Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004 Convention And Vistors Bureau . ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday January 13, 2004 8:00 a.m. Marriott Courtyard Conference Room 2175 Marriott Drive (Route 31) West Dundee, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube - President 2. INTRODUCTIONS Ann Laube - President 3. AUDIT PRESENTATION AND APPROVAL Nancy Guthrie 4. CONSENT AGENDA: A. APPROVAL OF DECEMBER MINUTES B. APPROVAL OF NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER FINANCIALS 5. NEW BUSINESS • By-Laws Proposed Changes and Approval • Board Nominations, 2004 Elections and Approval 6. OLD BUSINESS • Village Updates Kimberly Bless 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff Option to enter closed session. r 7. REPORTS • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce • City of Elgin • Ex-Officio Members 8. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites - Elgin 9. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION! r r of neric a -i 'jt Northam Fox Riper+ Ualiey of Illinois Elgin Area Convention **and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of January 13, 2004 Held at Marriott Courtyard, West Dundee, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Robert Gilliam, Annie Kaser, Scott Lager, Ann Laube, Don MacBean, Norma Miess, Leo Nelson,. Lynea Strassman and Peggie Stromberg ABSENT: Sean Stegall, Rolf Tweeten and Paula Wyatt EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: Karri Klemmer&Linda Hagopian, Courtyard by Marriott STAFF: Kim Bless, Ben Benson, Barb Faga, Jayne McGrath and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: Newspaper article from Betty Brown on Lynch print unveiling, Lynch painting event budget and copy of Sales Manager press release. Various Sales reporting system reports, impact formula reports and updated Sports Facility Guide. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:10 am. Laube thanked Karri Klemmer and the Marriot Courtyard for hosting our Board Meeting. PRESENTATION: Nancy Guthrie, CPU presented the Financial Statements 2003 Audit reports. A motion to approve the Audit was made by MacBean. Lager seconded. Motion carried. CONSENT AGENDA: A motion to approve the Consent Agenda was made by MacBean, Strassman seconded. Motion carried. r Continued Page Two • Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of January 13, 2004 NEW BUSINESS: • By-Laws - Laube reported that the Executive Committee has started to review the current by-laws. Laube and Bless reviewed the proposed changes to Article V-Officers by-laws, including adding members to the Executive Committee: Past President, President Elect and separating the positions of Secretary and Treasurer and having the City Council Member as a voting member. Following a brief discussion, a motion to approve the proposed changes was made by Nelson. Lager seconded. Motion carried. The Executive Committee will continue to review and propose changes to the by-laws and bring to the Board for review and approval. The process is slow and educational at the same time. . • Nomination Committee- Laube shared that the committee had their meeting. Laube asked if anyone had any nominations they wanted to bring before the board. None were presented. Ballots were distributed for the board members to vote on two individuals to serve a two-year term to the EACVB Board of Directors. The ballots listed Laube, MacBean and room for a write in candidate. Directors will be chosen by a majority of the vote by the existing board of directors. Ballots were collected and counted by Schultz and Laube and MacBean were unanimously elected by the board. Leo Nelson, as a Chamber appointment and Sean Stegall, as a City appointment, have agreed to stay on the Board for an additional term. Next, ballots were distributed to the board members to vote for the 2004 Slate of Officers. Following were the nominees listed: President—Laube, President-Elect, Kaser, Treasurer— Strassman, Secretary—Stegall and room for a write in candidate. Ballots were collected and counted by Schultz. All listed candidates received the required majority 7 votes to be elected. The Nomination Committee of Lager, Laube, Kaser, Stegall and Strassman will be meeting again to fill the vacancy left open with losing Pat Arnold effective with her term ending December 2003. They are planning on filling this vacancy shortly after interviewing a candidate they are very much interested in as an addition to the Board. The Nomination Committee will keep the board informed during this process. OLD BUSINESS: Bless shared that she was pleased with her prior evening presentation to the West Dundee Board of Trustees. Her presentation was for their review and consideration for funding the EACVB efforts with hotel/motel tax in the future. She acknowledged all the people that supported her that were in attendance at the presentation as well as those who submitted written letters to the Village officials. Bless is hopeful of the vote outcome which is scheduled soon. Their fiscal year starts in May. Bless stated she is positively optimistic. Algonquin will be the next village to pursue the hotel/motel tax. Bless stated that she had heard from Hampshire and they are working with an attorney in preparing to disburse the hotel/motel taxes they are collecting and have committed to the EACVB. Bless also recently met with the Mayor of Bartlett and was very pleased with their meeting. She feels good about the relationships she is developing with the villages and looks forward to working with each of them. Continued Page Three • Page Three-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of January 13, 2004 Bless is continuing her meetings with the remaining villages she has not yet had the opportunity to meet with. The only two villages Schultz still needs to schedule a meeting for Bless are Carpentersville and Huntley Bless also wanted to share that Stromberg and Brewer have been extremely helpful in the McHenry County issues and keeping us in the loop. Stromberg reminded Bless that Woodstock voted down putting a hotel/motel tax in place for their community. Bless was also asked if a program is being put together for other communities and she states absolutely and they are working on this now. As soon as something is put together, it will be presented to the Board. Brewer also shared that the McHenry County Tourism Board is putting together an information piece for the area. Bless then stated that after the board members completed her survey regarding the meeting day, the majority agree that the meeting day will remain the second Tuesday of each month at 8:00 a.m. 2004 meeting dates report were included in each board members packet. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless—She also wanted to inform the board that the 2nd quarter State Report is being worked on and is due by the end of the month. Faga and Bless will be working on this report this week to complete the report. • Staff: Faga reminded everyone to submit their calendar of events items. She also shared a concern she has with the Parks and Recreation area of the City of Elgin. She shared a specific issue she is working on. There will be a group of approximately 300 people coming for a weekend. They wanted to reserve an area in the park; however, Parks &Rec. could not do that more than 2 weeks before the event if they were not a resident of Elgin. Therefore, Faga personally reserved the space for the group because she lives in Elgin. This group will be reserving at least 150 hotel rooms for the weekend and the economic impact on the city will be measurable. Faga is planning on discussing this matter further with Stegall. McGrath briefly discussed the handouts she gave out today. She also shared that the first 100 Lynch prints have been sold and we are now working with the City of Elgin to purchase the remaining prints we have on consignment. McGrath also asked everyone if they had received the new newsletter. All stated they had and complimented her on a nice newsletter. She also briefly discussed the sales of the Venture's ads and the distribution information. Benson updated the Board on several pending contracts of sports groups coming to the area He also shared that he is planning a Director of Sales Meeting with all the hotel DOS's in the near future. Further discussion on the importance of keeping the lines of communication open with all venues in the area and how vital it is to all business. Benson stated he would be creating a Convention Calendar in the future and that way everyone will be able to see when events are coming up. Bless also added that email is a wonderful way of keeping lines of communication open with large groups. Benson will keep everyone informed of the groups coming into the area. Continued Page Four • Page Four-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of January 13, 2004 REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they are looking forward to their Dinner Dance and Auction that will be held on 2/14/04 at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites. They are planning on putting together several hotel packages for the event also. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—Nelson shared that their Business Expo is February 20 and 21, 2004 at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites. Their Annual Dinner will be February 24th and Bob Love will be the guest speaker. Bob Love is former star of the Chicago Bulls during the 1970's. • City of Elgin—None • Board Member Comments: Miess shared that the City of Elgin's first official 150th Anniversary event will be February 28, 2004. There will be tours of the city beginning this week also. Strassman shared that she will not be able to attend the September 2004 EACVB Board Meeting due to a schedule conflict. MacBean shared that the Trolley will be increasing events this year by 50%. Kane County Forest Preserves are working on Partnership Programs and he suggested that this might be something that the EACVB would help market. He also shared that the Fall Harvest Festival will be coming this year. • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that the Algonquin/LITH Chamber will be hosting their Annual Dinner on January 31, 2004. They also are planning on having a ' Leadership Summit in the next few months. She will keep us informed. PUBLIC COMMENTS: None ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 8:00 AM. Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, Elgin, IL ADJOURN: Laube motioned to adjourn, MacBean seconded. Meeting adjourned at 9:45 a.m. Respectfully submitted, C7/0.fe it ,456ods.... Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director nes a ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday February 10, 2004 8:00 a.m. Holiday Inn and Suites 495 Airport Road,I-90 and Route 31 Elgin, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube- President 2. INTRODUCTIONS Ann Laube 3. NOMINATION OF NEW BOARD MEMBER Ann Laube Jim Pratt— General Manager/Algonquin Commons 4. CONSENT AGENDA: A. APPROVAL OF JANUARY MINUTES B. APPROVAL OF JANUARY FINANCIALS 5. NEW BUSINESS • Presentation by on H/M tax Sean Stegall • Update on open staff position Kimberly Bless 6. OLD BUSINESS • Village Updates Kimberly Bless 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff Option to enter closed session. 7. REPORTS • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce • City of Elgin • Ex-Officio Members 8. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, March 9, 2004 Elgin City Hall, 2"d Floor Conference Room - Elgin 9. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION! r r 4:21 of America _l'� \or*.he:n Fos kivera i �iillec of Illinois Elgin Area Convention **and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of February 10, 2004 Held at Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Annie Kaser, Scott Lager, Aim Laube, Don MacBean, Norma Miess, Leo Nelson, Sean Stegall, Lynea Strassman and Paula Wyatt ABSENT: Robert Gilliam, Peggie Stromberg and Rolf Tweeten EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: None STAFF: Kim Bless, Ben Benson, Barb Faga and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: Map showing the 14 Communities serviced by the EACVB, Monthly Sales Activity and Production Report, Convention Calendar, Ventures Spring/Summer Ad Report, EACVB 2004 Meeting Dates & Locations listing and a copy of the McHenry County Business Journal article announcing Benson as new Sales Manager. Copy of EACVB Board of Directors completed application and resume from nominee James M. Pratt. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:06 am. NOMINATION OF NEW BOARD MEMBER- Laube presented James M. Pratt, Senior Property Manager, Algonquin Commons for service on the EACVB Board. Strassman made a motion to appoint candidate Pratt to the Board of Directors. Seconded by Kaser. Board of Directors Roll Call was officially taken. 8 -Yes, 0 -No. Motion carried. As part of an ongoing process for Board development, Annie Kaser has agreed to be Pratt's mentor. CONSENT AGENDA: A motion to approve the Consent Agenda was made by MacBean, Kaser seconded. Motion carried. Continued Page Two Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of February 10, 2004 NEW BUSINESS: • Working Budget—Bless distributed a copy of the working budget she has been working on and reviewed the budget with the Board line by line. Several questions were discussed and answered. • Hotel/Motel Tax Presentation — Stegall distributed and briefly reviewed a copy of the City of Elgin breakdown for the 2003 hotel/motel payments to the EACVB. Stegall also confirmed that the EACVB will receive $100,000.00 thru the PSA Agreement that the CVB will use for the 2004-2005 fiscal year. • Update on open staff position —Bless shared that her interviewing is going well and she is planning on making a decision prior to her leaving on vacation. She would like the new Public Relations Director to start March 1, 2004. OLD BUSINESS: Bless shared that she is keeping in close contact with Hampshire and they continue to be in the process of preparing to disburse the hotel/motel taxes they are collecting and have committed to the EACVB. West Dundee is still pending approval. Bless anticipates receiving a decision in March or early April. Bless was pleased to share that she has completed all her village visits except for Carpentersville, which she and Schultz will continue to pursue to schedule. Written letters were sent to the Village President and the Village Administrator. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless—She informed the board that the 2nd quarter State Report has been completed and mailed to the State. • Staff: Benson discussed the Convention Calendar that he has put together. He also shared his newly designed Monthly Sales Activity and Production Measurement Report he developed. Faga shared that she is in the process of working on getting a silent auction basket together for the Governors Conference coming up. She mentioned that if anyone wanted to contribute to the basket, it would very much be appreciated. Schultz had nothing more to add to her written report. REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they are looking forward to their Dinner Dance and Auction that will be held on 2/14/04 at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites. They have had a very good response. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—Nelson shared that their Cabin Fever Expo is February 20 and 21, 2004 at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites. He also shared that they are very encouraged with the Harley Davidson moving in and bringing in a great deal of business to the area. Economic Development is working with two German developers that are looking at coming into our area. Also, Bank One and Motorola are still expanding their operations. • City of Elgin—None Continued Page Three Page Three-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of February 10, 2004 • Board Member Comments: Miess shared that their National Main Street Conference will be taking place soon and she hopes that someday it could be held in Elgin. She also shared that she will be attending the Tri State Conference in Galena and that a Main Street Day in Springfield is coming up. She also shared that the Mexican community may be hosting Dignitaries here in Elgin. DNA is also proposing an August Elgin Fest that would include the International Bike Race, carnival and a Taste of Elgin. MacBean shared that he is on the South Elgin Riverfest Committee and the Riverfest will be bigger than ever this year. They will be increasing food vendors by 25 % and a larger fireworks display. He also shared that the Trolley Newsletter has become their marketing tool and reaching a wide range of people. Fox River Trolley Museum is being looked at more of a Museum, as it should, rather than just a Trolley Train. Kaser was very pleased to share that the 2nd Winefest was approved and they were given the go ahead to proceed with their planning. • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that the Algonquin/LITH Chamber Expo was a success. She also stated that she was very pleased that she currently has four people on her tourism committee. Also, the McHenry County tourism meeting is coming up and she is planning on attending. PUBLIC COMMENTS: None ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - 8:00 AM. Elgin City Hall, 2nd Floor Conference Room - Elgin, IL ADJOURN: MacBean motioned to adjourn, Strassman seconded. Meeting adjourned at 9:12 a.m. Respectfully submitted, oilista Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director nes ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday March 9, 2004 8:00 a.m. Elgin City Hall 150 Dexter Court Elgin, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube—President 2. WELCOME— • JIM PRATT, GENERAL MANAGER OF THE ALGONQUIN COMMONDS SHOPPING CENTER • BRENT EDWARDS, PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTOR 3. INTRODUCTIONS Ann Laube 4. CONSENT AGENDA: A. APPROVAL OF FEBRUARY MINUTES B. APPROVAL OF FEBRUARY FINANCIALS 5. NEW BUSINESS • Proposed Budget Cuts/Springfield Kimberly Bless • Finance Committee/Budget Timeline Kimberly Bless 6. OLD BUSINESS • Village Updates Kimberly Bless 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff Option to enter closed session. r 7. REPORTS • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce • City of Elgin • Ex-Officio Members 8. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 9. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION! r r of nerlea �iNo\'ali Fox to o s a Valid-of Illino Elgin Area Convention "*and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of March 9, 2004 Held at Elgin City Hall, Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Robert Gilliam, Ann Laube, Don MacBean, Jim Pratt, Sean Stegall, Peggie Stromberg and Rolf Tweeten and Paula Wyatt ABSENT: Annie Kaser, Scott Lager, Norma Miess, Leo Nelson and Lynea Strassman EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: None STAFF: Kim Bless, Ben Benson, Brent Edwards, Barb Faga and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: Affordable Meetings information for upcoming event at Navy Pier, EACVB 2004-2005 Tradeshow Targets listing, Proposed 2004/2005 Budget Timeline and a copy of the LTCB FY 2004 - Destination Credits from the Illinois Bureau of Tourism. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:07 am. At this time, Laube and Bless introduced the newest member of the CVB's Board of Directors, Jim Pratt, General Manager of the Algonquin Commons Shopping Center. She also introduced the CVB's newest team member, Brent Edwards, Public Relations Director. Following brief comments from both gentlemen, the remaining introductions were made by all present. PRESENTATION—None CONSENT AGENDA: Bless briefly discussed the financials and their current status and objectives. A motion to approve the Consent Agenda was made by MacBean, Stromberg seconded. Motion carried. r E Continued Page Two • ,Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of March 9, 2004 NEW BUSINESS: • Proposed Budget Cuts/Springfield—Bless discussed the emails that she shared with the board members regarding the Governor's proposed budget cut of 50% from the Illinois Tourism budget, which would mean a 50% cut in each CVB Budget and the potential elimination of Regional Tourism Offices. This would be devastating to the industry and the 39 CVB's across the State. They are looking at cutting $24,000,000 from the convention bureaus, resulting in a decrease in revenues of$163,000,000 and potentially having an impact of 30,000 jobs lost in Illinois. Therefore, this item will be Bless' number one priority in the next few months. They will be doing a bus blitz to the surrounding counties, Tourism Summit on 3/22/04 in partnership with St. Charles and Aurora, Letter Campaign to Legislators and visits to Springfield to meet directly with Legislators. It is a battle that needs to be pursued and fought. It will be a long battle but it is one that we are up to the challenge and will be fighting. Our elected officials need to be educated on the potential impact on the entire State income with a cut in tourism dollars. Huge loses could be seen in tourism and retail as well. We will be focusing on Cook, DuPage, Kane and McHenry Counties. Bless is participating in many conference calls on this matter and will keep the board informed. Tourism has an impact in every county across the State. Stromberg reminded Bless that Representative Munson is on the Tourism Committee. Stegall suggested that we may do well by spending a day in Springfield going office to office in the Stratton Bldg. He also suggested that they bring an elected official with them if and when they go. It would help immensely to get into see many of the legislators if they had an elected official with them for the day. They hardly ever turn down seeing an elected official that comes to their office. • Finance Committee/Budget Timeline—Bless put together an estimated proposal for the budget and distributed to the board. They would like a budget in place and approved by the Board in June, so our fiscal year will be ready by July lst. The challenge will be the state may not know at that time what we will receive in a grant. Therefore, we will have to proceed with the budget under the worst case scenario that we are cut by 50%. We are currently working on a proposed budget that Bless will be bringing to the April Executive Committee Meeting. Both Benson and Edwards are working on a PR marketing plan to support that as well as Benson working on a Sales marketing plan. Trade Shows have been targeted, what our expected return is and what our costs will be involved. We need to justify those shows that we are going to and the advertising that we are doing and make sure that we are engaging in the best avenues that we can to get our name out there as best as possible. The preliminary budget will be brought to the Executive Committee in April to be reviewed by the Executive/Finance Committee and make suggestions and the budget will continued to be worked on. It will be brought back in May to review and hopefully approve and then brought before the Board at the June Meeting for final budget approval. r Continued Page Three— Page Three-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of March 9, 2004 OLD BUSINESS: Bless shared that she is keeping in close contact with Hampshire and we should be hearing something soon as to the amount they will be committing to the EACVB. West Dundee is still pending approval. Bless anticipates this item being on the April agenda and that we should have a decision by May. It has the recommendation of the Mayor and the Village Manager. A discussion followed regarding the percentage the CVB receives from the various cities/villages, if any at this time, and what we need to work towards in the future. All agree that the goal is to have parity and we need to concentrate on getting basic approvals from any of the other communities. Our next goal is to get Algonquin on board to work with us and that we are fortunate to have Pratt on our Board now to help work with the Algonquin leaders and help them understand the importance of the participation with the Bureau. Once we get Algonquin on board with us, we will have all the communities that currently have hotels working with us. Then in the long term, the communities that potentially may have hotels built in the future, have a hotel/motel tax in place that once hotels go up, the monies are funneled to the Bureau. The main current objective is to get these communities to engage financially first and foremost because we currently do not have anything from them. Following this conversation, a brief discussion followed on the need to have each community to contribute and participate somehow besides hotel/motel tax. In other CVB's, participating businesses pay a fee to be a member of the Bureau based on a predetermined amount depending on your business type. Tweeten feels strongly that this is a major way that the bureau should be funded in the future. Bless agreed with Tweeten fully. She stated that this is something that as a bureau we need to look at, that we become an organization that you have to "pay to play". It is an additional revenue source that we do not have right now and Tweeten is absolutely right, that there are other CVB's that operate as membership based, in fact, most do. However, we need to be careful as to "'' how we phrase these revenue based partnerships. We do not want to be in competition with other organizations that charge membership fees. However, the reality is the expense of doing business has gone up extensively and we cannot afford to market hundreds of businesses without financially getting contributions from them. This is part of the reason we brought Edwards to our team with his sales background. Bless feels it is critical, as we go forward, that we do have that "pay to play". This is something we need to work on and develop as an additional source of revenue for both partnership fees and tiered memberships, including options like ventures ads, meeting planner guide, website, etc. We can make one single annual fee depending on each organization. Obviously this needs to be worked on and developed and it will be a priority in the months ahead. Bottom line, we need to find other revenue sources. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless—Shared that she sent an email to the Board requesting ideas and suggestions for presentations. Laube, Stromberg and Bless had a meeting and several good ideas were shared for presentations in the future. All agreed that it was a good idea to bring additional resources and information to the Board. Pratt will be doing a presentation in August on Algonquin Commons, Stromberg suggested a presentation on the Riverfront development and Bless will organize this with Stegall. She is hoping on have an information presentation at each Board Meeting in the coming year. Continued Page Four- Page Four-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of March 9, 2004 • Staff: Benson shared that he will be holding a Director of Sales Meeting next week and hope to get their input on the sales efforts of the CVB. He also distributed a copy of info on Affordable Meetings that is coming up and they are looking at a good mix of trade shows coming up for our destination. Our attendance will depend on our budget dollars. A new tradeshow booth has been developed and ordered for these future shows. Tradeshows are vital to our marketing plan. REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they are focusing on a resolution to support the CVB with these suggested tax cuts. They will take a stand as an organization knowing that these tax cuts will hurt our member businesses. Their Economic Development General membership meeting will be taking place this month, both Dundee's, Carpentersville and Sleepy Hollow will be doing their presentations on their current economic development plans and what has occurred over the last year. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—None • City of Elgin— Stegall shared that they are continuing to work on the redevelopment of the Elgin Mental Health Center,working with the Governors office. Continuing working on the Riverfront project and the far west development. Bless asked if the PSA will be on the agenda for this month. Stegall stated that he is hoping for the last week in March or first week in April. Bless then shared with Gilliam that we are all happy to see him and have him back and looking wonderful. Bless then shared at this time that we are in the process of recertifying with the state and obtaining letters from each city/village stating they would like for the EACVB to continue representing their community. We have all but four and expect them to be in shortly. • Board Member Comments: MacBean shared that he is on the South Elgin Riverfest Committee attended a seminar put on by the Chicago Southland Convention and Visitors Bureau. They attended the tradeshow part of the program. He questioned if the seminar and tradeshow would be something worth the EACVB looking into hosting. Bless asked MacBean if she could look at the materials to review. MacBean will drop them off at the EACVB. • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that the Algonquin/LITH Chamber will be starting a 10 month Leadership conference in May. June 12th weekend, the Lions Club will have its first Uphill Race and that same weekend will also be the beginning of Port Edwards 40th Anniversary Celebration. She also stated that she was very pleased that she currently has four people on her tourism committee. Also, the McHenry County tourism roundup is planned and she continues to attend the meetings. Bless shared that if the tourism dollars are cut, there will not be any dollars for any startup CVB's. Brewer shared that she just does not understand why they would not just join in with the EACVB. Stromberg reminded everyone that when Woodstock voted 5 to 0 against implementation of a hotel/motel tax, this was a blow to the McHenry County tourism efforts. Bless thanked Brewer for all her efforts and time spent working with the McHenry County tourism board. Continued Page Five- Page Five-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of March 9, 2004 PUBLIC COMMENTS: None ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 8:00 AM. Camp Tu-Endie-Wei - Elgin, IL ADJOURN: MacBean motioned to adjourn, Gilliam seconded. Meeting adjourned at 8:56 a.m. Respectfully submitted, 7e0;eire644--- Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director nes r ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday April 13, 2004 8:00 a.m. YMCA of Elgin/Camp Tu-Endie-Wei 6N921 Route 25 Elgin, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube—President 2. INTRODUCTIONS Ann Laube- President • Board introductions • Introduction and welcome from board meeting host—Jill Rudolph 3. CONSENT AGENDA • APPROVAL OF MARCH MINUTES • APPROVAL OF MARCH FINANCIALS 4. NEW BUSINESS 5. OLD BUSINESS • Village Updates Kimberly Bless • Proposed Budget Cuts Update Kimberly Bless a. Video Presentation and Handout 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff Option to enter closed session. 7. REPORTS • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce • City of Elgin • Ex-Officio Members 8. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 7�* ** llce*'# „di of America rr■aa alicv cf[liineis Elgin Area Convention **and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of April 13, 2004 Held at Camp Tu-Endie-Wei, YWCA of Elgin, Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Annie Kaser, Scott Lager, Ann Laube, Don MacBean, Norma Miess, Leo Nelson Jim Pratt, Sean Stegall, Peggie Stromberg, Lynea Strassman and Paula Wyatt ABSENT: Robert Gilliam and Rolf Tweeten EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: None STAFF: Kim Bless, Ben Benson, Barb Faga and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: Information for the upcoming Springfield Lobby Day. Recent copies of several newspaper articles. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:10 am. At this time, Bless introduced Jill Rudolph, Director of Camp Tu-Endie-Wei and thanked her for hosting our Board Meeting. PRESENTATION—Ms. Rudolph gave a description of the camp and the facilities the Camp has to offer. She also offered to give a tour of the Camp following the Board Meeting. CONSENT AGENDA: Bless discussed the financials and their current status and objectives. Several questions were asked and Bless gave an explanation for each question and reviewed several items that needed to be adjusted. She assured the Board that the budget will be balanced by the end of the fiscal year. A motion to approve the Consent Agenda was made by MacBean, Stromberg seconded. Motion carried. Continued Page Two Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of Apri113, 2004 NEW BUSINESS: None OLD BUSINESS: • Village Updates -Bless shared that she has heard from Hampshire and has received a letter of intent confirming the hotel/motel tax for the EACVB. Going forward, this letter was sent into the state along with the letter from Elgin for our recertification with the State. She also shared that their Village attorney has prepared an ordinance for the tax distribution and the finance committee will be reviewing and it will be recommended at the next meeting in mid April. This is just a formality and once approval is finalized, the check distribution will take place. West Dundee is currently working on their budget process and has included the hotel/motel tax in the new budget for our CVB. The issue is still pending approval. Bless reconfirmed that this item will be on the April agenda and that we should have a decision by May 1st. 2004 which is when their fiscal year begins. Once West Dundee is finalized, the next few months Bless will dedicate much of her time working with the Algonquin leaders to establish a partnership and educating them to understand the importance of partnering with our CVB. • Proposed Budget Cuts Update—Bless updated the Board on the Governor's proposed budget cuts in tourism. She first thanked everyone for their support and efforts regarding the Governor's budget cut of 50% across the board for CVB's and RTDO's in Illinois. There are 39 Convention Bureaus and 6 RTDO's around the state. The RTDO's will suffer the biggest effects with this proposed budget. Unfortunately, there will be many communities not covered by any tourism agency if these cuts go through as the RTDO's would go away. Several CVB's may also have to close their doors. Several CVB's rely heavily on State funds. Our bureau is looking at a potential cut of$77,000 not including the Marketing Partnership Grant which is another potential $25,000. Therefore, we are planning on the worse case scenario and taking that 50% cut into account for our budget. Bless has put together a spreadsheet listing all the actions that have taken place since the budget cut announcement on 2/18/04. She will email this spreadsheet to all the Board Members upon her return to the office. Just to update, there has been meeting with local legislators across Kane and McHenry Counties. Bless has teamed up with the Aurora and St. Charles CVB's as well as the Northern Illinois Tourism Office to make sure we have contacted legislators all across our areas. They have been down as far as Plainfield to see Representative Tom Cross and as far of as Mark Beubien up in Wauconda. He also serves part of McHenry County. Both these gentlemen are very influential. Mark Beubien has been the most positive meeting Bless has had so far. He stated he feels the Governor will give back some of the monies proposed to be cut. However, we will continue planning on the 50%reduction in State Grant. All CVB's are contacting all the legislators across the State. She reviewed the actions that have transpired since the last Board meeting. Letters to Legislators from many people and our Board. Bless thanked all the Board Members for their efforts in writing their Legislators. In addition, Chambers have been asked to put resolution letters together. Brewer brought copies from Algonquin/LITH. These letters covered both Kane and McHenry Counties. We have received support from many partners in tourism. Bless shared several articles from newspapers and copies of three editorials she had written to the papers and had published. Continued Page Three— Page Three-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of April 13, 2004 Tourism Summit was held in March and it was very successful. Approximately 100 people were in attendance. Bless thanked the Board Members that were present for their support. The next event coming up will be Lobby day in Springfield on April 21S`. Bless thanked Pratt and Brewer for already signing up for the trip. A bus of supporters will be traveling to Springfield for the day. All 39 Bureaus are participating in this march to Springfield. Stegall asked Bless if we had an agenda for the day in Springfield. Bless stated she would be emailing the agenda to the Board Members upon her return to the office. Legislators have asked for appointments and support is being received from both Democrats and Republications. Some of the rumors are that the Governor is very interested in Economic Opportunity Offices. They would be regional entities opening across the state and the Governor is looking at 10 regional offices that would be doing economic development around the state and would include tourism as part of these offices. Ironically, if these cuts go through there would be about 30,000 jobs lost across the state and when you think of economic development, you think of job creation and not jobs lost. The vote will be in May. Bless briefly reviewed the PowerPoint presentation that was emailed to the Board Members. Basically, this is the presentation that was used at our Tourism Summit in March. It outlines the benefits of tourism. Bless strongly encouraged the Board Members to review the impact on all our communities. Another Tourism Summit will be April 30th in McHenry County. Bless then shared a video tape titled"Visitors to Illinois—Our Future Depends on Them". Bless briefly shared that at the recent Governor's Conference was a new advertising agency has been chosen by the state. The new agency will be J. Walter Thompson. The states new tag line will be Mile after Magnificent Mile. This is the logo we will be using as we move forward and the logo we will see in the future from the State of Illinois. Brewer asked if the Governor attended the conference, Bless stated he did not. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless—No additional reporting. • Staff: Benson shared that he will be attending the Affordable Meetings trade show at Navy Pier this week. He also shared the new trade show banner recently ordered by the CVB. It is a vast improvement from the trade show booth that previously was used at these shows. Hundreds of dollars was spent just shipping to and from the shows. The new banner converts a small carryon type of equipment and is most efficient. He also shared that the CVB will be ordering another banner for Sports Trade Shows. The new banner will have a Sport theme which will be different from the newest banner. He then shared the new Meeting Planners Guide that he prepared in house, for future use at shows and for mailings. Edwards helped with designing the cover of the Guide. Continued Page Four- Page Four-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of Apri113, 2004 ,� REPORTS: t • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they will be having their annual Golf Outing in June. They also will be hosting the Administrative Appreciation Luncheon on the 21St. at the Anvil Club. Unfortunately, she will not be able to attend the march on Springfield on the 21St. She did however, share that she was able to talk to the Legislators on her visit to Springfield several weeks ago. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—Nelson shared that the Elgin Chamber of Commerce is being recognized as one of the top 10 Economic Development initiatives in the country. He also shared that the Best Western is for sale and it appears that the Northwest Bible College will be purchasing and renovating the property. • City of Elgin—None. • Board Member Comments: Lager shared that the new Prairie Street Chophouse will be opening on May 20th. They will have a new motif, signage, name and entrance for the new Chophouse. They will be having a Business after Hours on the 25th. The Beer Garden will be opening for the season on May 29th • Miess reminded all in attendance that the Art Walk is this coming weekend. Postcards and invitations were mailed out for the May 5th Illinois Main Street Meeting which will showplace Elgin. • Pratt shared that the occupancy for the Algonquin Commons Lifestyle Mall is going wonderful and the construction is on schedule for an October 7, 2004 opening. • Strassman shared that they have converted their small meeting room into a suite. She also thanked Lager for working with them and developing a great partnership. • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that the Algonquin/LITH Chamber of Commerce Tourism committee is going well and they are working together. She also shared that many of the tourism means jobs postcards were mailed out by the committee. She also shared that a Tourism Roundup for McHenry County will be taking place this week. PUBLIC COMMENTS: None ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 8:00 AM. Prairie Rock Brewing Co. - Elgin, IL ADJOURN: Strassman motioned to adjourn, MacBean seconded. Meeting adjourned at 9:10 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Ofeist Q. r Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director nes � v ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday May 11, 2004 8:00 a.m. Prairie Rock Brewing Company 127 S. Grove Avenue Elgin,IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube—President 2. INTRODUCTIONS Ann Laube—President 3. CONSENT AGENDA • Approval of April Minutes • Approval of April Financials 4. NEW BUSINESS • Proposed Budget Presentation—First Reading and Discussion o Staff Presentations including Partnership Program; P.R. Campaign and Sales Program of Work o Proposed Budget Outlined • Board Nomination and Approval/Treasurer's Position 5. OLD BUSINESS • Village Updates Kimberly Bless • Proposed Budget Cuts Update Kimberly Bless 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff Option to enter closed session. r 7. REPORTS • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce • City of Elgin • Ex-Officio Members 8. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday,June 8, 2004 9. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION! r r .*S5ce*. of 11lerlea Elgin Area Convention `*and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of May 11, 2004 Held at Prairie Rock Brewing Co., Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Robert Gilliam, Annie Kaser, Scott Lager, Ann Laube, Don MacBean, Leo Nelson, Jim Pratt and Sean Stegall ABSENT: Norma Miess, Peggie Stromberg, Rolf Tweeten and Paula Wyatt r EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: Jason Dinkens STAFF: Kim Bless, Ben Benson, Brent Edwards and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: Proposed Partnership Power Point Screens, Copy of Advertisement, Proposed FY '05 Budget info & Business Plan, Newspaper articles, SS Ventures Visitors Guide and Marketing Plan handouts. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:10 am. Introductions were made by all in attendance. CONSENT AGENDA: Bless shared that the State Grant funds did not reach the checking account in time to show on the financials. They were credited after the 1St of the month. They will appear in next months financials. A motion to approve the Consent Agenda was made by MacBean, Kaser seconded. Motion carried. r Continued Page Two Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of May 11, 2004 NEW BUSINESS: • Bless shared the CVB's Business Plan, Mission Statement and Strategies with the Executive Board. Objectives were shared and goals identified. Additional sources of revenue for the CVB will be the major goal for FY `05. We will be marketing this area as a destination. People travel to a place not a CVB or a logo. Our number one goal is to bring in overnight travelers to our destination area. Bless reviewed the line by line budget for FY'05 which included the suggested Marketing, Sales and Leisure expenses. Bless reviewed the situations with Hampshire and Algonquin and the efforts she has made to set aside hotel/motel tax for the CVB. Hampshire will be sending the CVB a check within the next 30 days and Bless has initiated the introduction of the hotel/motel funding to the Algonquin Village Manager. Bless met with Village Manager, Bill Ganek last Friday for lunch with Jim Pratt and Sherry Brewer. Bless was pleased with the reception she received from Ganek and is optimistic regarding the support she will be receiving from Algonquin. Bless will keep the Board apprised of her progress. Bless proceeded to discuss the marketing we have offered the local business and attractions for the past 20 years and the fact that we just cannot offer these services complimentary to our 14 communities as we go forward. Businesses and attractions received listings in our Ventures and on our website and events were included in our calendar of events and on the calendar of events on the website. The cost of marketing and advertising has gone up significantly during that time and we absolutely cannot afford to market companies free in the future. We provide a very beneficial marketing avenue for tourism related businesses in all 14 communities we represent. This pay to play philosophy is not new and is being done by CVB's across the state. We have strategically identified those markets that best suit our area and are aggressively pursuing those markets for overnight stays. Brent Edwards and Ben Benson will be presenting the leisure and group markets the very specific objectives, strategies and tactics we will be using in order to increase overnight travel to the area and more importantly ways we are proposing to increase revenues in fiscal year 2005. • Bless introduced Brent Edwards to share the objectives, tactics and strategies that the CVB will be using to increase revenue and overnight stays to our area. Edwards presented a Power Point presentation on finding new streams of revenue to our Bureau in order to meet the new Bureau objectives and goals. The three primary areas that will be focused on are: The Visitor's Guide, The E Newsletter and the Website Redesign. He then shared the proposal for the new Partnership Program that will be rolled out based on Board approval. Following Edwards presentation, several questions and suggestions were discussed and questions addressed. • Bless then introduced Ben Benson to share the Bureaus plans for positioning ourselves in the market place for group business. We need to push our market identity for what we have and focus on small-medium size group business. We are confident in the Sports, Meetings and Conventions and Tour & Travel markets and the economic impact that booking these groups in our area brings us. He shared the Sales area Mission Statement and Goals for FY05. Bottom line is contacts need to be increased. Continued Page Three- Page Three-• EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of May 11, 2004 Major ways of accomplishing this is attending Trade Shows, utilizing resource books, direct mailings, work closely with the State of Illinois and create a working database. Benson has implemented a new database using ACT software which will be able to accommodate the various reports and tracking reports he utilizes in his sales efforts. He is confident that the Sports market programs would be interested in the area for future events. He will be working with ABA this year and having a 3 day FAM tour for the area along with St. Charles and Aurora. He suggested a Sales Blitz day for the area hotel general managers and educational seminars for team approaches to sales and leads. A motion to approve proposed FY `05 budget and partnership program was made by MacBean, seconded by Kaser. Motion carried. • Nomination of new Board Treasurer: Effective with the resignation of Lynea Strassman, Treasurer, ballots were distributed to the board members to vote for the nominee for Treasurer Position for the balance of the year. Peggie Stromberg was the sole nominee. Ballots were collected and counted by Laube. Stromberg received a unanimous vote of seven, which is the majority, and Stromberg was elected Treasurer. OLD BUSINESS: • Village Updates -Bless addressed Algonquin, Hampshire and West Dundee earlier when discussing the proposed FY '05 budget. • Proposed Budget Cuts Update—Bless reminded the Board that their support and involvement is still needed. She reiterated the website where we could write our legislators and governor through email. We should know by the end of May what the final budget cut will be to the CVB's. Bless will keep the Board informed. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless—Bless shared that she has been reconfirmed as ICCVB Chairperson for Sport Illinois and nominated to the ICCVB Executive Board. • Staff: No additions to individual reports. r Continued Page Four— Page Four-EA CVB Board of Directors Minutes of May 11, 2004 REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they are preparing for their annual Golf Outing in June. She also shared that the ABC morning news will be at Emmett's next week and Laube will be on the show with Roz Bearan. Bless will also be in attendance. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—Nelson shared that the Elgin Chamber of Commerce has been recognized as #5 in the Economic Development initiatives in the country. All present congratulated Nelson and the Chamber for this outstanding accomplishment. He also shared that their Rollout has begun and they are at 20% of their goal of 1 Million dollars. Their ad campaign on regional radio channels and print is also going very well. • City of Elgin—Gilliam shared that the downtown renovation is moving steadily along and great strides are being made. The groundbreaking for the new riverfront Town homes and Condos were last week and they are already selling. • Board Member Comments: Lager reminded everyone that the new Prairie Street Chophouse will be opening on May 20th. They have a new motif, signage, name and entrance for the new Chophouse. They will be having a Business after Hours on the 25th. He also shared that the Brewfest will be June 18th and 19th • Pratt shared that the occupancy for the Algonquin Commons Lifestyle Mall is now 83%. The grand opening will be October 7, 2004. 50 stores will open then and more opening later. • Kaser shared that their Winefest will also be the weekend of June 18, 19 and 20th • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that the Algonquin/LITH Chamber of Commerce Tourism committee is going well and they are working on 3 day packages to offer visitors. PUBLIC COMMENTS: None ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 8:00 AM. Prairie Rock Brewing Co. - Elgin, IL ADJOURN: MacBean motioned to adjourn, Kaser seconded. Meeting adjourned at 9:30 a.m. Respectfully submitted, 1141/7 Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director /nes ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday June 8, 2004 8:00 a.m. Prairie Rock Brewing Company 127 S. Grove Avenue Elgin, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube—President 2. INTRODUCTIONS Ann Laube—President Welcome New Board Members— • Ed Szydlowski—Trustee from the Village of Hampshire • Richard Tiedt—General Manager from the Holiday Inn and Suites (Elgin Chamber appointment) 3. PRESENTATION—CITY OF ELGIN DEVELOPMENT PLANS Ray Moller—Director of Economic Development- City of Elgin 4. CONSENT AGENDA • Approval of May Minutes • Approval of May Financials 5. NEW BUSINESS • Summer Board Meetings/Recommendation from the Executive Committee 6. OLD BUSINESS • Village Updates Kimberly Bless • Proposed Budget Cuts Update Kimberly Bless • By-laws update Kimberly Bless 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff Option to enter closed session. 7. REPORTS • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce • City of Elgin • Ex-Officio Members 8. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 9. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION! rm. r • of_ iiierlea _41%,N';:j2,n o.,R„" : �nP cy rt[Ilinois t� Elgin Area Convention `,t and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of June 8, 2004 Held at Prairie Rock Brewing Co., Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Robert Gilliam, Annie Kaser, Norma Miess, Ann Laube, Leo Nelson, Jim Pratt, Sean Stegall and Rolf Tweeten ABSENT: Scott Lager, Don MacBean, Peggie Stromberg, and Paula Wyatt EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: Femi Folarin, Assistant City Manager STAFF: Kim Bless, Ben Benson, Brent Edwards and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: Newspaper articles circulated to board member attendees. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:10 am. Introductions were made by all in attendance. Ann Laube announced that as part of the agreement with the Village of Hampshire and their contribution of hotel/motel tax, they are given a seat on the CVB's Board of Directors. The Mayor from Hampshire has designated Ed Szydlowski, Village of Hampshire Trustee, as the designated CVB representative. While he cannot attend this board meeting, he will be at future board meetings and we welcome him to the board effective immediately. Also, Leo Nelson is working on a replacement for Lynea Strassman. The suggestion is Richard Tiedt, the General Manager from the Holiday Inn and Suites. Leo will continue discussions with him before his name is brought to the Chamber Board for approval. Continued Page Two Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of June 8, 2004 CONSENT AGENDA: Bless briefly reviewed and discussed the May financials. She noted that the Hotel/Motel Tax from the city of Elgin and the State Grant will not be in before the end of the fiscal year. Final Financials will not be completed until August. A motion to approve the Consent Agenda was made by Gilliam, Pratt seconded. Motion carried. PRESENTATION—CITY OF ELGIN DEVELOPMENT PLANS: Sean Stegall and Femi Folarin made a presentation on the future city of Elgin development plans. Packets of"Building a strong regional city with a sustainable future"power point presentation was handed out to all in attendance. Stegall and Folarin proceeded to share the presentation that was given at the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce "Good Morning Elgin" community meeting on June 4, 2004. The presentation was very interesting and helpful in understanding what the City of Elgin will look like in the coming years. NEW BUSINESS: Summer Board Meetings/Recommendations from the Executive Board: Laube introduced that the Executive Committee recommended not having a July Board Meeting due to summer vacations and schedules. Laube asked for an agreement as to whether or not the July Board Meeting could be passed and resumed in August. Laube asked if there were any objections to skipping the July meeting and no objections were made by any Board member present. Bless assured them that Financial Statements would still be rik going out to each of them even without a meeting and they would be kept fully informed of any information that would be of importance to the Board. A motion to skip the July 2004 Board Meeting was made by Laube, Kaser seconded. Motion carried. OLD BUSINESS: • Village Updates - Bless reiterated that the CVB has been working diligently with the other communities in trying to get funding from the other three communities that have hotels. The challenge that we have had and come across during this time is the fact that we have been providing these services to these communities for free for a number of years without any expectations in return from these communities financially. Unfortunately, we also have not had any measurements in place in order to give to these villages to show what the CVB has been doing for them in the past. They ask what their return is and we have not had measurements in place in the past. Whether it would be group business via leads or leisure business referrals. Example: if we refer the Victorian Rose B&B or Distinctions for wine, there has been no follow up from the Bureau showing these are the types of services we have been providing for you. It makes it a little bit of a challenge when you go to these communities for support money and they ask what have you done for us and how do we put money out there if we do not know what CVB services they had benefited from in the past. However, we felt that it was very important to establish some ground rules and also establish the "buy in" from these communities going forward. r As we know,we cannot continue to have just Elgin contributing their hotel/motel tax to our efforts. Thru that, we have established a lead system on a database which can track • Continued Page Three- Page Three-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of June 8, 2004 economic impact etc. through leads. The current numbers we used were received through the International Association of CVB's. The dollar amount that is associated with the visitor that comes to the area, whether it is for meetings and conventions, sports travel or motor coach business, has a dollar amount associated with it. Every lead that Ben sends out for that type of group business has a dollar amount associated with it. Each hotel has the opportunity to say yeah or nay to that piece of business, based on their availability. In addition, we have established a tracking system that every time someone answers the phone and we refer a piece of business, we are tracking that internally via a database. This information will be shared with villages going forward and with the businesses we will be partnering with, so they can see what the return is on their investment. They will be able to see what services the CVB offer them. Bless reminded everyone that the first hotel/motel tax check from Hampshire will be arriving shortly. Bless then updated the Board on the efforts and now accomplishment she has had with the Village of West Dundee and the funding she has been pursuing for the past six months or so. Relationships have been developed and are growing. In addition, a Partnership Program has been developed and established. People will have to pay to play. Brent will be responsible for this program and its development. To date, it is rolling out well and good feedback is being received. We believe this is very important as people need to have a financial vested interest for them in the marketing and promotion we are doing for their business. Based on that, in a presentation that was done in West Dundee back in January, a very extensive presentation that Laube, Kaser, Tim Burns, Karri Klemmer and the GM from the Marriott properties participated in, discussing how valuable the CVB is to them and what role they play in the success of their businesses. Bless then shared that she had attended the Village Meeting last night and was pleased to share that they worked in advance with the Village staff to put together a recommendation that would basically be a benchmark. A measurement needed to be established some type of a system that could be used as form of measurement of what the CVB is doing for the Village of West Dundee from both the group and leisure standpoint. The proposal that they put together had to be based on some type of substance, since nothing was in effect in the past. hi addition, as we know, part of their hotel/motel local tax dollars goes back to their local hotels. This contract is in effect for an additional five years. Obviously we cannot wait another five years, therefore, we needed to determine a system until that contract expires and then the CVB would receive a portion of that hotel/motel tax. Tweeten then asked for clarification on the current contract the Marriott properties have with the Village of West Dundee. He asked to verify that the hotel/motel tax that is collected just gets given back to the hotel owners to market their motels. Bless agreed. Tweeten added that this is a huge amount of money and with this money alone he could pay his entire management staff. Bless reiterated the fact that these were agreements that the hotel owners and the villages agreed on when the properties were first built. These agreements had nothing to do with the Convention Bureau. There is nothing the CVB can do, say or stop regarding these contracts as they are between the owners and the villages. Bless continued to share that based on the agreed benchmark, the CVB did receive a vote of approval from the West Dundee Board of Trustees, that they will be contributing to the CVB going forward. Continued Page Four- Page Four-EA CVB Board of Directors Minutes of June 8, 2004 What will be done based on previous bookings that the CVB was responsible for and using that dollar amount as a benchmark. A flat amount will be based on the population that is in the Village of West Dundee. As of the last census in 2000, that would be 5500 people. Therefore, based on a dollar per person, that would be $5500.00 base amount that would be used. Based on a recent conversation, they will be conducting a special census next year. They know that their population has increased at least by several thousand in the past few years. With the special census, they would increase the amount of funding to the current number of people living in the village of West Dundee. Last year,based on what information was available, we estimated that there was about $95,000 worth of business that booked into the Marriott properties last year that the CVB was responsible for. That was for the group end and not the leisure side or referrals. This amount will be the base benchmark, any amount over and above that amount going forward; West Dundee will pay the CVB a percentage along with the $5500.00. West Dundee will give us a five year contract for this amount and when the contract with the Marriott expires, we will go back to the Village Board to request to receive a percentage of the hotel/motel tax. Once Algonquin signs on, then all communities with hotels will be contributing a portion of their hotel/motel tax. Miess asked for clarification on the benchmark amount and what the village would be funding the CVB. Following the clarification from Bless, a discussion followed regarding the hotel/motel tax, funding, and CVB partnerships by several Board members. Tweeten made it very clear he was not satisfied with the results of the commitment received from West Dundee. He stated he would pursue his concerns with the City of Elgin. Miess wanted to confirm that what was being suggested of them, was to give up immediate parody for the long term profits. Bless and Laube shared that Executive Committee in previous discussions, stated that we need some kind of financial commitment now with the long term goal being parity for all Villages. • Proposed Budget Cuts Update—Bless updated the Board with the latest she has heard regarding the proposed budget cuts. A meeting last week was held between the Governor and the Mayor of Chicago regarding conventions &McCormick Place. The Governor publicly stated that he would like the tourism budget restored to the 2004 fiscal budget amount. Bless will keep the Board informed; however, this is very positive news. • By-laws Update—The By-Laws Committee will be meeting on Thursday, June 17th at the CVB to work on reviewing and updating the by-laws. Once they are updated they will be brought before the Board for approval. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless—No additions to individual reports. • Staff—Edwards updated the Board on the Sales of Partnership Program. Sales efforts are underway and appear to be promising. Edwards will track and keep the Board updated. He also shared that to date we have received 2,052 Pre Print leads and requests. Benson shared that he is working with several sporting events to bring to the area. downtown Elgin in October. Also, he shared that he has recently been elected the Sports Illinois Chairman effective 7/1/04. Continued Page Fiver— Page Five-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of June 8, 2004 This organization is an ICCVB sub committee whose sole purpose is to attract sporting events to Illinois. The Board congratulated Benson. Miess asked Benson to be sure to keep the DNA and Elgin downtown business informed with these events. REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that their Golf Outing went well. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—None • City of Elgin—None • Board Member Comments: • Pratt shared that the occupancy for the Algonquin Commons Lifestyle Mall is going very well. By the time they open they will only have 5 vacant spaces. The grand opening will be October 7, 2004. He also shared that his Geneva Commons currently only has 2 vacant spaces, so he is very pleased with the progress. Bless shared that Pratt will be doing a presentation in August or September at the Board Meeting. • DNA—Miess shared that they are getting ready for the 4th of July Parade. They are looking forward to promoting the downtown businesses. The parade will take place on July 3rd. and a festival will follow. Elgin also may be nominated for a Great American City Award. Miess reminded us that she does have a volunteer force that possibly could help with fulfillment requests. • Kaser shared that their Winefest will also be the weekend of June 18, 19 and 20`h • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer asked when the new website would be up and running. Bless shared that it should be up and running by July 1st. Brewer then shared that Algonquin will be having their 1st Annual Hill Climb. PUBLIC COMMENTS: None ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 8:00 AM. Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites-Elgin, IL ADJOURN: A quorum was no longer in attendance therefore, Laube motioned to adjourn. Meeting adjourned at 9:20 a.m. Respectfully submitted, elk Approved: August 10 , 2004 Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director /nes r 1 ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday August 10, 2004 8:00 a.m. Holiday Inn and Suites 495 Airport Road/Route 31 and I-90 Elgin, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube—President 2. INTRODUCTIONS Ann Laube—President 3. CONSENT AGENDA • Approval of June Minutes �.• • Approval of June/Year-End Financials 4. NEW BUSINESS • Staff Credit Card Policy Peggie Stromberg Discussion and Action Requested 5. OLD BUSINESS • Budget Cuts Update Kimberly Bless • State Audit Update Kimberly Bless • By-laws Update Kimberly Bless • Staff Update Kimberly Bless 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff 7. REPORTS • City of Elgin • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Chamber of Commerce • Ex-Officio Members 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS r•• 9. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, September 14, 2004—Grand Victoria Casino 10. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION! • of America al1�Z��or=fern 1J lore'+ Valley oY lllinei *' Elgin Area Convention **and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of August 10, 2004 Held at Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Annie Kaser, Scott Lager, Don MacBean, Norma Miess, Ann Laube, Jim Pratt, Peggie Stromberg, ABSENT: Robert Gilliam, Leo Nelson, Sean Stegall, Rolf Tweeten and Paula Wyatt elk EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: Richard Tiedt, General Manager, Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites STAFF: Kim Bless, Brent Edwards and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: Newspaper articles circulated to board member attendees. Copies of advertising ads that will be part of the EACVB's advertising campaign for FY'05 and a copy of an article on the Venture's Visitors Guide that was in the Business Journal. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:17 am. Introductions were made by all in attendance. Laube introduced Richard Tiedt, as a potential future Elgin Chamber Board member nominee. Mr. Tiedt then shared a brief background of himself with the Board. CONSENT AGENDA: Bless briefly reviewed and discussed the June/Year-End financials. A motion to approve the Consent Agenda was made by MacBean, Kaser seconded. Motion carried. Stromberg, as Treasurer, felt it important to acknowledge Bless for the outstanding job she had done with a budget that she had no input on prior to her being selected for the Executive Director position last year. She has done a very good job and had improved upon it a great deal. r Continued Page Two • Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of August 10, 2004 NEW BUSINESS: Staff Credit Card Policy:/Recommendations from the Executive Board: Stromberg introduced that the Executive Committee has reviewed a newly developed Staff Credit Card Policy and Expense Policy for the EACVB. It has been noted that the staff is fronting their own personal money when attending trade shows, conferences, etc. The Executive Committee has discussed having a credit card/expense policy which was put together. The Executive Committee did go through the policy and recommended adopting the policy for the bureau. It is very definite as to how a credit card may or may not be used and also covers expenses and per day limits for meals etc. Laube stated she hoped everyone was able to review the new policy and asked if anyone had any questions. No questions were brought before the board. A motion to adopt the Staff Credit Card/Expense Policy was made by MacBean, Stromberg seconded. Motion carried. OLD BUSINESS: • Proposed Budget Cuts Update—Bless updated the Board with the great news that the Budget has been restored and there will be no budget cut to our FY'05 budget. She is waiting for the final confirmation from the State for the exact dollar amount. Therefore, with this great news, Bless will put together a new Budget without the cuts and bring it to the Executive Board for review. The new budget will then be brought before the board in September for their final approval. The areas that we will most focus on with these extra budget dollars will be tradeshow attendance and marketing and advertising. She thanked everyone for their support and actions in the past few months on behalf of the CVB and tourism. A huge group effort came from across the state and these efforts did pay off. • By-laws Update—The By-Laws Committee is finalizing the new set of By-laws and will be bringing the final draft to the September Executive Board Meeting for review and approval. Meiss asked who was on the By-laws committee. Bless stated that Laube, Stromberg and MacBean. • State Audit Update - Per the State Grant Agreement, once a year we are audited. Several weeks ago we had an Auditor visit our office. Bless thanked Schultz for her efforts in assembling all materials for the audit and also appreciated having our Accountant, Nancy Guthrie on site during the audit. Bless was pleased to report that the EACVB passed this audit and we are in compliance with the State. • Staff Updates—Bless shared that our new Director of Sales, Pete Garlock will be starting with us on August 16, 2004. Garlock is coming to us from the Chicago's North Shore CVB and therefore has bureau experience. He works the motor coach market there as well as doing the partnership program. He is very familiar with the group end of sales and will be focused on student groups, motor coach, meetings, conventions and sports groups to bring to our areas. He has a great background and will be a great addition to the staff We are looking forward to him coming on board. Continued Page Three— Page Three-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of August 10, 2004 DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless— Bless wanted to share more information regarding the advertising and public relations FY'05 efforts of the bureau. Bless stated she would let Edwards talk further about these objectives. • Staff—Edwards updated the Board on several specific advertising ads and markets we will be focusing on the months ahead. He shared the ads that will be in Midwest Living, Complete Event &Meeting Planners Guide, Illinois Meetings & Events and Group Tour Magazine. Edwards also shared with the Board that he had designed these ads and was able to save the bureau additional expenses of hiring a graphic designer to create new ads. He also shared that we will be doing a DVD/CD Rom coop with the Aurora, St. Charles and Geneva CVB's. The first project we will be working on will be a"girl's weekend getaway". A website will be created that"surfers" can look at and get information on all our areas. Information will be accumulated and an email blast with a DVD or CD rom will be targeted to those who visited the site. It will be promoted in print, DVD and a video at O'Hare and Midway. Milwaukee and Madison, WI are focus areas and Chicago secondary. Therefore, when visitors come in, they will see our destination as a potential market to checkout. He also shared that our new www.northernfoxrivervalley.com website has been launched. However, currently it is a soft launch with plans for the major launch to be in September. We will roll out the website to the Board at the September Board Meeting. Bless added that the main thrust of the website is to show our area as a destination and where we are located. We need to let them know where we are and why they would want to come here versus somewhere else. The cooping gives us a great opportunity to offer the whole Fox River Valley together; there is an abundance of things for us to promote and to do. Bless also wanted to be sure to give kudos to Edwards for the awesome job he did with the map on the website. It shows how close we are to Chicago, O'Hare and I90 and all these points will help to bring in visitors to our area. This is critical to our branding to have people know who and where we are. We need to attract both leisure travel and group. The Sports Market will need to be focused on to bring more tournaments to our area. Bless also stressed the importance of the bureau tracking who our customers are and where they are coming from. This information will also help us decide where we need to put our advertising dollars. We are targeting magazines that have reader response cards so we are able to gage the results of the advertising,plus we are trying to see where our visitors are coming from. Tracking is extremely important. Kaser asked that when we bring in groups, will this information be put on our website so our partners will be aware of groups so they could make coupons etc. available to the groups coming. Bless stated if we arrange the group tours,we certainly will target our partners. Bless also stated she wants Garlock to focus on FAM tours again for our area. We have not conducted a FAM tour for some time now and Bless feels these are important to re-implement. We will focus both on motor coach groups and meeting planners. Bless also shared that Edwards will be attending a travel writer's conference for contacts. That way we would get travel writers to write about our areas. Bless would eventually like to have coupon books for our areas. Meiss asked about tracking hotel stays and where they come from. Tiedt added that he was sure the hotels could track this info easily enough. The only problem would be any business that is booked by a travel agency. Schultz—no additions to individual report. Continued Page Four— Page Four-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of August 10, 2004 REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they are getting ready to roll out their September thru May programming year. Their football raffle books will kick off shortly, Annual October Dinner and are looking to book a major speaker this year. All other programs are ready to roll. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—None • City of Elgin—Stromberg shared that the City had taken around a film crew in Elgin. Edwards added that he did accompany the film crew around that day and they are looking at an office behind Quizno's to use in a film. Bless also reminded everyone that the State is offering many incentives to the film industry to film in Illinois and the Chicago film office. We have many opportunities in our area and we need to improve and develop those partnerships with film companies • Board Member Comments: • Pratt shared that leasing for the Algonquin Commons Lifestyle Mall continues to go very well. The grand opening will be October 7, 2004. He also noted the article in the paper about Spring Hill Mall and the city funding they are asking for from the Village in order to upgrade the current mall. Pratt stating he would have to ask to make his presentation in October or November due to the fact that the conference room will not be completed prior to then. Bless assured him that there would be no problem and she realizes how /i► busy he currently is and understands that there are other priorities. t • DNA—Miess shared that summer has been very busy and events all went well. The Carnival was very successful and they are very pleased with its first year results. The diversity and the number of families that attended were very promising. She also shared that the Nike Tournament was successful for downtown businesses and she asked to be sure to be included on any sports groups that would be coming to The Centre. They are working on the Winter Wonderland event coming up and additional Elgin 150th celebration events. • MacBean—shared that Riverfest Trolley Fest will be next week. Also, they are now embarking on three new special events in which two are reserved seating. To date, they have only advertised on the internet and locally on site, and they have already sold 25% of the seats. They are very excited about the results of these new efforts. • Stromberg- shared that they are conducting their usual summer activities and had a great turnout for their summer camp this year. They are doing adventures at the museum at Lords Park Zoo on Fridays and Saturdays. She also shared that there is no new baby buffalo yet. She also shared that the City of Elgin will be having their summer fests on August 21 and 22 in downtown Elgin. The museum will have a children's area on the lower floor of the Hemmens, which has been very successful in the past. • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that the Algonquin Hill Climb was very successful and her B&B has already been booked for that weekend next year. Founders Day went very well and the LITH Sunset Festival will be taking place in October. r Continued Page Fiver- Page Five-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of August 10, 2004 ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, September 14th - 8:00 AM. Grand Victoria Casino-Elgin, IL ADJOURN: MacBean motioned to adjourn, Kaser seconded. Meeting adjourned at 9:00 a.m. Respectfully submitted, lieist A.45644„. Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director /nes r r A ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday September 14, 2004 8:00 a.m. Grand Victoria Casino Fox River Room, 2"d Floor 250 S. Grove Avenue Elgin, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube—President 2. INTRODUCTIONS • Introduction of Board/Grand Victoria Ann Laube • Introduction of New Staff Member Kimberly Bless rk • New Bd. Appointment/Elgin Chamber Ann Laube/Leo Nelson Discussion and Action Requested 3. CONSENT AGENDA • Approval of August Minutes • Approval of July and August Financials 4. NEW BUSINESS • Tourism Statistics Kimberly Bless 5. OLD BUSINESS • Revised Budget Update Kimberly Bless • By-laws Update Kimberly Bless 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff 7. REPORTS • City of Elgin • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Chamber of Commerce • Ex-Officio Members 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS 9. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, October 12, 2004—Location TBA 10. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION! r f n SfireCjf gira„ Elgin Area Convention **and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of September 14, 2004 Held at Grand Victoria Casino, Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Annie Kaser, Ann Laube, Scott Lager, Don MacBean, Leo Nelson, Sean Stegall, Peggie Stromberg and Richard Tiedt ABSENT: Robert Gilliam, Norma Miess, Jim Pratt, Ed Szydlowski, Rolf Tweeten and Paula Wyatt EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: None STAFF: Kim Bless, Pete Garlock and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: Copies of the two press releases on the Bureau's new website and announcement of Pete Garlock joining the EACVB Staff. Copies of advertising ads that will be part of the EACVB's advertising campaign in the coming months for FY'05 and a copy of an article regarding a new hotel that has not opened in the O'Hare area that was in the Crain's Chicago Business paper and a final 2003 Travel Statistics handout. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:17 am. Introductions were made by all in attendance. Bless introduced the Bureau's newest addition to staff, Pete Garlock, Director of Sales. He started several weeks ago and he brings a great background with him. Garlock then shared a brief background of himself with the Board. He has worked with Senior Bus Tours, CORP Planning, Event and Tour Planning and Group Planning. He always worked with the local CVB when working with the various Planners. He is anxious to bringing business to our area and working with our various partners. Bless then shared that Brent Edwards, PR Director is absent due to his wife being in labor. They are expecting their third child. Continued Page Two p • Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of September 14, 2004 NOMINATION OF NEW BOARD MEMBER- Nelson presented Richard Tiedt, General Manager, Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites for service on the EACVB Board of Directors. Stromberg made a motion to appoint candidate Tiedt to the Board of Directors. Seconded by MacBean. Motion carried. The Board officially welcomed Tiedt to the Board of Directors. CONSENT AGENDA: A motion to approve the August Minutes with correction(remove Kaser name from By Laws Committee reference on page 3) was made by Stromberg, MacBean seconded. Motion carried. A motion to approve the July/August Financials was made by Stromberg, Nelson seconded. Motion carried. NEW BUSINESS: Tourism Statistics—Bless shared the new Tourism Statistics she had recently received at the ICCVB meeting she attended the previous week. This report is prepared by the Travel Industry of America based out of Washington DC. The statistics are broken down by County. Travel expenditures are up in the two main counties we service, Kane, up 3.79% and McHenry, up 3.6% from 2002. A very positive point that came out of these statistics is that overall in the state of Illinois, travel is up to almost 23 billion dollars. This is an increase of 3.2%. Leisure travel had the largest increase. Kane County was ranked 6 overall of 102 counties of travel. Cook, DuPage, Lake, Will and St. Claire counties were ahead of us. McHenry County came in 13th. Business Travel continues to struggle, but with the efforts Pete Garlock is putting forth with regarding attending Trade Shows and such, we can see some positive movement. Hotel rates continue to be an issue. Hotels lowered their rates in order to build their occupancy and it takes several years, unfortunately, to build those rates back up again. We will continue to work on bringing in Group Business in order to help drive this rate up. Leisure Travelers are willing to "shop around" for a less expensive rate. They are willing to go to another hotel for $1.00 difference. It is the role of the CVB to find that Group business that is willing to pay a little bit more to help build the occupancy but also help build that rate which is a critical component to everything. The positive news is travel is moving in the right direction, we still have a ways to go, but we are moving in the direction we need. Bless then told the board that she has a full PowerPoint presentation on the Travel Statistics and if anyone would be interested in receiving them, she would be happy to email the presentation to them via email. Tiedt asked how they determine the travel expenditures for these statistical reports. Bless stated they many surveys are conducted and she clarified that secondary expenses are not included in the primary expenditure figures used for these statistics. Travel and Tourism is the 2°d largest industry in Illinois. Both Tiedt and Kaser requested a copy of the full PowerPoint presentation to be emailed to them. Continued Page Three— Page Three-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of September 14, 2004 OLD BUSINESS: Proposed Budget Update—Bless reported that unfortunately we have not received all the dollar figures from the State of Illinois. They are very behind. We just received the numbers for the LTCB Grant in FY'05 we will receive $158,224.00 which is $4,200.00 up from last year. We are still waiting to hear about our Marketing Partnership Grant which we applied for advertising and marketing expansion. These dollars have to be matched and fortunately, we do have the dollar match to do that. Now all we need to know is the Grant amount. Once we get those numbers, Bless will be able to submit a revised budget. Any dollars we get back from the State, we will be using for Trade Show attendance. We have registered for over 10 trade shows for FY05. We have scheduled Motor Coach, Group Tour, Meetings and Conventions and Sports Tournaments Trade Shows that we have never previously attended. Garlock will be leaving for a trade show this coming weekend and basically attending one trade show a month. We are focusing on bringing in more Group business to our area and also more advertising and public relations. Bless briefly reviewed the newly designed ad by Edwards that will be in Midwest Living, AAA, Home and Away, Group Tour magazines, Sports Tournament magazines, Meeting and Convention magazines so that we can go out and build awareness of this area and creating this area as a destination for over night travel for group business. This is where these dollars will be spent. The marketing partnership dollars that we will be using will give us a huge opportunity to place ads in magazines that we could never before afford. Midwest Living alone is $4500.00 a month for a very small ad. It is very expensive, but, the distribution is huge, over 900,000. All the advertising we are doing has reader response cards so we can gauge the return on investment for all these rads. We need to be able to go back and put a value on the responses we receive due to our F advertising. This way we can actually calculate the cost of each ad based on the number of inquiries we receive. We purchased new software to enable us to create and design ads for ourselves in lieu of paying a designer to create our ads. Edwards is able to design these ads himself and therefore, saving budget dollars that we would have to spend on a designer. Bless stated that as soon as those numbers are received, she will bring it to the Executive Board and hopefully in October to the Board. By-laws Update—The By-Laws Committee is finalizing the new set of By-laws and will be bringing the final draft to the October Executive Board Meeting for review and approval. In addition, we have created policies and procedures. The goal is to have the By-laws updated by year-end.. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless— Bless briefly discussed the 30 Partnerships that Edwards has secured since the program began. The program is progressing well and Edwards is doing an outstanding job to date. Also, she shared some website development ideas that are being worked on and being considered. She encouraged the Board to pull up the new website and take a look at it. We are very proud of the changes and welcome any ideas or suggestions for future consideration. Bless also shared that the Village of Hampshire resolution and check has been received. The first check was in the amount of$6600.00. • Staff—No additional information to individual reports. Continued Page Four— Page Four-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of September 14, 2004 REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they are into fall programming. They are about to do the joint EXPO with the Elgin Chamber of Commerce and this is turning out to be a wonderful collaboration. She complimented Nelson's staff and stated she is looking forward to the EXPO. The Annual October Dinner will be taking place in a few weeks and their very happy to have Connie Payton addressing them. They are also planning on candidate's debates. Nelson shared that Doug Whitley will be at the September 29th debate with Steve Rauschenberger and Laube suggested that anyone able to attend should try. Doug Whitley is a very dynamic speaker and would be wonderful to hear. He is the president of the Illinois Chamber and a big advocate for businesses with the state legislators. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—Nelson shared that their campaign is coming to an end and their goal is reachable. They are working very hard on this campaign and it has been very successful to date. October 6th there will be a candidate's forum with Rep. Ruth Munson and Michael Noland at ECC. Also, October 5th there will be a Business Round Table. • City of Elgin — Stegall shared that their main focus now is the preparation of the Budget, which is taking up much of his time. He also shared that they recently showcased the City of Elgin to an out of town realtors meeting. He stated this went very well and they were able to "show off' Elgin very well to these out of town developers. Bless also shared that she contacted the person from The Grove developers to remember to include the CVB if they were planning on bringing in any hotels. She would like to make sure the hoteliers know there is a built in sales process with the convention bureau. Bless asked Nelson to include the CVB on any meetings with prospective hoteliers. • Board Member Comments: • Kaser—shared that they will be having their Wine Garden open the next three weekends and invited everyone to come by. She also reminded everyone that Heritage Fest is taking place this weekend. • MacBean — shared that Riverfest/Trolley Fest was an outstanding success this year. The sales were up 10% from last year. The Fests continue to grow each year. The Ghost Train and the Polar Express Christmas train reservations are going very well. Several of them are sold out already and that has just been my"word of mouth" advertising. Continued Page Fiver- Page Five-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of September 14, 2004 • Stromberg - shared that they gearing up for Touching on Traditions, which opens Thanksgiving weekend and runs thru New Years. Many school programs have been booked and they also have put together some "check out"trunks for teachers to use in their classrooms. She also added that on December 4th there will be a Trolley leaving from the City tree in the plaza to Touching on Traditions, The Elgin Public Museum for the annual Nature Boutique Christmas sale and also going to The Centre for a ethnic fashion show group from a local high school and the costumes will be on display at the Centre. This will be part of the 150th Elgin Celebration. Stromberg will let us know when the final details have been set. She also shared that that same day will be Lunch with Santa at the Pavilion. Bless asked that if anyone hears of any events, please keep us informed. We will put all these events on our website and hopefully we will get people to stay out here rather than downtown Chicago. As we put together packages, we would like to make them as attractive as possible to bring people out to our area to stay at hotels in lieu of staying in Chicago. • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that Algonquin Commons will be opening early October. r ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, October 12th - 8:00 AM. Holiday Inn Express-Algonquin, IL ADJOURN: MacBean motioned to adjourn, Kaser seconded. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 8:57 a.m. Respectfully submitted, yo.feist n uf •36414...... Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director /nes r r ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday October 12, 2004 8:00 a.m. Holiday Inn and Suites 495 Airport Road (I-90 and Route 31) Elgin, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube—President 2. INTRODUCTIONS 3. CONSENT AGENDA • Approval of September Minutes • Approval of September Financials 4. NEW BUSINESS • Audit Presentation Nancy Guthrie • Board Resignation—Paula Wyatt Ann Laube • Nominating Committee Ann Laube • December Board Meeting Ann Laube 5. OLD BUSINESS • Revised Budget FY'05 Kimberly Bless 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff 7. REPORTS • City of Elgin • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Chamber of Commerce • Ex-Officio Members 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS r 9. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, November 9, 2004—Grand Victoria Casino 10. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION! f .* lice*+,, NoAmerica Fox Ri Ua1(ey of Uhnoo �► Elgin Area Convention **and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of October 12, 2004 Held at Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Robert Gilliam, Annie Kaser, Ann Laube, Scott Lager, Don MacBean, Leo Nelson, Jim Pratt, Peggie Stromberg and Richard Tiedt ABSENT: Norma Miess, Sean Stegall, Ed Szydlowski, and Rolf Tweeten EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer rk GUESTS: Nancy Guthrie, Auditor STAFF: Kim Bless, Pete Garlock and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: • Copies of the FY'05 Financial Audit. • Several copies of news articles from the Illinois Tourism newsletter. • Revised 2004/2005 EACVB Budget and a tourism article from Courier. • Algonquin Commons Grand Opening Flyer President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:06 am. Laube thanked Richard Tiedt for hosting today's board meeting and furnishing the refreshments. Introductions were made by all in attendance. CONSENT AGENDA: A motion to approve the September Minutes was made by MacBean, Kaser seconded. Motion carried. Bless shared that the State still has not sent the grant money out to the CVB's. They are several months behind in payments due to the potential budget cuts that were pending. We should be receiving this money within the next month or so. A motion to approve the September Financials was made by Stromberg,Nelson seconded. Motion carried. r Continued Page Two mow. . Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of October 12, 2004 NEW BUSINESS: Audit Presentation by Nancy Guthrie,Auditor—Guthrie reviewed the Audit Report that was distributed. The Board was asked if they had any questions at this time. Nelson asked a general question on lock box systems. He asked if she would be suggesting such a system to be used. Guthrie stated with the volume of cash received by the CVB is so small, that she did not feel it would be necessary for the CVB. She stated she was very pleased with the hands on involvement that the Executive Director has with the financials and the manner in which Bless and Schultz work together on the financials. Guthrie did not think there was a lot of vulnerability on the income side of the financials. Also she feels that on the expense side, with board members signing the checks and with Bless hands on review of expenditures prior to booking and then the posting after, this process is working well. The detail of how the financials are reviewed and processed is a major reason the financial process in the office is going so well. Laube stated that they would postpone the motion to approve the Audit Report until the November Board Meeting allowing the Board to review the Report thoroughly. Laube then asked if there were any other questions and Tiedt asked how Guthrie anticipates next year's cash flow to be. Guthrie stated that unfortunately she has not seen the revised budget for FY'05 but it is her understanding that the $100,000.00 had been refunded and therefore, did not think it would be all that different. If anything, the CVB's efforts to expand income from various sources rather than relying on just one or two will be beneficial to the bureau as they go forward. Also, she stated that the CVB's expense structure is about as lean as it could be. The major expenses are spent out of State Funds as intended. Stromberg also added that the budget has been revised every month due to additional income coming in and some income has been more than anticipated. Stromberg shared that as Treasurer, the coming year will work out just fine. Guthrie also reminded the Board that there is a strong reserve and this has been a great asset for the Bureau, especially with the State Grant money being behind. Board Resignation—Paula Wyatt - Laube shared that Paula Wyatt had submitted an email with her resignation from the Board and the Executive Board has accepted her resignation. Bless shared that Wyatt was a City appointment and therefore the City Council will submit a slate of nominees to be brought before the Board in January. Nomination Committee - Laube stated that she has asked Stromberg, MacBean and Pratt to serve on the nomination committee. She is anticipating meeting sometime at the end of the month or early November. December Board Meeting- Laube discussed the possibility of canceling the December Meeting. This will depend upon audit approval and slated candidates put together to bring before the board in November for a vote. We will need both the Chamber and the City appointment nominees decided by that time and voting will need to take place. Therefore, there will be no December Meeting if all requirements are met by the November Meeting. r Continued Page Three- Page Three-EA CVB Board of Directors Minutes of October 12, 2004 OLD BUSINESS: Revised Budget FY'05—Bless reviewed the new revised budget. Basically it was revised because additional dollars have been received since the original budget was approved back in June. Fortunately we were able to get the dollars restored from the State. The total Grant will be $158,224.00 which is $4,200.00 up from last year. We will be taking these additional dollars and putting them in advertising and tradeshow attendance. We have received approval for the Marketing Partnership Grant ($21,678) which we applied for advertising and marketing expansion. These dollars have to be matched and fortunately, we do have the dollar match to do that. Bless proceeded to review the revised budget line by line for the Board. Several marketing projects will be advertising and promotion concentration, electronic marketing enhancement, revised Visitors Guide, tradeshows, FAM tours, motor coach, staff training and membership expansion. Bless asked if anyone had any questions and Tiedt questioned why there are less employee benefits now than there was a year ago. Bless explained that there are fewer longer term employees who are eligible for 401K and health benefits are lower due to one less employee. Lager then inquired about the Venture expense and wondered why it was going to be less than last year. Bless explained that we will now be producing the Ventures only once a year in lieu of twice a year as it was in the past. Laube asked if there was a motion to accept the newly revised budget. A motion to approve the Revised Budget for FY'05 was made by Stromberg. Tiedt seconded. Motion carried. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless— Bless thanked Tiedt for accompanying her to the Elgin City Council several weeks ago for a CVB update presentation for the past year. Tiedt was able to speak to the City Council also and share his input regarding the CVB. His help and support is greatly appreciated. She also shared a few articles on trends in travel that is predicted to be higher in the months ahead. Bless stated she was sure the hoteliers will be happy to hear this. We will keep a close eye on this trend. Rate is an issue but also is occupancy. We are hoping to impact the occupancy with our group efforts to be brought into the area. • Staff—No additional information to individual reports. o Kaser added that she wanted to make sure to congratulate Brent and Pete for bringing in new partners every month. A great effort is being put forth and it is appreciated. r Continued Page Four— Page Four-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of October 12, 2004 REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they are having their Annual Awards Dinner this week with Connie Payton and she is looking forward to a very nice event. She also shared that unfortunately the Chamber will soon be without a home and they are looking for a new location. The village wants the use of the Depot. The visitor center will need to find a new home also. Laube did share that she is receiving offers to relocate to other locations. Therefore, they will be busy for the balance of the year. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—Nelson shared that their campaign is coming to an end and their goal is reachable. They are working very hard on this campaign and it has been very successful to date. October 26th will be the end of the "race". October 27th will be a combined business after hours with Northern Kane County at the ECC Culinary Center. November 23rd will be their Annual Thanksgiving Luncheon at Villa Olivia. The Pastor at the First Congregational Church will be the speaker. • City of Elgin—None • Board Member Comments: • Pratt—wanted to apologize to everyone present that they did not receive an invitation to the open house. The Grand Opening went okay, but, there were several rough spots to overcome. The daily sales have been good. • MacBean—shared that the Polar Express Christmas train reservations are going so well that they have added another date, December 4th • Lager- shared that he understands that Bench America was not a success and a brief discussion followed as to how we could help large groups bringing in events to the area. Stromberg suggested putting together an Event Guide. A committee will be put together by Garlock and a meeting will take place shortly. • Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that the Chamber is gearing up for their annual membership drive. ANNOUNCEMENT: None NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, November 9th - 8:00 AM. Grand Victoria Casino—Elgin ADJOURN: MacBean motioned to adjourn, Pratt seconded. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 9:06 a.m. Respectfully submitted, stytistn Zt4deL.,. r Kimberly A Bless, Executive Directo • ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING AGENDA Tuesday November 9, 2004 8:00 a.m. Grand Victoria Casino 250 S. Grove Street Elgin, IL 1. CALL TO ORDER Ann Laube—President 2. INTRODUCTIONS 3. CONSENT AGENDA • Approval of October Minutes • Approval of October Financials 4. NEW BUSINESS • Nominating Committee Don McBean - Slate of Candidates - Slate of Officers 5. OLD BUSINESS • Approval of FY'04 Audit Peggie Stromberg • December board meeting Ann Laube 6. CVB REPORTS • Executive Director, Kimberly Bless • CVB Staff 7. REPORTS • City of Elgin • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce • Elgin Chamber of Commerce • Ex-Officio Members 8. PRESENTATION • State of Illinois Tourism Statistics Kimberly Bless • y 9. ANNOUNCEMENTS 10. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday,January 11, 2005—Algonquin Commons Shopping Center 11. ADJOURN THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION THIS YEAR SEE YOU IN 2005!! r **tee*. of��lnerlea _tl�� Northern Pm:River* �iley at Illinois Elgin Area Convention `*and Visitors Bureau ELGIN AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Minutes of November 9, 2004 Held at Grand Victoria Casino, Elgin, IL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Robert Gilliam, Annie Kaser, Aim Laube, Scott Lager, Don MacBean,Norma Miess, Leo Nelson, Jim Pratt, Peggie Stromberg, Richard Tiedt and Rolf Tweeten ABSENT: Sean Stegall and Ed Szydlowski, EX-OFFICIOS: Sherry Brewer GUESTS: None STAFF: Kim Bless, Brent Edwards, Pete Garlock and Nancy Schultz BOARD PACKET MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED: • Corrected Copies of the FY'05 Financial Audit. • Travel Chicagoland Flier. • Illinois Getaway Guide winter/holiday edition from Sunday Paper. • 2004 Outlook for the packaged Travel Industry Article. • Travel Industry Outlook for Restaurants. President Laube called the meeting to order at 8:01 am. CONSENT AGENDA: A motion to approve the October Minutes was made by Nelson, Lager seconded. Motion carried. A motion to approve the October Financials was made by Stromberg, Gilliam seconded. Motion carried. Continued Page Two ' Page Two-EACVB Board of Directors -Minutes of November 9, 2004 NEW BUSINESS: • Nomination Committee-Laube shared that the committee had their nomination meeting. Laube asked MacBean to share the bio's of the nominees. Following MacBean's comments, he asked if anyone had any nominations they wanted to bring before the board. None were presented. Stromberg motioned to close the nominations, Gilliam seconded. Motion carried. Ballots were distributed for the board members to vote on three individuals to serve a two-year term to the EACVB Board of Directors. The ballots listed Anne Kaser, Jim McSwigan, Cathy Wozniak and room for a write in candidate. Directors will be chosen by a majority of the vote by the existing board of directors. Ballots were collected and counted by Laube and Schultz. Kaser, McSwigan and Wozniak received the required majority vote and were elected by the board. Next, ballots were distributed to the board members to vote for the 2005 Slate of Officers. Following were the nominees listed: President-Elect—Pratt, Treasurer— Stromberg, and Secretary— Stegall. Ballots were collected and counted by Laube and Schultz. All listed candidates were unanimously elected by the board. Following the votes, Tweeten asked to speak and discussion ensued. OLD BUSINESS: • Approval of FY'04 Audit- Stromberg stated that there was one adjustment that was made regarding the Hampshire hotel/motel tax on page 3. Stromberg motioned to approve FY'04 Audit as presented. Gilliam seconded. Motion carried. • December Board Meeting -Laube announced that there will be no December EACVB Board Meeting due to the Holidays. DISCUSSION ITEMS: CVB REPORTS: • Kim Bless— Bless shared that she was at a meeting last week for the Illinois Council for the Convention and Visitors Bureau. They currently are discussion a big issue during the Veto session in Springfield is the Yes Chicago initiative. Currently McPier's bonding is a huge issue. Revenues that support those bonds have come up significantly short, at the tune of about 80 million dollars. Therefore, they want to restructure the bonds. The bonding structure is set up that if there is a shortfall in revenue sources, the legislature will take it out of general state sales tax. The concern is that tourism funding could be in jeopardy for the following fiscal year because those dollars have to be pulled from elsewhere to make up that general sales tax. The feeling is a land based casino in Chicago would provide revenues for the State of Illinois that would hopefully supplement and make up for this shortfall. Again we do not want to run into a situation like what we had earlier this year,where we would have to fight for tourism funding again. Elgin and Aurora are in a unique position due to the fact that we have casinos in our own back yards. Therefore, we cannot formally endorse that initiative from a bureau standpoint, due to the fact that we do have a casino in our backyard. Bless has talked with Randy Roberts on this matter. r Continued Page Three- Page Three-EACVB Board of Directors •Minutes of November 9, 2004 We have asked that our name not be included in this initiative. There are potential issues down the road that if they do rollback the current casino tax or additional gaming seats in existing casinos, making it competitive with the proposed casino, issues could change. Bless just wanted the Board to be aware of this initiative on Chicago's behalf. The Chicagoland CVB, Chamber of Commerce and the Labor Unions are all initiating this on behalf of the city of Chicago to make this happen. Tiedt asked if Bless thought this could possibly affect the casino impact here in Elgin, and Bless said absolutely. This is why we are not putting our name on these initiatives. Bless also shared that Peoria stated that about 33% of their business comes from the city of Chicago. Lager stated that he thinks it is inevitable and it would be better in Chicago than Rosemont. Several agreed. Brief additional discussion ensued. • Staff—Edwards shared that he has attended two trade shows this past month, The Travel Writers Showcase and IACVB Shirtsleeves. Edwards shared that he just returned from the Travel Writers Showcase where he met with 33 different travel writers from across the nation. The key point they stressed to these writers is that our area is only 40 minutes outside of Chicago and our regional location. The writer from Hartford, Connecticut who writes for AAA Journeys magazine requested a meeting. She stated that Chicago is rated in the top ten of their Trip Ticks. In conclusion, he felt the conference was well worth his time and very beneficial. The Shirtsleeves conference was more educational for me and I found it extremely interesting and came away with many ideas and suggestions that he will be able to implement. Edwards then shared what projects he has been working on and sending out letters during this past month. He also shared the various potential partners he visited with. He shared the blade banners that he designed and had produced for the conferences he has attended. Edwards then briefly reviewed the recent publication in the Sunday newspaper and a Chicagoland Flier. • Garlock shared that he has just returned from the Teams Conference in Houston that he attended and was able to meet with 86 of the groups. He will be doing follow up with each group and will keep the board informed. He also briefly discussed the Bench America follow up meeting that had taken place following last month's Board Meeting. Several city and business contacts were able to brainstorm as to how they can improve this event in the future. Garlock then shared information on the American Bus Association Conference that will be taking place in Chicago in February. Garlock has requested to meet with 60 different event and tour planners attending the conference. He and Edward hope to create a FAM tour in the Spring and bring the planners he meets and the writers Edwards met to showcase our area. He then shared information on TEAM Illinois. Edwards and Garlock have created an itinerary that they are calling"stop, shop and have a roll". Basically it is a few days for them to come and shop and stay at one of our hotels. The roll part was having a stop at Books at Sunset for coffee and a roll. This was selected to be put in their catalog and if any planners are interested they will contact the CVB. F Continued Page Four- Page Four-EACVB Board of Directors Minutes of November 9, 2004 REPORTS: • Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce—Laube shared that they have found a new home for the Chamber at Randall and Huntley in a bank. She is very pleased with the space,however, she is disappointed that they had to leave the depot and the history that the depot has. She stated visitors from far and away have come to visit the depot and this will be a loss not to have the depot as a visitor location. • Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce—None • City of Elgin—None • Board Member Comments: -None Ex-Officio Comments: Brewer shared that the she attended the McHenry Co. Tourism Roundup. Also, Algonquin Downtown Partnership will be sponsoring an Art Walk on December 5th PRESENTATION: Bless presented an Illinois Bureau of Tourism Statistical Report. ANNOUNCEMENT: Bless presented Ann Laube with a gift for her outstanding service as the EACVB Board President these past two years. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, January 11th- 8:00 AM. Algonquin Commons—Algonquin ADJOURN: Gilliam motioned to adjourn, MacBean seconded. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 9:10 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Ittifit .36.44... Kimberly A Bless, Executive Director /nes