You are currently viewing President’s Message, December   2023 – Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Ross Wirth, Docent Council President

President’s Message, December 2023 – Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles 

 It has been a busy time for docents and the CAC!  With Thanksgiving comes the end of River Cruise season – a hearty thank-you to all of you who spent time on the river this season! 

 All indications are it has been a fantastic year for Chicago and the CAC.  As you’ve no doubt seen, the Chicago hotels have had a record year, and we’ve seen that reflected on the streets and the river.  While we don’t have final tour numbers yet, we are trending towards, if not a record year, a near record year for our tours. 

 At our November Docent Council meeting (see notes linked below) we heard updates from each of our Strategy Taskforces.  The Docent Experience taskforce is finalizing interview results from the nearly 60 docent interviews they conducted.  These results will inform priorities for the committees and activities across locations and docent personas.  The Digital taskforce organized the photos taken at All Docent Day to get as many of your faces included in the VolunteerMatters directory as possible.  The Docent Staff Collaboration taskforce is working on the schedule for 2024 collaboration events. 

 November brought All Docent Day with over 160 docents in attendance and a fantastic agenda. It was a great day of gathering, learning, and connecting. (see recap linked below).  During my time on stage, I shared a survey to gather interest from the docents on both participating in other CAC offerings, as well as developing and creating new Digital offerings. 

 Nearly 50 individuals expressed interest in joining in other CAC offerings:

Over 80 of you have expressed interest in expanding your sharing of the love of Chicago Architecture into new Digital offerings!

As I said on that day, we have an opportunity to build upon what we have developed over the last 50+ years as docents and expand into new digital offerings, to provide further reach of our unique skills and capabilities.

For all of you who expressed interest there will be more communication in the coming months.  If you couldn’t attend All Docent Day, or just didn’t get your response in, you can still respond to the survey at the link below.

Early in 2024 Docent Council & Committee Chairs will hold our Strategy Workshop, where we look back at our 2023 goals & achievements as well as set goals & plan for 2024.

Finally, congratulations to our newly (re)elected 2024 Docent Council members, Delta Greene, Erica Myles, John Schneider, Kelly Manteck, Lisa Pickell, & Steve Haddad!

Have a great Holiday Season!

See you on the streets!

-Ross
rw****@ar**********.org

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