Dear Docents,
This month’s report is short, as befits the shortest month in the year. The report also takes its cue from late winter’s theme of renewal and anticipation. All over CAF, people are preparing for spring and the changes it will bring.
The 29 members of the docent class of 2017 have completed the first part of their training, Fundamentals of Chicago’s Architecture. After that, they will go on to learn Historic Skyscrapers, CAF’s most popular tour. I recently spoke to the class to acquaint them with docent governance and non-tour service opportunities, and they are enthusiastic and ready to get out there. Some of you may already know some of them from earlier coaching activities.
There is news about our fellow volunteers. VEV Chair Ellen Oberhart was chosen to lead that cohort again this year. Ellen has been an effective leader and a welcome face at Docent Council Meetings.
There is a third group within volunteer ranks, the Education Guides, who will collaborate with CAF staff to lead Student Loop field trips. This new group is made up of both VEVs and docents. The initial class of Education Guides completed their training and led their first Student Loop tours last October. Additional guides are being trained this month in anticipation of the busy spring student field-trip season. Education Guides will also be trained to lead Art in Architecture student field trips. They will assist CAF staff in facilitating ongoing family and student events, including Read and Build sessions and weekend festivals, like E-Fest on February 18th and 19th. This year’s focus is on bridges. Reminder: Jeanne Gang’s inspiration to become an architect came from going out with her father to look at bridges. Just sayin’.
We docents are getting ready for a spring season that will bring a fuller slate of tours, starting in April. The wind-in-the-face moving vehicle gang, aka Big Bus and River Docents, will be having refresher sessions in anticipation of the tour season. The River Cruise will also be starting another training class of about 24 people, mid-March. And there will be a full slate of tour training sessions, populated by both the Class of 2017 and incumbent docents: Hotel Boom trains February 25, and later in the spring there will be training for Downtown Deco, FLW in Oak Park, Masterworks, and Must-See.
Finally, the committees I mentioned last month are coming together. A group that will craft a “positioning statement” – i.e., how the docents fit into the larger context of CAF – is up and running, under the guidance of chair Leslie Clark Lewis. Another committee, name TBD, has been organized to sort through all the findings from the December retreat and identify goals and devise a plan to implement them. Bobbi Pinkert chairs this initiative.
Docents in hibernation? Never!
Constance