Meet Group Leader, Sue Anderson

Sue Anderson is the Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at California State University San Bernardino. She helps organize group departures for her members and recently shared her personal experience in working with our Groups Program.

Tell us about your group: who do you travel with?

Our travel program is part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at California State University, San Bernardino. We offer non-credit courses, discussion groups, events, and trips to people age 50 and over, currently serving about 750 members. Our group is generally pretty educated and well-traveled, and they appreciate a rich educational experience, whether it’s a day trip or extended overnight excursion. We started offering trips in 2016 as a way to enhance the educational programming we offer on campus and to create a greater sense of community among our members. The travel program also generates additional revenue for our program.

What strategies do you use to pick a destination? Is there a time-frame and budget that you feel is most appealing to a wide audience?

We have an OLLI Travel Committee that selects our trip destinations and itineraries based on the personal experience of the committee members and input from our members. We survey our membership regularly to ensure we provide programming that meets their interests, including travel destinations. By offering a variety of day and overnight trip options, we can offer something to meet the interests of most of our members.

In your opinion/experience, what are the biggest advantages/benefits of group travel for your OLLI program?

It’s a great way to expand and enrich the educational experience outside of the classroom. It’s also a way to build a sense of community among the members. Traveling together allows people to connect and interact in a much deeper way, and our trips have helped facilitate many wonderful, new friendships. Our trips have also helped to grow our membership. We have people join our OLLI just to travel with us! Our members are comfortable traveling with our group because they know and trust us, particularly our older and single members.

Why did you decide to lead a group with Grand Circle and/or O.A.T.?

Before selecting our travel partners, we did considerable research on companies that could offer a high quality educational experience and meet the needs of our travelers aged 50 and over. We are committed to working with companies that have a solid reputation, particularly those who work with other OLLIs. Many of our Travel Committee members have traveled with Grand Circle personally, so they are aware of the type of experience we can expect. Since one of the goals of our travel program is to generate revenue for OLLI, we also required a partner who offered a good commission. Grand Circle and O.A.T. met all of those critical criteria. We’ve been very pleased with our partnership to date and look forward to many wonderful trips with Grand Circle and O.A.T.