Blog

By Jill Carlson, Class of 2013

On June 10, docents enjoyed and celebrated another special evening of DAN. The Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Hall and Rotunda at the Cultural Center could not have been a more perfect setting. Everyone enjoyed the party, seeing and talking to other docents, honoring the dedicated long service of docents, and celebrating docents with special awards. It was an evening of conversation, eating, hugs, laughing, cheering, and applause.

Special guest, Gunny Harboe, treated the attentive audience to a wonderful presentation of his astounding restoration of the GAR hall and rotunda that we have been proudly describing to visitors.

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CAC Staff One Team Docent Award:
This award honors docents who has provided outstanding service to CAC through non-tour work in the past year. This year two people led the charge of bringing us all back together by offering activities to connect the entire volunteer community.

The One Team award goes to 2023 Enrichment co-chairs Marcia Ross and Peg Romm.

 

 Above and Beyond Award:
This is another staff award that recognizes docents for 200+ tour hours, for stepping up often and on short notice to present scheduled tours.

Eleanor Gorski presented the award to David Ferguson for donating more than 200+ tour hours and to Chris Pausch for responding to the SOS’s for the river cruise last year.

 

The following awards are selected from peer nominations. They are presented to docents who have contributed to CAC and the docent community above and beyond presenting excellent tours.

Outstanding Docent Achievement Award:
Kathy Baker received this lifetime achievement award, recognizing her outstanding service and leadership. Kathy is recognized as warm, positive, helpful, professional, and committed. She previously received a One Team Award and a Service Award. As co-chair of Education Committee for five years, Kathy is immersed in the training program for docents. She is now co-chair of Standards. She has also served on a number of task forces. Kathy converted feedback training to Zoom and conducted all feedback training since 2021. She is passionate about the River Cruise, serving as coach and mentor, and this year, joined the river cruise training team.

Neighborhood Tour Director Service Award:
This award recognizes a tour director who goes above and beyond to make a neighborhood tour successful. Jill Dahlke, a 20+ year docent recognized for her dedication and leadership, is tour director for three neighborhood tours. She is on top of the constant changes in buildings and routes, manual updates and organizing schedules, recruiting and training docents. In addition, she finds time to plan social events for the team.

Docent Service Awards:
Kelly Manteck has mentored walking tour and river cruise trainees. She is a member of the newly formed Mentor Support Committee. As co-chair of the Digital Task Force she has been evaluating programs to replace Volunteer Matters and making The Bridge easier to navigate. Kelly is part of the group of photographers who post their photos regularly on The Bridge. She also organized the “Say Cheese”  project on All Docent Day to take and post photos of docents in the directory.

 

Maureen Waller, a 2023 docent, was anxious to get involved at CAC beyond giving tours. As a member of the Education Committee, she mentored a 2024 trainee and has joined the Training Team. She also serves on the Mentor Support Team.

 

 

Pat Grund is a longtime “behind the scenes” faithful docent. Her first love is the river cruise, and there is a long list of people she has coached, mentored, and certified on the river. She serves as co-chair of the Standards Committee and has helped reinvigorate DPRP.

 

 

Kathy Krepps became co-tour director of Chicago Modern in her second year as a docent. She has revised and retrained docents twice as tour route, tour buildings, and even the tour name changed. She is co-chair of the Library Committee and part of the team that revamped the library during its digital transformation.

 

 

Quentin Kossnar continues to work on many aspects of touring. In addition to Historic Treasures, Downtown Elevated, and the new Loop as Lab tour, he is learning Churches by Bus and Devil in the White City bus tours. He serves on the Tour Committee, was a member of Volunteer Connections and Docent Experience Task Forces, and is a mentor for the 2024 class. He also planned and moderated a recent Zoom meeting for the docent reading group.

 

Catherine Thomson’s docent involvement started when she was her 2023 class representative to Docent Council. She now serves on the Tour Committee and co-chairs the Staff/Docent Collaboration Task Force. She is also a member of a subcommittee of Tour Committee investigating succession planning. She never says no when she is asked to take on new tasks.

Hearty congratulations to all!

 

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