fact that we were provided with free food - cooked by ibug volunteers, of course - and drinks. The thank-you email from the ibug Perso team to all the volunteers was particularly great. Thank you for your appreciation!
The next day, ibug opened its doors at 10 a.m. as we had hoped. It filled us with joy to have made our small contribution to the success of the event as volunteers.