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HomeMy WebLinkAboutM061411 TCC Minutes, 6-14-11, Draft Via Conference Call 9:00 am Members attending were: Bud Schindler, Allison Willing, Debbie Wardrop, Bill Roney, Diane Schostak, Joy Baisch joined at 10:10 am. Friends attending were: John Austin, Christina Pivarnik Staff: Kitti deLong Minutes, 5-10-11 Bud moved to accept the minutes. Debbie seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Financial Report, 5-10-2011 There were five Invoices this month: 1. Port Townsend Leader $1,450. Placement of Lodging List in Getaway Guide 2. InsideOut Solutions $ 25. Domain Registration for www.visitolympicpeninsula.com 3. OPVB, Portion of Spring Campaign $6,502.50 Includes: KINK-FM, ($2,750) KOMO-AM ($2.50) King5.com ($3,750) 2. OPTC, Joint Marketing Contract 1,915.69 3. Coordinator’s Services, mileage, supplies $823.68 Total: $10,716.87 Additions There were no additions. PT LTAC – Christina Pivarnik Wayfinding Project: The consulting team gave an update to City Council so the next step will be going into the design phase. Salish Ferry has been seen in Port Townsend and is doing crew training now. There will be a community celebration June 30, from 11-11:30 a.m. for the new ferry, with the date of the inaugural sailing to be announced later. The ferry Kennewick will be coming on later in the year. Both ferries have a special prop that helps with difficult winter weather. Webervations is up and running on EnjoyPT.com so people can book on line. This gives visitors an option for online bookings 24/7. If Jefferson County lodgings want to participate they should contact the Jefferson County Chamber. Right now, we have 16 accommodations. Public conference rooms are included. Also links to all lodgings websites are still included on PTGuide.com. Commissioner’s Update – John Austin There was a meeting at the West End at the Hoh Tribal Center. All furniture has been moved out in anticipation of building a new building outside of the flood plane. Gary Petersen is building a kiosk in honor of the Nicolai. Capital Works Budget funded the upgrade of Building 202 at Fort Worden to maintain historical condition. Windows will be put back into original configuration. The building will be available for students for the Goddard program as well as for the students partaking in the expanded BA degree from Peninsula College. Christina stated that Michelle Sandoval, David Timmons and Rick Sepler, as well as Kate Burke, Fort Worden Park Manager, and Tom Keegan from Peninsula College, went to Olympia multiple times to help make this happen. Port Townsend has contributed $500,000. Scott Wilson should get a “pat on the back” for his work in supporting this too. Debbie Wardrop stated that all three legislators wrote back to thank everyone for their interest. WSU: Funding for that program has not been found. John has been busy with the Board of Health. The Executive Director is retiring and the Board will have to find a replacement. Reservations for the ferry: John got a call from an old Army buddy who will be driving through Port Townsend. John suggested making a reservation on the ferry to him. He said he already had a reservation and he is from Rhode Island! So that reservation system is working if people on the East Coast know to use it. OPTC – Diane Victoria Campaign is under way, includes radio promotions, print ads and more. For $500, we have the same imagery happening on the Coho and Visitor Centers. Diane has a meeting this afternoon with Clallam County LTAC to talk about contributing to keeping the Hurricane Ridge Road open through the winter. OPTC has voted to commit $3,000 to the winter season. There needs to be a community match of $75,000. Last winter was a mixed bag as far as the number of days open. We need to work at this for a couple of years because it is impossible to get the word out in only one year. Rep. Tharinger asked if we would do a recreation trail. He evidently didn’t know that Diane has been working hard on the trails coalition. Christina was recently approached by the Discovery Trail group for funding for the website. There was a question whether that website was run by Freelock. They want $100 sponsorship just for a link to their site. Diane stated they are looking for partners who want exposure and want to support that site for the long term. The partners get the exposure, and the Trails Coalition gets the support for maintenance on the site. Waterfall Trail: Are adding Murhut and Rocky Brooke Falls to the line up. Will give more details next month. Bill stated that visitors from Canada were up more than 10% right now. Debbie also is seeing an increase in participation with golfing couples from Canada. Diane will add this as an agenda item for August. Bike Map – Bill Bill spoke to David McCulloch, who has just finished approving changes on the draft map. McCulloch does have the map on the website and it is working really well. Have had bike riders stop to pick up a hard copy after seeing the electronic version on the website. Bill feels this is a very important and effective piece. Printing is expected to be done at the end of this month. Stores of the old map are getting low. Activity Map – Bill The flat map is now at the VC. Will be able to pick up folded copies for mailing soon, which will be done certainly by the end of the month. There have been a few glitches in the printing process but they have been taken care of. Bill really likes the format on the back. Restaurants made a good addition, which stands out. Colors are good. It is a very popular piece at the VC’s. Christina stated that the Taste of PT was happening Thursday, June 16, from 4-7:30 with 12 restaurants participating. Wineries and Cideries will be at Manresa for tasting as well. Debbie Wardrop stated that the Tall Ships will be at Port Ludlow on the 16 for the th weekend with mock battles. Spring Campaign – Debbie Black Debbie has not put an official proposal together and wants direction. The Culinary Adventure did have a Grand Prize Winner, a couple from Bellevue who did visit all 12 destinations and answered all trivia questions as well. They have won the overnight stay at Port Ludlow. Chef Dan met them. This couple really enjoyed their adventure and wrote an article that is on the Seattle Dining site. Debbie will send that to us. Debbie is working with a budget of $27,000. The second half of the Culinary Adventure that was paid for with Spring Campaign funds will run between Sept. 1 and Nov. 30. Joy joined us at 10:10 am from Seattle due to an emergency. This time, we will take away any cost for mailing packets to people that register. Destination maps, coupons and information about the trivia questions will be downloaded into one PDF that we will promote to Seattle Dining. We want to make it available for free and give easy access to anyone who wants to participate. Will probably use the same 12 destinations as we used in the Spring Campaign because they didn’t get a fair shake, and then add three more destinations. These will tie into the trivia contest. Anyone who wants to participate in the trivia contest will have to register. Instead of mailing hard copies, we will make the info available electronically. We will be able to send entrants a link to the Trivia Questions and will also send them electronically a participant number that they will carry with them, which they will show at each destination and which we can track. Each participant will be required to visit 12 out of 15 destinations and will have to take a picture at each destination holding up a card that we will provide. The participants will not be able to look up the Trivia answers on line. We really want them to interact with people at each destination. They will then mail their answers to Seattle Dining. Each question correctly answered will be worth one point, and incentive points will be available by participating in events. We are thinking of having just one Grand Prize instead of having a separate prize for the Trivia Contest. Promotions: We will have another e-Blast via Seattle Dining in August. Debbie will write up another announcement, as last time and will probably add the article written by the couple who won the Spring Campaign promotion. Will have use of the electronic banners from Spring. Our hope is that the destinations will use those banners on each of their websites, as well. We will wrap the promotions into the other advertising we do in the fall campaign. Not all of the venues on the route were equally invested. Diane will send a monthly reminder to each venue. Let’s hope we will have better weather to improve participation in this activity. Diane thinks Debbie’s proposal is right on target. Diane suggested that we visit with the Culinary Association in a marketing meeting and ask them to put some resources toward this promotion. Christina agreed. The Culinary Loop does extend into Mason and Grays Harbor, so we will need to include them in the destinations. There was discussion about adding a couple of destinations in Grays Harbor. We already have a couple in Mason County that we can use. Christina suggested that since the Geoduck Tavern is one of the top 100 taverns in the country, we should include them. There was consensus to include the Geoduck Tavern. We will continue with radio outreach as we have done. We have established a strong relationship with the Fisher group now. We will also continue with the Portland radio contact and Debbie wants to continue the giveaways to complement that advertising. Debbie also wants to include Facebook advertising. There was discussion about the value of that. Debbie will be putting a specific proposal together in the next couple of weeks. WTA – Joy Discussion about how important this matter is and about what a membership costs, as well as how soon that needs to be paid. Diane made a motion to join WTA with $300 membership to come from the FAM Tour line item. Bill seconded. Motion passed unanimously. New Facility Familiarization – Joy There is no arm within our organization to provide education for new lodgings with the industry about the protocol for getting linked in. It would be good to create an opportunity to welcome new facilities and introduce them to what we are doing on the Peninsula. Discussion. Bill left at 10:47 am. This matter was moved to committee, which includes Joy, Diane, Allison, Debbie Wardrop, and Christina Pivarnik with a lunch meeting at Port Ludlow. Kitti will also attend. Next meeting: August 9, 2011, via conference call. There is no meeting in July! Motion to adjourn was made by Allison at 10:52 am. Next Meeting: August 9, 2011 via Phone Conference. There will is no meeting in July.