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Docent Council President’s Letter – January 2019

Hello everyone. I hope you all enjoyed wonderful holidays with family and friends, with plenty of time to relax and refuel before starting 2019. Thanks to the many of you who also stepped in to give tours and otherwise work for CAC. The mild December weather enabled us to finish the season with some unexpectedly good numbers. With the first full week after New Year’s being the traditional low point for anything requiring leaving one’s house – going to concerts and theater, museum browsing, shopping – we should be looking at a slow but steady uptick.

And I hope everyone is well rested, because there is a lot to do. Here comes my pitch, so do read on:

Class of 2019: the application deadline has just closed. The Ed Committee reports about 100 applications for the new class – a record. From that group, about 60 people will be interviewed and 40 will be chosen to start classes in late March. Interviews have already begun. If any of you feel like being a Good Samaritan, Erin Carlisle has dawn-to-dusk interviews on Saturday, January 26th, with none but the necessary breaks. If someone would be nice enough to bring her a bagel, soup, or sandwich, I am sure she would appreciate it. Other interviewers rotate, but Erin will be there for every single session.

Meanwhile, these bright new faces will need readers, sponsors, and certifiers, plus classroom and on-street coaches. Please help. And one warm-up caution: make sure you have taken or enrolled in formal Feedback Training before taking on any of these roles. Additional Feedback sessions are scheduled.

New & Continuing Tours Training: the first brand-new tour leaving from the Center, Magnificent Architecture on the Magnificent Mile (MAMM), is recruiting docents to give the tour. Training will start on Match 2nd. See the announcement on The Bridge about whom to contact.

Two weeks later, River Cruise training will begin for 21 recruits from the current docent body.

We need docents to learn MAMM and current river docents to help train newbies.

Staffing Our Schedule of Tours: Although the schedule in place is the curtailed winter version, there are lots of tours that still need to be filled. It is particularly important for people who trained on new versions of extant tours – last spring! – and may not have given the new version yet. Time to get back in the water. Check the schedule, observe one of your colleagues giving the tour, and sign up.

As if all of this were not enough, check your calendar and be prepared to be bowled over by the panoply of programs coming up at the Center at participating sites.

The upcoming year will be the one in which we all work to establish the Center as a critical component on the civic and cultural landscape. The opportunities to help build our future are numerous; the need for your participation is great.

 

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