Hi Cherie,
My name is Ben Lapidus and I am the Founder of a study abroad opportunity for University students from around the world. Our program, GREEN, is extremely new, only 18 months old, and focuses on renewable energy and sustainability education in Costa Rica. With superior success having brought almost 50 students in its infancy stages, the founders of the program, who had previously no tour guiding experiences, have been able to offload a lot of the travel operations to inspired students who have offered to work with us and run the programs as counselors.
We are currently in the midst of a test run of that now, and while these student guides are doing a great job, they lack training, insight, and grand scheme perspective. It has become apparent that we are in need of a trained professional interested in the country, our mission, and demographic of attendees.
Your name is all over the web as a professional trainer of tour guides and so I am reaching out to you in hopes that you have a database or listserv that you could detail our opportunity to you previous students.
I would be open to telling you more specifics about our organization upon your reply. You can check out more about us at greenworknow.com.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Kindest Regards,
Benjamin Lapidus
Global Renewable Energy Education Network
Director, GREEN Campus Tour
ben@greenworknow.com
888.558.0579 | http://greenworknow.com
1 comment:
Additional information:
Hi Cherie,
Thank you for responding to my email. I have already received some feedback from some of your past students. Below is an introductory description to what we would be looking for.
"We are in a delicate transition phase where we are offloading the tour operations of our program from the founding members to someone better suited to give each tour their full attention. We just recently piloted a program run by students who have attended the program previously and returned as counselors. While successful, it was missing a professional feel to the service and lacked a central decision-making head, thus compromising the quality of our program. Whether or not we decide to go with a professional tour guide will be based on extensive discussion, current budgets, and if we find the right person.
If we decide to go this route, we would be looking for someone who could dedicate their time from mid May to late August and run 4-5 programs (depending on our sales outcome for the summer season.) We would ask to run 2-3 programs in a row, take a 2 week vacation in the country and return for the final 2-3. This person would ideally speak Spanish fluently, but conversational would fly. This individual does not need to have an extensive background knowledge of the education material, but does need to be interested in it (or else it won't be fun and meaningful). The younger the individual, the better; in order to relate to the students as our program psychology is "Lush Home." This means we provide relatively lush meals, accommodations, and experiences, but we allow our clients to assist in serving themselves and cleaning their own dishes and partying with the hotel staff: like being home.
The responsibilities would include having a memorized knowledge of the travel itinerary, vendor list, contact, and prices, and syllabus itinerary. The individual would be in charge of providing discipline, structure, and inspirational meaning to the program. He or she would double check that each meal is prepared on time, all students are on the bus at the right time, and that the vendors and facilities are expecting us at the right times. This person would also make announcements at every meal or convenient time about what will be happening that day, what they will need, and what they should prepare for. The hired individual would run reflection sessions at least twice during the program to give the students a chance to comment about what they like or dislike about the program and suggest any changes (as every group is different and needs to have modified approaches).This individual would not have to run the tours, teach classes, run review sessions, or do any of the educational things. We have two consistent counselors on staff to do this - one local who assists with translating and ensuring cultural differences are understood and one previous student who runs all the educational logistics.
Lastly, this person would have to stay in constant contact with our team starting Mid April and would have to spend 2 weeks getting up to speed with our program prior to the first session over the summer. At least one founder would be in the country at all times to assist in dealing with volatile situations.
To find about the actual program itinerary and mission, please visit https://greenworknow.com"
Thanks Cherie!
Benjamin Lapidus
Global Renewable Energy Education Network
Director, GREEN Campus Tour
ben@greenworknow.com
888.558.0579 | http://greenworknow.com
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