MINUTES OF THE AGM MEETING
OF THE DOWNTOWN PORT PERRY BIA
HELD TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2008 AT 6:30 P.M.
At FRANCESCO’s Resturant
(Part one(1) of two(2))
PRESENT:
Chair Stewart Bennett
Treasurer Michelle Belair
Secretary (pending council approval) Birgitta McLeod
Board Members Dana Smith Michelle Belair
Lana Crosbie Terri Venner
Susan Clearwater
Julie Brock
BIA Members : Peter Hvidesten, Mary Anne Flemming, Tracy & Warren Strong, Ellca , Marilyn Youmans, Bill Minors, Jeremy Le Page, Betty Penny, Marcia Woods (taalwood media), Marina Brock, Mayor Pearce, Howard Hall, Carey Nicholson,
ALSO PRESENT:
General Manager Kenna Kozak
President of the Chamber & BIA member Tony Janssen
Mayor Pearce
ABSENT:
Board member – Christy
1. CALL TO ORDER
The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m.
Introduction of Mayor Pearce.
2. DISCLOSURE OF PECUNIARY INTEREST
Mayor Pearce - Congratulations to the BIA on another successful year and pulling it all together. There have been some excellent initiatives and strategic in place keeping the local initiatives in the forefront.
The Board of Directors completed some great enhancements for the downtown core with the addition of banners and benches and wonderful Hanging baskets in the spring/summer months.
The BIA had two members (Lana Crosbie and Dana McLeod ) on the Task force which just finished up last week with their recommendations going to council March 31st.
Thank you to President Stewart Bennett and the BIA Directors for their work on the BIA committees, keeping Port Perry the destination is has become.
Snow removal was expensive venture this week as all of the snow was removed from the downtown streets.
3. ADOPTION OF THE MINUTES
i Minutes of the AGM meeting 2007 of the Downtown Port Perry BIA held Feb 13th, 2007
RESOLUTION NO: 08- 013
Moved by: Bill Minors
Seconded by: Birgitta McLeod
THAT the Minutes of the AGM Meeting 2007 of the Downtown Port Perry BIA held February 13th, 2008 be approved.
Carried
4. BUSINESS ARISING OUT OF THE MINUTES
Nil
5. DEPUTATIONS
nil
6. REPORTS
i. President’s Report - Stewart Bennett
The snow has been expensive for store owners too.
Letter from Tom & Daphane Mitchell was presented & read aloud.
“letter”
It is good to see that there is not an empty store front currently on
Queen street. The BIA has to be united in their strategy to protect
business within the BIA, helping to keep the business strong.
I agree with the Tom Mitchell ( in reference to the letter) that
money needs to be spent in the BIA to make sure that the town continues to look great and to make the necessary improvements. Downtown Strategy – disappointed that we were not involved with the Walmart negotiations as other communities have had the chance to be part of the negotiating process with Walmart.
An economic development has now been developed to decide how
the funds are spent.
Mayor Pearce - How the funds are dispersed has not been decided yet.
Stewart Bennett –
Business last year was good and some great new people and businesses have come to Town, Adorn, Inspirations is expanding, C & Cobwebs moved into a bigger space, Set the Table, and Kenneth Bell are now here along with the opening of the Waterfront Diner. This creates a lot of excitement and is good for the township, promoting Port Perry.
ii. Advertising Report – Marcia Woods (media tracker attached)
- Review of the up-coming year and advertising strategy
- new areas have opened up expanding Zones of advertising and target markets. This will allow more penetration into areas to bring back repeat visitors and new day / overnight travelers.
- Advertising with CHEX tv this year to take advantage of the Olympic summer games there expecting high viewer ship during the games.
- Will be increasing our Coop advertising opportunities on the 20th of March launching “Make over my Mom” contest and taking advantage of a two for one advertising buy which helps to push the advertising up two weeks earlier than we otherwise could have.
Susan Clearwater – expressed a need to go past the Durham region and increase the ad strength by placing ads in magazines like House and Home. “We need to increase the funding in the advertising budget to help cover larger areas.”
Marcia – Mentioned the Toronto Start ads do bring a number of city visitors
and we have seen a good return on the advertising dollar.
- the BIA should not compete with other areas but distinguish itself as different
- looking at going after a demographic first and allocate a certain percentage to the local events
- It would not be good to “water down” ads to stretch dollars, then you would not have the same impact
- Be cautious about one-shot deals.
- Coop advertising helps to make the budget bigger.
- Only about 20% of the businesses are interested in Coop
Dana – “there is an issue which comes down to money that not all stores can afford it”
Susan – Walmart monies should be used to help bolster the advertising budget. We don’t want the downtown to be in a situation where they need to recover from the impact, but be proactive in increasing the advertising and stay ahead of the curve
Marcia - There needs to be the importance for all members to advertise
great to capture the opportunities but everything needs to be
sustainable we need to know what works and why
Teri - It tends to be the same businesses advertising. Businesses
that are not used to advertising maybe need help from other
businesses to plan ahead for the full year and set our their budgets to help anticipate advertising needs and costs.
Comments from members present
- It tends to be the same businesses advertising. Businesses that are not used to advertising maybe need help from other businesses to plan ahead for the full year and set our their budgets to help anticipate advertising needs and costs.
- advertising has large scope and reaching a wide audience
- business owners should possibly look at splitting an ad with their suppliers to help offset costs
- a number of businesses should get together and not wait for the BIA and be proactive in coop ads since the BIA have limited funds with a large portion of the advertising going to promoting downtown events.
- Need to advertising more locally not forgetting local residence
- Need residence to think local, shop local creating a culture and atmosphere for building on local events
- Businesses need to think what they can do for the BIA, the BIA budget cannot possibly do everything.
- Visitors to Port Perry come from all over
Lana - Toughest issue is to get the BIA member out to events to
help.
- There are great events to get involved with.
- Diva Night April 24, 2008, “Make over my Mom” contest in May8th, Moonlight Madness June 26, 2008, Movie Night August 21, 2008, Taste of Queen Oct 4th, 2008, Candlelight walk Nov 21, 2008.
- Going to put together a session on advertising for the BIA members.
Open discussion – Need to have after 5 meetings once a month
- get together and keep in touch with each other
- Adorn for April, May – Meta4
- Need to make products, service and staff the best they can be!
- Get back to the basics of great customer service, greeting customers, getting to know the staff
- Keep it simple and keep the core nice and clean
- Durham tourism is hosing a session on “How to host a good staff”
Dana/Lana
Downtown Task Force Review
- started in 2006 (Betty join us a bit later in the process)
- Felt like the taskforce accomplished a lot, great township staff to help with the process like Gene Chartier, John Sellers and the Mayor
- We are a bit frustrated with the processes ahead for implementation and how long it will take to put actions items into place.
Mayor Pearce - The list of action items will take about 3 years to
accomplish and an annual report will go back to the original DTT for review and to keep them updated.
(Question was raised if the BIA will see a Council
representative to attend meetings to be able to help with
communication.)
Mayor – A resolution from the BIA will need to be place to
request that a council member be a representative on the BIA. The best communications is through the minutes and
the resolutions.
Dana - “Looking back to 91 when there was a study with plans
with great ideas that were not implemented , worried that
“we” are spending 40 -50 k for studies with no results.”
Need to put that money into action.
Mayor - The Economic Development Committee will receive the recommendations and parks will take the lead for implementing the items over the next 5 years.
Lana - Great contribution from Gene to help us prioritize what needs to be done first. There are some great items on paper
Dana – in Area Development for the BIA we have had no money for larger
items
- the flower program has been great
- cleaning of the streets
- partnership with garbage pick up has improved
- refurbishing the benches needs to be completed
- new wreathes
- lamp post need to be repainted this year.
-
Betty – commented that her involvement on other Economic
Development Committees who primary focus was on the
viability studies, looking at employment, schooling, housing and
the work force.
Mayor – The DTT has recommended to council a number of items that
have a limited time to be implemented
- The EDC is based on the how the whole community is going to last, what kinds of things need to be done to be sustainable, to cope with the pressures that we have with no residential growth with the greenbelt surrounding the community
- The EDC will have input from the BIA, Chamber and steering committee on how the Wal-mart monies are spent.
iii. Treasurer’s Report - Michelle Belair
Review of past year 2007 was presented. The un-audited version was presented since the BIA Audit was still in progress at the time of the AGM meetings.
- BIA is just under budget,
- there is a surplus in capital which needs to build to help save up
for larger purchases.
All new lights will need to be purchase for lighting up the buildings at Christmas.
Need to paint lamp posts, refurbish benches and add more banners and flowers.
- the BIA is proposing a modest 5000.00 increase
- the Special events run from 4 – 12 000
- looking for sponsors this year to help promote events
- suggestion to rename some Captial expenditures to special projects heading to differentiate the “surplus” from the event costs
- If there are concerns throughout the year about the budget there are monthly meetings that anyone can attend
- A point was raised to show budget with a detailed break down.
- The detailed sheet is available at the centre, Kenna to send break down to members who were present
Peter - possibly look at way to save with the creative in the
advertising budget, we can look at using more local
publication’s creative.
Budget for 2008 was presented
It was reviewed by all and suggestions to bring a more detailed outline to the part two of the AGM with the budget breakdowns and how and where the “surpluses” were going to be spent to the next meet to vote on.
Stewart - We will be taking a recesses to look at all the new policies that
we have all not had a chance to review. Since we now need to
report publicly we need to follow new guidelines and reporting
structures. So the members need more time to review the by-
laws and we can move them forward when we reconvene. As
a BIA we would like to be more involved and informed of what
is happening in our township
Susan – A lot has happen in Port Perry, positive changes within the
town, but it is very important that we have good communication
in the coming years. The BIA and the Chamber have good
communication now and I propose a joint meeting to help each
other work together for a seem-less transition over the next few
years. That we should have a representative of the chamber
attend the BIA meetings and a member of the BIA attend the
Chamber meetings.
Tony Janssen- (Chamber President) I agree that would be a good
proposal one that the Chamber would be very interested in .
All organizations need to work as a team. Striving forward lets
Not worry about who is doing what. Worry about what our
games plans are and don’t look behind but move forward. I
think we can grow and I think we can do it together.
Mayor - the DTT was about fixing roads and parks and areas within
downtown. Each will have a public consultation and we cannot
spend the money until we have a public consultation. The
strategies will be on the website to view. There was excellent
communication on the task force and we have five years to
implement the ideas.
Stewart – Hopefully we can find the magic communication. We have
wonderful customers and business owners and the BIA needs
to work closer with the Chamber on Canada Day and Santa
Claus Parade.
6. RECESS until April 1, 2008 9:30 pm
