“We celebrate the past to awaken the future.”
-John F. Kennedy
Happy holidays to everyone as we celebrate the wrap-up of our first full year in our new CAC home.
While most of us are recovering from Thanksgiving or preparing for festive holiday celebrations still to come, our CAC staff friends are hard at work analyzing year-end data and laying plans for 2020.
I will do my best to quantify and recap our 2019 achievements in next month’s posting, but in the meantime let’s take a peek around the corner to tease some details of anticipated things to come in Volunteerland in the early months of next year.
-Fellow Volunteer Laureen Higgins has graciously taken the lead in collaborating with Caroline and the Volunteer Steering Committee to craft an internal feedback survey which will be distributed to all Exhibit Hosts, likely in January. Your input to this survey will be critical in informing plans for optimizing training, communications, shift scheduling, rewards, etc. So please respond when the survey hits your inbox.
As you’re hopefully aware, the times already are a changin’ inside the CAC with new models in place in both the Chicago and Skyscraper Galleries along with new installations in the Current Projects and Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) annual awards areas. Further evolution is just over the horizon with more new models and a complete refresh of the second floor rotating gallery coming our way in early 2020. Adam Rubin will be carving out time in his busy schedule to facilitate a “Refresher Training” session for Exhibit Hosts to update us on the new installations.
Speaking of updates…our Education Guide and Exhibit Host colleague Nancy Hornak is championing a collaboration with Adam and Caroline to provide more regular communication with the Volunteers to keep us informed on CAC exhibit news and guest relations best practices. More to come on that in the New Year.
I am very happy to report that Docent Council President Constance Rajala is more than living up to her our joint commitment to promote increased collaboration across the Docent and Volunteer teams, with Volunteers now represented in the Communications, Marketing, and Core Values Committees along with attendance at the Docent Council meetings. Our next step will be giving Volunteers an important role in Gloria Hinrich’s Enrichment Committee, developing collaborative events and programs that will provide ongoing education and opportunities to socialize.
Our Education Guide team is in the final weeks of hosting student field trips inside the Chicago Cultural Center exploring the Architecture Biennial. As we await the start of the peak outdoor field trip season next spring, Guides will be able to stay involved with the CAC’s student and family outreach programs during the winter months via the free Family Days inside the CAC the second Saturday of each month as well as upcoming festivals including Girls Build! Day on Saturday, January 11 and the annual Engineering Fest the weekend of February 22-23. We eagerly anticipate Kevin Grebenow’s outshining his legendary Ferris Wheel demo from last winter.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg previewing great things to come for us all in 2020.
Cheers, Bob