AUBURN’S HISTORIC & CULTURAL SITES COMMISSION
Meeting minutes from October 21, 2003
Present: J. Bryant, M. Alberici, S. Craner, M. Vanek, J. Kline, T. Hussey, T. Bridenbecker,
D. Lamb, P. Wisbey and E. McHugh
Excused: M. Weitekamp
Absent: J. McCormick, B. M. Lewis, D. Dempsey, A. Wood, P. Copes Johnson, C. Carter,
P. Anderegg, W. DeWitt and S. Marteney
I. Approval of the Minutes
M. Alberici asked for approval of the August minutes. S. Craner made a motion to accept the minutes as submitted, seconded by E. McHugh. All were in favor and the motion carried.
Committee Reports
II. Planning & Development Committee
D. Lamb said the committee had not met, and the future is uncertain due to the committee changes addressed at the retreat. This will be discussed later in the meeting.
III. Marketing Committee
As for leads from ads, M. Vanek said from the end of August through September the Tourism Office responded to 1,507 inquiries; the top producers were Better Homes & Gardens and AAA. That totals 9,458 inquiries to date. M. Vanek said she hasn’t had much luck moving forward with the signage projects that the Committee had been working on. The one finished City pedestrian sign is at the DPW garage. M. Vanek has not heard back from Jerry Del Favero re: installation. She had called again that morning. The Marketing Committee did meet to decide on the location of the first six signs. M. Vanek said she also has not had any luck with finding out where things stood with signage that was to go along the arterial. M. Vanek resubmitted the original plans to Mike Long that were to be included in the DOT City Planning
application in May of ‘02. M. Alberici was going to have Dave Dempsey follow up with M. Long.
M. Vanek said the Committee met October 15th to discuss the changes that needed to be made before the brochure is reprinted. Taking into account the results of the Visitor Conversion Study that was done, people noted that they had hoped to see more information on accommodations and other attractions included. M. Vanek said potential visitors need enough information to make a buying decision. The Committee decided to include accommodations located within the City limits and one mile outside. This would give visitors inn and B&B options as well as hotel/motels. It was also decided to enlarge the inside map, as it will now include accommodation locations. M. Vanek said we would again print 50,000 brochures. Please get your changes to J. Kline as soon as possible.
M. Vanek said on October 31st the CCCVB will host a brainstorming lunch at the Holiday Inn re: Bass Pro. It would be good to have a representative from the Commission there. M. Alberici will be out of town. P. Wisbey said he would attend. M. Alberici said a Chapel volunteer had distributed the Common Threads/Holiday Traditions placemats. S. Craner said the Downtown Deli had a large supply of them if folks needed more.
IV. Community Outreach Committee
S. Craner said she was not aware of any upcoming community events to bring the display to.
E. McHugh said the next Passport to History program would run the same dates as last year, starting the week before spring break.
On a separate note, E. McHugh said she had written a letter to P. Wisbey stating the Museum’s intentions to have the prison exhibit on view permanently after the second floor renovations are done. E. McHugh thought this development should fulfill the need sought after by the Prison Museum Study Group, and then should this Committee be disbanded. The group present agreed this met the need, and P. Wisbey said he would draft a letter to the Mayor telling her of the situation, and the Commission could vote to dissolve this Committee at the next meeting.
V. Quality Assurance Committee
Committee Chair W. DeWitt was absent, no report.
VI. Prison Museum Study Group
See discussion above.
VII. Other Business
D. Lamb said everything is going very well with Common Threads. There are just a few hundred of the brochures left, they are holding on to them in case the sites run out. All the others have been mailed. They will begin installation at the Schweinfurth next week. It looks like they will have 109 quilts in the show, including one from Northern Ireland. M. Alberici said TV ads are running in the Buffalo area during October and November. D. Lamb said Stephanie Bieljec has gotten calls from people who’ve seen the ad. J. Kline said she had received D. Lamb’s e-mail re: an upcoming episode of Simply Quilts on HGTV featuring a behind-the-scenes segment from last year’s Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibit. It will air November 10th at 8:30AM.
M. Alberici said Steve Gage would be videotaping the shows at each site so clips can be sent to Gateway Information Center and can be used for local airing. J. Kline asked if the Schweinfurth was going to attend the Arts & Business Council’s grant workshop. The closest one is on November 4th at the George Eastman House. D. Lamb said they are rethinking their application, as their last one did not encompass a large enough area; but S. Bieljec will probably go.
The Commission Retreat and Board Workshop went well. At the Retreat, a new mission statement was drafted. It reads, “The mission of the Auburn Historic & Cultural Sites Commission is to support its designated organizations to achieve their missions through collaborative marketing, programming and tourism strategies.” T. Bridenbecker made a motion to adopt the new statement, seconded by J. Bryant. All were in favor and the motion carried.
M. Alberici reviewed the Retreat summary furnished by facilitator Barry Warren. With the budget reductions, the Commission needs to prioritize its initiatives. As for committees, B. Warren was not in favor of dissolving the Quality Assurance Committee. Improving the quality of our product is an important goal that we should strive for. Yet this Committee needs a new chair since W. DeWitt has been unavailable for the meetings. (No one volunteered.) The group present questioned the Commission’s ability to impose standards on the sites, i.e. P. Wisbey mentioned if certain sites can’t meeting quality standards then maybe they shouldn’t be marketed in the same way. J. Bryant said quality standards have been an ongoing concern and should be addressed. The group present decided that a small committee would
develop the criteria, and then each site would be assessed accordingly. M. Vanek said, it has been a few years since the Randall Travel Marketing Report was released, and now may be the time for an update to see if there has been improvement. M. Vanek knows of a person studying tourism who is looking for an internship project with the Office. D. Lamb said S. Bieljec might have a student in her Museum Studies class that would be interested in helping too. J. Kline said there was an RSVP volunteer who has helped out at the Office for several years that would be good. E. McHugh, P. Wisbey and J. Bryant agreed to meet Monday at 1PM to develop the criteria.
M. Alberici said she made good progress with the Common Threads site survey. The replies will be filled in on scantron sheets, to make tabulation easier. Retired teacher, Dave McCarthy has been a great help with the process, and that the first 1500 sheets have been donated. (They cost approximately $40 for 500.) D. McCarthy will run the survey results in January after the event is over. Each site’s responses will be tallied, then a grand total. The scantron sheets need to be numbered; yet numbers can be repeated for each site. J. Kline passed out a draft of the survey. Questions included how visitors heard about the event, how far they traveled, what else they did while here, rate their experience, etc. A few changes were suggested, and J. Kline will e-mail the updated survey to the sites.
M. Alberici said she approached Margaret Weitekamp about coordinating the Commission newsletter and she agreed. M. Weitekamp feels bad she hasn’t been able to make the meetings due to her class schedule, and she’s happy to contribute in this way. J. Kline met with M. Weitekamp and passed off a lot of background information to include, plus various ideas for feature stories. It became immediately apparent that scheduling the various newsletter mailings would be quite difficult. After a brief discussion, some site directors decided they did not want to include the Commission newsletter in their own publications, and would rather have them out available to visitors. Distributing them at Holiday Traditions would be a good idea. The site directors agreed to pass the newsletters to their Boards.
The Commission will develop its own mailing list to include all the regional press contacts, elected officials, etc. J. Kline said she has all those contacts already, and she will tell M. Weitekamp of the distribution change. S. Craner said the newsletter would be a good resource when the Commission needs to report to Council. S. Craner recommended that site Board members or other people involved with the sites speak positively about the Commission at the “public to be heard” sessions.
In discussing the next meeting date, the people present thought the holidays were too busy, and it would be preferable to meet in January. The Commission will meet on January 6th at 3:30PM, 3rd Floor City Hall (assuming the City offices have been moved from the meeting room.) This meeting date change was requested by the Chair since she will be out of town at the end of the month. The Commission adjourned at 5:05PM.
Recorded by Jesse Kline
| 
