Dear docents,
While we await updates on CAF’s new location, I wanted to use this opportunity to convey some information that everyone should know, now. I hope it will answer everyone’s #1 question: how will a new location affect my tours? Here are a few items to consider:
1. Many of the tours you give will be completely unaffected by a new location:
- Building tours will not change, and Neighborhood tours will not change. (Neighborhood tours that depart from the shop, such as Vice to Nice and Louis Sullivan, may change their starting points.)
- River Cruise doesn’t change.
- The bus tour would change only imperceptibly.
2. Tours that will feel an impact from a new home for CAF include:
- Historic
- Chicago Modern
- Treasures
- Masterworks
- Art Deco Skyscrapers
- Must-See Chicago
- El Tour
- Food & Architecture
- Millennium Park
- Tiffany
- Evolution of the Skyscraper
- Hotel Boom
These are known as Core Tours. They depart from and return to the shop, are scheduled by the Scheduling Task Force rather than Tour Directors, and generally depart all year (or most of it). Of course, most of you do at least one of these tours.
Each tour will be affected in a different way, so while we have made some initial process planning, it is anything but cookie cutter: each and every one of these tours will be discussed and evaluated individually with the Tour Directors who have ownership of the process. How all of that will play out will be dealt with at the Town Hall on August 15th and will be discussed in my next letter.
In the meantime, you should also know that a Task Force to coordinate “all things Docent” has been meeting for almost two months now. Seven docents – Tom Carmichael, Kathleen Carpenter, Lance Friedmann, Delta Greene, Ellen Shubart, Lisa Voigt and me – are working with Michael Malak, Jen Masengarb, Hallie Rosen and Caroline Duda. Besides coming up with a process to shepherd every Core tour through the move and its aftermath, the Task Force has also had two meetings with the people who have the biggest effect on what docents do: the Chairs of most of the major standing committees (Tour, Education, Marketing, Communications, Standards) and the Tour Directors for these tours.
Importantly, there will not be a new docent training class for 2018. Uncertainties about exact timing and general background hubbub don’t make for an atmosphere conducive to full-scale training.
That’s where things stand as I write this letter, mid-week.
In the meantime, please read Ellen Shubart’s introductory note about someone we all need to know: Emmelia Lamphere, Ticket Services Manager. Emmelila has been busy taking as many tours as possible since she took on her new role, so many of you may have already met her. Another change will come when the job search formally opens for the person who will work with Caroline Duda.
I hope to see as many of you as possible at the Town Hall next week. Please (1) RSVP if you have not done so and (2) note that we moved the start of social time up to 4:45pm.
Constance