DBIA BOARD MEETING MINUTES Date: January 13, 2016 Meeting called by: Type of Meeting Place: Facilitator: Secretary: Andrew Stewart Board Meeting Conference Room Victoria Hall Andrew Stewart Sherry Shields Attachments: Coordinator's Report, Special Events Schedule Regrets: In Attendance: Andrew Stewart, Sherry Shields, Mike Dupuis, Debra McCarthy, Adam Bureau, John Henderson, Maggie Darling, Bart Spiewak Members/Guests: Lara Scott (Town of Cobourg), Sandra Topper (Bespoke) DBIA Meeting called to order at 8:50 a.m. Minutes for November and December motioned into record by Debra.. All in favor. Agenda motioned into record by Sherry. All in favor. Declarations of Conflict of Interest: None Guest Presentation: Lara Scott Lara came to fill the Board in on what the Town is working on for the coming year to let us know that she would like to keep communication flowing between us, and that she will assist Maggie in any way possible or provide contact information for who those who can help. Gave Maggie event application forms that we will need. This year the plan is for food type events and promotions. The Town is working on two events. Dine on Division in October and Taco Take Down. There are opportunities for funding from the province for these events and we hope to tie in restaurants with farmers/food vendors and even a walk downtown (with hopefully business for the merchants). If the events can be licensed then local breweries could be involved. Similar types of events have proven very successful in other towns/cities. The Lions will not be fencing the park this year for Waterfront festival. It will only be 3 days this year. A Committee for events, etc. for Canada s 150 th year will be set up soon. The Town would like to work with the DBIA again for Sandcastle. There will be fireworks again and a movies again. Movies on the beach will be back. Savory Sensations is starting. Lara said they are open to ideas if we feel there is something missing in the Community. A lot of people have asked about having a Christmas Market and they are looking into this with the possibility of having in downtown. Ideally building proper stalls would make for a better market and we may be looking at 2017 in order to build these properly. John provided Maggie with a hard copy of the permit package
Treasurer's Report: Mike The December month end financials are not yet ready. Council Report: Debra $100 event fee for the Lion's Club (Santa Claus Parade) - a Lion's member went to Mayor Brocanier and related that he didn't have to pay the fee that the parade was a DBIA event. The Lion's member was misinformed and Mayor Brocanier did not have all of the information at the time. This is their event and their fee to pay, we are sponsors only. there are employment grant opportunities - Debra provided Mike with the information package Debra recommended that we look at this as an opportunity for a summer student to help Maggie. Tourism office at the CCC is not an issue yet and would potentially only be an office for the Director of Parks and Rec at the CCC. Debra plans to spend Friday in the DBIA office working on policy and procedure updates. Council Report: John John provided Maggie with the most updated map of the DBIA area, for the office. Working on governance review John requested that the following announcement not be open for discussion or debate: As of January 11th's council meeting, it is official that the DBIA has two council members and the membership can have up to seven members. Council did it this way so that the members would always have quorum over council members. Hard copy provided to keep in the office. (Procedure was not followed according to DBIA and Town by-laws: 1) The DBIA Membership did not agree to change to composition of the Board and 2) Council Representatives did not inform the Board a by-law affecting the DBIA would be passed at a council meeting or that it was on the agenda for said council meeting.) Maggie, Mike and Andrew (vote for Mike and Andrew to do this was at the December meeting) were again asked to join John and CAO Stephen
Peacock on Friday to for discussion on the service responsibility list John has been putting together. The Board discussed possibilities for maintenance in the future. Special Events Report: Adam Motion: by Adam to accept the schedule date for events as presented (attached below). All in favour. Adam asked for $8000 for the Busker Festival. They need to start booking events. The event will just be during the day with a show at 6 or 6:30 instead of the 9 o'clock show in previous years. Motion: by Adam to set a budget of $8000 to be used for the Busker Festival. A discussion followed on the logistics of this. All in favour. Coordinator's Report: Maggie Maggie reviewed her report (attached below). John gave tentative dates of April 7th as the grand opening for Home Hardware and May 4 as the grand opening for CCI. From January 30 - February 5 2017 the Town of Cobourg will host the men's Tankard and women's curling tournament. discussion for changing back to the old logo delayed until the January 27th meeting. Dan from Dan's Books and Boards expressed an interest in joining the Board. Sherry offered to talk to him and explain the procedure of sending in an application. Our budget needs to be presented to council by February 22nd. February 10th set as tentative date for the AGM. Action Item: Maggie to book room at Victoria Hall for the AGM. Councillor Rickerby expressed (via the survey) an interest in joining the marketing committee. Due to a few personality issues in the
past Andrew (marketing chair) did not deem this a good idea and is to respond. New Business: Letter from Mr. Percolides. Mr. Percolides described a potential project wherein he would provide shopping dollars to his clients and the DBIA would promote it through advertising, etc. There is no money to support this and we need to respectfully decline. Action Item: Andrew and Maggie write letter of response for Board approval. Meeting Adjourned: Downtown Business Improvement Area Board Meeting. Special Events 2016 Calendar of Events needs approval review and motion Finalize names for following events: St. Patty s Day, Easter Egg Treasure Hunt, Holiday Passport program Busker Festival please review the following quotes and confirm (excel spreadsheet) Feel the Love Will take place on Saturday, February 13 from 10am 5pm Begun updating the poster and header and will put this out as soon as it is approved Will be begin to contact stores to see who is participating upon approval Contacted Poets in Cobourg Spaces to see if they would like to participate again Music will be on the street
Proposed DBIA skate beginning at 4pm I have asked the Town and no event permit is needed Adam contact Terry Dillon about DJing the skate Feel the Love polaroid board people can pose behind the polaroid and post to social media Marketing Website New Website I attended the Website writing seminar on Jan 6 in preparation for new website Town will be contacting me this week to begin preparing the content for our new page New website will allow us to partner with the Town for the use of their Business Directory (maintained by Town summer students) Current Website I was able to finally get onto our current website and begin updating some of the content All Board minutes are up to date Event photo gallery has been created Updated information about opening a business in Downtown as well as business related links Updating information in Business Directory Newsletter All businesses in the current membership listing will be available I would like to relaunch the newsletter this month Creating a monthly newsletter in electronic form that will be sent to all members of the DBIA, members of the community will also be able to subscribe to this newsletter through our website Quarterly newsletter available in print This will be distributed around to stores and will be available for pick up at the Tourism office, Town Hall etc.
Print Media Grapevine inquired about advertising with them Discussed with Erin Wakely and thought to use it as a possible outlet to promote Dine on Division/Harvest Festival weekend Beautification/Maintenance Phil continues to work approx. 10 hours a week on maintenance and beautification He is doing a great job and he has received positive comments while out and about Snow Clearing Issue need to continue to be addressed As of right now it is ok because much of the snow has melted, however need to have the issue sorted for when the snow returns Town staff should be made aware of who is responsible for snow clearing and that the DBIA does not own the parking meters Received by-law from Town regarding enforcement of by-law Christmas Lights Look into possible new programs Administration Inquire about update on office situation Sandy Topper interested in sitting on Board Dan from Dan s Books and Games also expressed an interest through the survey Theresa Rickerby interested in sitting on Marketing committee Inquire about progress of Marketing committee Saturday, February 13 Feel the Love Thursday, March 17 St. Patty s Day Saturday, March 26 Easter
Friday, May 13 Girl s Night Out Saturday, June 11 Busker Festival Thursday, July 28 Sunday, July 31 Sidewalk Sale Saturday, September 17 Harvest Festival Saturday, October 29 Halloween Trick or Treat Friday, November 25 VIP Night (Please note: Name will be changed) Nov. 25 Jan 4 Christmas Passport program One Saturday in December date TBA