The following information was provided by Ryan Lynch, the organizer for the 2003 Chicago GTG. Some of the information is specific to Chicago, but most of it will be helpful for anyone planning a GTG anywhere.
Planning
"The first thing that needs to be done is to set a date. This should ideally be done at the national convention so that each school is in attendance. In the past we have set the date to correspond to the Taste of Chicago which is a HUGE fair held yearly in Chicago. I would highly suggest doing this each year for a couple of reasons.
- The town has A LOT going on.
- To set up a consistent date for the event.
Probably the next thing you will want to do is get a rough idea of what to do for the weekend. In 2003 we went to Second City Comedy Club to see a show on Friday night. This was great fun but somewhat of a hassle to coordinate. The theatre required that we pay for all the tickets in advance. This means that you need to either be able to front the money or get everyone to pay some type of registration fee.
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Sample itinerary
Planning the day's activities shouldn't be very hard. A sample itinerary is included below. We try to keep the activities oriented towards people who have not been to Chicago before, (i.e. the interns). That means doing all the touristy stuff like museums, aquarium, planetarium, Miracle Mile, Sears Tower. etc. etc. This may get boring for people who have gone before but it's not really about us.
Friday:
- Arrive early evening (or whenever you can make it)
- 11 pm- Attend Second City Comedy Club- Chicago's most famous comedy club. Tickets are $19 and must be bought in advance. When you RSVP if you will come to the Chicago get together, please indicate if you want to come here as well (I wouldn't recommend that you miss it). Also, if enough people decide to come we can get a group ticket rate.
Saturday:
- Possible activities during the day:
- Taste of Chicago
- Visit the Field Museum or Art Museum
- Architecture Boat tour
- Go to the beach
- Shop on Michigan Avenue
- Go to Navy Pier
- Go to the top floor of The John Hancock Building or the Sears Tower
Planned Night activity:
- International Restaurant/bar crawl: we will go to 8 restaurants and bars downtown, sampling one small item from each place. The theme from each restaurant will represent a different nationality.
Sunday:
- Possible activities during the day:
- Taste of Chicago
- Visit the Field Museum or Art Museum
- Architecture Boat tour
- Go to the beach
- Shop on Michigan Avenue
- Go to Navy Pier
- Go to the top floor of The John Hancock Building or the Sears Tower
- Depart Late afternoon
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Money
I think a registration fee would be a great idea, especially if you plan to do something like a show one night. You could say that the registration fee covered the cost of the hostel, show and a t-shirt. Tell everyone the price of the hostel, show and then an inflated price for a t-shirt, so you can have some extra to cover for anyone who backs out last minute.
Usually the hostel requires a 50% deposit with the group reservation and 100% due one week before arrival with the male/female breakdown of the group. This wasn't possible for us this year so I basically worked out a deal with them to pay what I could ($500) at the time of the reservation and have each person pay their portion as they arrived. This was outside the hostels normal operating procedures but they were very friendly and accommodating. So if they tell you the same thing you should just explain the situation and be quite nice.
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Hostel contact info
As for lodging, we have always stayed at Hostelling International - Chicago (www.hichicago.org). The location of the hostel is great, located right down town and near a train stop. The Hostel experience is a good one for this type of organization because hostels are designed for college age students traveling throughout the country on low budgets.
Misty Shepherd
Front Office Manager
Hostelling International Chicago
Direct Line (312) 583-2223
Kimberly Ortman
Group Sales Manager
Hostelling International
Phone: 312-583-2225
Fax: 312-360-0313
www.hichicago.org
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Thoughts for improvement
Some of the things I would implement in the future are the following. I would print up t-shirts. I simply got started too late to get them printed. In order to do a t-shirt, the design would have to be done quite early and sent out with the registration form. This leads to having a registration form with a fee for each person which would cover expenses. The fee would also produce some modest profit for whichever LC was doing the organizing.
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