Events

Our founding members were faced with a challenge when developing ways to achieve our objectives of promoting professionalism and facilitating networking among guides as well as providing opportunities for continuing education for guides.  How could they do all this at a reasonable cost and with the small number of organizers available?

The answer was our Events program which they developed in the first years of our existence. The Events program has become the keystone in our efforts to achieve our stated objectives and is still flourishing after many years.

You are invited to read a write-up of one of our day-long educational events to give you an idea of what we do on one of these occasions to improve our knowledge of popular local spots of interest and historic significance. Click here  to read "An Outing to the Niagara Frontier". (If you enjoy this article, you will find several more sample articles on our Newsletter page.)

Each year a series of events is developed. It includes educational field trips both local and out-of-town with visits to museums and other venues and attractions. Since the program started in 1991, we have visited most tourist attractions and venues in the Toronto area and adjacent regions. To see just a partial list of these attractions, please click here.

One of the true highlights of our events program is our annual Nancy Ross Honsberger Memorial Evening, a lecture series with major topics of interest to guides in our region as the subject matter. (Click here to learn more about the Nancy Ross Honsberger evening.) In 2007 we were delighted to have Bruce Bell as our speaker. His topic was the history of theatre in Toronto and he is an acknowledged expert as well as an excellent tour guide himself. We thought we knew a good deal about the theatre in Toronto. Bruce put us to shame (nicely) and enlightened us at the same time.

The Events programs for the years 2001-2006 were so popular that we were faced with sell-out situations on many occasions. The 2007 program is now underway and we hope for similar success. Our members' concern for continuing professional development seems to know no bounds. All events are made available to members at cost (free, if possible).

We welcome the enthusiasm with which local venues and institutions have greeted the program and helped make it possible for us to organize visits to them.  We look forward to their continuing cooperation and participation.

We also would welcome more participation by local guides who have not yet joined CTGA of Toronto.  If you think you would benefit from this program please proceed to the Membership pages to learn how to join and begin deriving some of the benefits of CTGA of Toronto.

Current members of CTGA of Toronto should visit the Members Only pages of this web site for information on coming events.

To see a list of areas, venues, etc. that we have visited as an association of guides in the last four years, please click here.

Our events can be a great pleasure. The annual lunch at Christmas is far more than lunch; it always includes a learning visit to one of Toronto's historic churches.  Here is Holy Trinity Church designed by architect Henry Bower Lane and built in 1847, just one of the many that has been included in our Christmas itinerary.

Here is one of those Christmas lunches. After the morning's educational tour, it is a pleasure to share a relaxing moment with fellow members.