Dear fellow docents,
It’s June! It’s Phase 3! What does this mean? TOURS. Ok, maybe not a lot of different tours and maybe not a lot of offerings. But the CAC, in accordance with state and city medical guidelines, will begin to operate on a limited basis. Masks and social distancing will be required during our tours for the foreseeable future. Yet everything I’ve seen and read suggests that being outdoors dramatically reduces the risk of spread of the virus. Our tours will avoid interiors at this point. Tours will be 100% outdoors.
So, when do tours start? River? Walking? When does the CAC open? Why are there always more questions than answers? There are so many moving parts to every decision, making it very difficult to answer questions in a letter like this. By the time you read this, much could have changed. Certainly the recent murder of an unarmed Black man by police in Minneapolis and the protests that followed across the country, including Chicago, have impacted how we are moving forward. Lynn Osmond, CAC President, has addressed the CAC’s position on these matters. The docent communications group is working on helpful and appropriate language for docents to use around these events. Please check The Bridge frequently, read emails from Lynn and Caroline and others, and please, as always, know the staff is working tirelessly behind the scenes to get us going again in the safest manner possible.
Some of you have expressed the desire to wait a bit before restarting. PLEASE, your first concern should be self-care. I’m one of those folks that responded in the survey that I wasn’t quite ready to give a tour. But I’m getting there! I went to a restaurant with outdoor seating this week. I wore my mask until the food came, ate quickly, and restored my mask. And it was ok! The wait person was masked and gloved, and the tables were spaced out appropriately. I think for many of us, it will be a process to get comfortable with our new reality. When you are ready to give tours, please pay close attention to Caroline’s and Michele’s messages regarding how to sign up. The process will be different and will likely continue to evolve as we go forward. There will also be specific guidelines as to how tours will operate in our new reality. But, again, as the reality changes, those procedures could change as well.
It is possible that those willing to begin giving tours are not certified on the neighborhood and walking tours being offered at the restart. It would be nice to offer our full slate of tours, but that’s not realistic at this time. So, as always, I ask for your patience. If the new tour processes go well, the state and city continue to move forward in the phases of reopening, and if tourees actually show up to take tours, we will expand our offerings as quickly as practical.
So, it’s June. And unlike so many freezing Junes of late, it actually feels like summer. It’s sad we aren’t sending out dozens of river/walking/bus tours each day. But we are taking the steps to move forward, doing what we can, when we can. I’m trying to imagine June 2021, which feels so far away. Perhaps normal will return next summer. Fingers crossed!!
If you have questions or comments, please let me know.
Kent