06 june 17 2014 RTMG board meeting minutes

Board of Directors Meeting Minutes June 17, 2014: 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Best Western Plus Hilltop

The regularly scheduled Redding Tourism Marketing Group quarterly board meeting was held on Tuesday, June 17, 2014 at Best Western Plus Hilltop in Redding. The meeting was called to order at 10:01 a.m. by Chairman Steve Gaines with the following Board members and guests present: David Grabeal – Vice Chair – Hampton Inn & Suites Steve Gaines- Chair- Best Western Plus Hilltop Ryan Rydalch – Secretary – Oxford Suites Chris Korologos – Past Chair—Red Lion Hotel Carol Mozingo – NonExpiring Board Member – Hilton Garden Brandi Merkel – NonExpiring Board Member—Holiday Inn Janelle Pierson – Officer At Large – Bridgehouse B&B Brady Stewart – Annual Board Member – Tiffany House B&B

Greg Clark – Deputy City Manager – City of Redding Ed Rullman – Attendee – Best Western Hilltop Will Hayward – Attendee – Win River Resort & Casino Tony Kilcollins – Attendee – Old Thyme B & B Kallie Markle – Attendee – CVB Chad New – Attendee – CVB Krista Budkel – Attendee - CVB Laurie Baker – Attendee - CVB

Introductions Confirm Quorum Yes – 8 voting members in attendance (6 is a quorum) Approval of Agenda Motion to approve passed with a unanimous vote Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes  Dave motioned to approve March 18th minutes adopted with a unanimous vote and signed by Secretary Ryan Rydalch.

Rae seconded. All approved, none opposed.

Presentations  Marketing update presented by Krista. No objections to the logo redesign. Ryan asks if buzz for Celebrate 10 equates to what was hoped/expected. Laurie says that journalists have been eager to cover it and she expects Celebrate 10 to move Redding to the forefront of people’s minds. Ryan asks if we have rights to video footage of the event, and Krista explains we do have videography that is being taken by Bethal, plus we will have our own photographer taking pictures.  The Marketing Plan was distributed and the board members were asked to review it and respond with any changes so an official copy can be forwarded to City of Redding .

Items  Redding Soccer Park Sponsorship o Eric Keating couldn’t attend the meeting, so Chris Korologos speaks on his behalf. Eric is having trouble getting soccer teams into town for tournaments. He feels if he can create more of a festive event, with a band as an example, he could increase room nights. Larger tournaments could equate to 400-800+ room nights per three day tournament. Would the RTMG like to sponsor tournaments at $4,000-6,000/each? Steve tables the issue until the budget discussion.

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Turtle Bay Sign o The Executive Board (Dave, Steve, and Ryan + Laurie) met with Turtle Bay Exploration Park to discuss the possibility of helping them pay for the new sign. Once TBEP determined cost of the sign, RTMG’s help was not needed.

Hilltop Drive Banners o Kool April Nites, Sundial Film Festival, and Big Bike Weekend all have banners. Kool April Nites’ banners didn’t get put up for the 2014 event. Steve would like RCVB, rather than City of Redding, to be the clearing house for the banners. Greg Clark said he would be willing to work with RCVB on a process.

Elections o Steve presents the following nominations:  Dave Grabeal as Chair  Ryan as Vice Chair  Janelle as Treasurer  Dave Creager as Officer at Large  Brandi as Officer at Large.  Ed nominates Carol for Secretary, she accepts.  Vote: all in favor of all nominations.

Budget o Laurie presents the proposed budget. Leftover money in the TMBID will roll over into the proposed 2014/15 budget. Per the city, 25% (or $233,000) goes to marketing, but Laurie would like to put $335,000 towards marketing. o Laurie and Chad explain the benefits of the interactive map. Ed wonders if the hotel desk clerks having tablets with the map on them would be beneficial. Could CVB train desk staff on using it? Laurie says CVB would support that idea of training, but to get tablets would have to be investigated. o Greg asks if our webcam feature could also integrate Whiskeytown and CalTrans’ webcams so that visitors could check out different areas around Redding. Laurie says it’s a matter of software and we can look into that. o Steve asks about JackRabbit’s value. Laurie explains that it’s not where we want it to be, but we’re not ready to get rid of it yet. o Consumer Shows: Ed asks if we could do something with Skyway. Chad is going, but not with a booth. o The TMBID contract is ending 12/2015: the Redding city attorney will handle it, instead of a more costly attorney specializing in TMBIDs. Ed clarifies that it’s just a rewrite of our contract. Greg says he doesn’t think Prop 216 will hamper us like it has other TMBIDs. Dave G. thinks we might want to raise the amount of our legal money line item just in case. Janelle clarifies that we’ll have another few months of budget before the contract is up in Dec 2015, so not all of the funding needs to come from 2014/2015. o Laurie explains that RCVB needs another staff member to achieve its goals. Steve questions the rollover of TMBID this year and the certainty of funds being available for a new person without the rollover. Laurie is confident it won’t be a problem. Steve agrees that RTMG has added to CVB’s workload and wonders if the relationship with the SCWA could mean potential for shared labor or ad hoc work. Ed wonders if it would be beneficial to use Lisa where Chad or Krista would be going to a consumer show. Laurie explains that everyone is overworked when it comes to trade shows and Lisa already works the consumer shows. Dave believes investments like employees can pay back in spades. Ryan and Steve ask what the job description would be.

Laurie says that the work in Groups warrants another person but also wants someone who could deal with the RTMG stuff. Maybe a ‘Destination Coordinator’. o Ryan asks how it’s been going with Catalyst. Laurie explains Catalyst did some good work, but they could have done a better job in other areas. Steve clarifies that the $65,000 under PR is not Catalyst. Ed asks what we paid them last year: $63,000 retainer + about $40,000 for media buy and about $30,000 for production. o Local marketing:  Steve clarifies that the Hilltop banners would fall under local marketing.

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Ryan asks how the C10 and Public Access money fits into next year’s budget, since we were going to split those up. Laurie explains that she made it work out of 13/14 and we don’t need to take money from 14/15.  Ed says that we’re going to be approached by Kool April Nites and we need to be prepared to take care of them. After much discussion, it was decided to put $10,000 aside to assist with Kool April Nites from the $45,000 local marketing line item. Laurie explains that RTMG’s ideas (like helping Kool April Nites) are great, but the community will have its own ideas for requests, therefore she and Chad are working on parameters for requests.  The Soccer Park sponsorship idea was re-tabled and Ryan thinks sponsoring a tournament at the soccer park is worth a try.  Ryan asks if we’re going to sponsor the tourism summit again next year and if we should line item that.  Chad asks if we need to set parameters on how RTMG’s sponsorship money is used or if we just give it without knowing the specifics of how it will help with Redding’s marketing goals. It’s agreed that it’s a case-by-case situation, beyond major parameters.  Luis Miramontes: last year RTMG gave $10,000 as a hospitality sponsor. Ed thinks the intent was that the event would generate outside interest and establish Redding as a medical hub, and that’s probably a few years away. Janelle observes that groups who support medical causes have a lot of money, but other, non-medical efforts don’t have deep pocket supporters. Laurie sees a level of responsibility from the CVB office that comes with the money. Chris sees it as a huge niche market, but hard to measure/comprehend. Steve admits it’s a test without easy numbers attached to it. Ed and Brandi share that the hospitals are in their top 5 customers.  Dave motions, pending review by executive committee, the board give the executive committee authorization to approve a $10,000 sponsorship for the Luis Miramontes Foundation, motion seconded o Vote: 7 approved, none opposed, Steve abstained, motion passes  Janelle motions for a $10,000 contribution to Kool April Nites, motion seconded.  Vote: All approve, Brady opposes just for the sake of being different. (all laugh at his joke), motion passes  Chris motions for a Soccer Park sponsorship of 5,000, motion seconded.  Vote: All approved, none opposed, none abstained  Ryan motions for $6,000 sponsorship of the SCWA Tourism Summit, motion seconded.  Vote: 8 approved, 0 opposed, 0 abstained Steve requests a motion to approve the proposed budget with today’s additions and corrections. Dave motions, Brady seconds. All approved, none opposed.

Adjournment o

Meeting is adjourned at 12:03 p.m.