Buffalo Tours and the 2008 Docent Training Class
This year’s docent class, the third for Buffalo Tours, is preparing docents for not one, but three downtown tours. The Downtown Revealed: Appreciating Buffalo’s Architecture tour will continue to introduce our city’s history and architectural highlights. The Theater District Tour will explore the northern half of downtown including Shea’s Theater, Goldome Bank, and the Electric Tower. People can get the lowdown on downtown’s resurgence on the New Digs Downtown tour. This tour examines the new developments along Delaware Avenue including the New Era Cap Company headquarters, the makeover of the former Dulski federal office building, and the new build at 285 Delaware.
The class members have devoted ten Saturday mornings to readings, lectures, field trips, and practice presentations, not to mention hours of practice and study as homework. This year’s class comes from all over, from East Aurora to the city, and one member from the 2007 class even commuted again from Rochester. The class was planned and run by Marla Bujnicki, Peter Filim, Greg Lodinsky, Todd Mitchell, and Ron Schmitz.
One of the greatest successes of this year’s class was the collaboration with the Roycroft Campus Corporation. Buffalo Tours and the RCC held joint training for the first five weeks. These sessions focused on the architecture and history of the Buffalo Niagara region in general and also basic public speaking skills. We enjoyed a tour of the Roycroft Campus, heard a lecture on Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in Buffalo, and learned about developments at the Richardson-Olmsted Complex. Over the next five weeks, the RCC and Buffalo Tours then split off to provide their docents training specific to their tours.
A warm thank you to the many presenters: John Fagant, Monica Pellegrino Faix, David Granville, Chuck LaChiusa, Greg Lodinsky, Christine Peters, Denise Prince, Catherine Schweitzer, Doug Swift, and Martin Wachadlo. Thanks are owed most of all to the docent class of 2008, who will soon be out on the street telling downtown’s story. Please join them for a tour this summer.
If you would like to learn more about becoming a Buffalo Tours docent, please call 716-852-3300, or email info@Landmark-Niagara.org. The next class will not begin until spring of 2009, but it is never too early to make plans.
To see a complete schedule of May tours, please visit www.BuffaloTours.org.
Buffalo Tours is a collaborative project of the Landmark Society and the Preservation Coalition.
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RaChaCha
Congrats to a very well-prepared group, and their most excellent trainers. I got to know many of these docents during training this year, and can attest that they are a very savvy and dedicated bunch indeed. Buffalo Tours training gives docents who take the process seriously (and they all did), essentially the equivalent of a college course. But docents become well versed not just in Buffalo’s architectural and cultural heritage, and how to interpret it for tour groups, but also - by spending a couple of months learning from some of the leaders of the preservation community - in how to be advocates for its preservation.
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