Blog

By Harry Eisenman, Guest Service Volunteer

Ambassadors – that’s what we needed back in 2002 – ambassadors to welcome guests as they arrived in CitySpace at the Railway Exchange Building. Ambassadors to help guests select and get ready to go on tours, to share information on what to do and see, and answer questions about Chicago and the exhibits featured in CitySpace, including the popular white wood block model of downtown Chicago. And so, the Visitor Services Volunteer (VSV) role was born.

It wasn’t long before the VSV role expanded to include manning the Member Services Center desk in the colder months between late November into April.  Meanwhile, throughout the year, we helped support staff in other ways including taking phone calls and handling various clerical tasks.

Eventually, VSVs moved into the CAF store and were stationed permanently at the box office (while the CitySpace room later became the Design Studio).  Here, we aided box office staff and continued to serve as CAF ambassadors, providing tour and Chicago information to visitors, checking-in guests for tours, and distributing and maintaining GTS devices and earpieces including cleaning both when returned and storing devices in charging drawers.

When the CAF moved to 111 East Wacker Drive and became the CAC, VSVs were renamed Guest Services Volunteers and were given their own desk separate from the box office in the CAC’s atrium. Yet even today – 20 years after our role began – we continue to serve as ambassadors to the CAC’s guests.