Board of Director’s Meeting – Minutes

Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Location: online 6:30 p.m.

Attendees: Sara Bergsma (SB), Eric Chabot (EC), Alan Cooke (AC), Margaret Lara (ML), Kristina Tesser Derksen (KTD), Colin Best (CB), Miguel Gonsalves (MG), Joe Taglieri (JT), Rachel Shuttleworth (RS)

Regrets:

EC called the meeting to order at 6:33 p.m.

EC asked the board if there was any declaration of pecuniary interest or conflict of interest. None were made.

Review of previous minutes

  • CB moved to accept January minutes. JT seconded the motion. Motion passed.

Treasurer’s Report

  • From an operational perspective we had a successful year. Things opened up in the second half of year.
  • Expenses reported so far are approximately $250,000. Around $18-$20k still needs to flow through. Revenues were $331,622.
  • Expected surplus is around $27k for 2021, and there is the unused amount transferred from the reserve of $39k. Total transfer back to surplus is expected to be around $66k.
  • HolidayFest was successful from financial perspective and was very well-received in the community.
  • Had financial contributions from province and Town, and expected expenses for 2021 that did not materialize due to the shut-down. Assuming things reopen in 2022, we have some flexibility.
  • CB moved to accept the Treasurer’s Report. SB seconded the motion. Motion passed.

Council Reports

CB (Regional)

  • February 9 is Regional council meeting where we are dealing with Regional Official Plan for 2031 to 2051. Expecting lots of delegations at that meeting. Important opportunity for public input.
  • Check the Halton Region website for COVID updates (red and yellow banners).
  • Downtown could qualify as a Community Improvement Program area through the region. This would be beneficial for property owners.
  • Meritor building has been demolished. Developer will be holding public meeting and then coming to Council with their plans for this mixed-use area.

KTD (Local)

  • Town installed two ice rinks – one at Rotary Park and one in Campbellville.
  • We are in a modified Step 2. Vaccine clinic coming up at the Sports Center coming up next week.
  • Upcoming Town council meeting includes a vote for Milton’s position on the Regional Official Plan, a new development with 1,000 homes, and a couple other items.

  • JT moved to accept the Council Reports. SB seconded the motion. Motion passed.

Executive Director’s Report

2022 Operating Calendar

  • Calendar organized by strategic priority – promotions, attracting businesses, advocacy, beautification, added operations. Lists items that happen on a regular basis every year, and new/modified 2022 items. Adjust as needed as things change throughout the year.
  • Q1 and part of Q2 focus more on planning and administration. Expecting further lifting of public health restrictions after that, so we would return to more events.
  • Events – Uncertainty remains due to COVID impact. DMSF likely not possible and we are a few months behind in planning. Car Show possible as the planning period is shorter. Other potential events include Farmers’ Market, Tiny Tots, HolidayFest, activations.
  • Marketing & promotions – Website and social media, Downtown Flashback Tour, wifi stats, Discover Downtown Milton guides, Easter campaign.
  • Member database – Member database update, OBIAA CRM committee.
  • Member communication & support – Member feedback survey, welcome kit update, COVID updates
  • Focus on attraction of new businesses – Sharing vacancy information, maintain relationships with landlords, events help attract businesses (vendors become tenants).
  • Advocacy – Chamber GR committee, OBIAA, Town relationships, patios, All Candidates meeting.
  • Beautification – Mural update, opportunity to do more in beautification this year if our event focus is lighter, spring clean-up (ambassador), seasonal décor (grant application), safety barrier at Main & Martin, parkette update.
  • Ops/Admin – Sponsorship, grant applications, insurance research, basement & admin clean-up.
  • Keeping a list of potential projects that we can review and address when the time is right – made progress on several items on the list in 2021.

Discussion:

  • CB – Could flip order of summer events, Car Show earlier and DMSF later. Dufferin Aggregates willing to help with stones for safety barrier. CB is working to get approval from the Town for this.
  • AC – DMSF creates greater value than Tiny Tots for small business.
  • EC – Town contribution is critical for us to host DMSF and they haven’t committed.
  • RS – Town hasn’t filled events person role so they can’t support at the capacity they have before. Town staff time is necessary for day of event as well. Summer activity/activation – could do an enhanced summer activity ie ‘Love your Downtown’ Peterborough campaign with patios, buskers, promotions (no road closures, less planning required).
  • KTD – Consider bringing in a third party to run events. Residents thought Holiday Street Market was fabulous (but vendors and members had concerns).
  • EC – Instead of one large event, do more frequent smaller events that attract same amount of people but over period of time. Could create an events position that specific works weekend events. Each year we negotiate with Town to get them onboard with DMSF. Could ask them for resources to allocate as we see fit.
  • KTD – Still need volunteers and Town support even if we have a specific event person.
  • RS – DMSF has maybe 40-50 day of Town employees. We relied too heavily on volunteers in key roles for HolidayFest. Request Town’s DMSF dollars to be spread over the events we are hosting. Also request approximately 30 day-of staff for events.
  • MG – Consider what could be removed from DMSF to make it work within a smaller budget, planning window. Apply HolidayFest model to summer event, need to support businesses (they are losing Q1).
  • SB – Agree with exploring a third party. If we host event, we need to offer entertainment/music to go with the vendors, food, etc. People really want to get out. Tiny Tots costs businesses lots of money in candy, could go away if needed. Smaller events still take a lot of staff time. Suggest doing a scaled down version of the Street Festival, plus HolidayFest.
  • KTD – Could combine summer events (smaller version of Street Festival combined with Car Show). Determine if Milton Cruise is interested in getting involved.
  • RS – Explore wither other car club can partner if Milton Cruise cannot. Don’t know yet how much staff time we need for other projects (mural, seasonal décor if funded).
  • SB – Summary, could work within the scope of what we have and do HolidayFest-sized event in the summer (combo small DMSF & Car Show), HolidayFest, could remove Tiny Tots if needed.
  • KTD – Townsend Smith worked with Milton Ford to do Ribfest on Main Street. Could explore event planning company partnerships for next year.
  • AC – Have contact for an event company he and Cheryl talked to a couple years ago.

Funding Updates

  • My Main Street funding – Got pricing from two companies for custom LED street pole decorations. Suggestion to order mostly standard decorations for poles and create a few custom ones and keep adding a couple new decorations each year.
  • Reconnect grant – Applying for HolidayFest for 2022.
  • Request to Town for funding and staffing for 2022 events.

Event summaries

  • Summaries provided for Tiny Tots and HolidayFest. Events were successful
  • EC arranged to have video clips taken at HolidayFest and we had volunteers count attendees in them. Used that to estimate total attendees. Would love to do this for events going forward. We have estimated number of attendees for past events but our estimates were much less accurate. At Tiny Tots we had volunteers with clickers at all open entry and exit points.
  • Estimated total visitor spending on the day (based on survey responses) – Tiny Tots was $25,000, HolidayFest was $200,700.
  • Staff costs – we track our hours roughly. We have staff in the office that are new to our events, lots has changed due to COVID, new people at the Town, so hours were a bit higher relative to past.
  • KTD moved to accept ED’s Report. SB seconded the motion. Motion passed.

Other Business

  • EC would like to discuss some possible new policies we could implement (recommended by OBIAA). Specifically, policies for human resources, board member roles, etc.
  • Executive is discussing possible staffing policy and will bring update to upcoming meeting.
  • Current board term is coming up. To ensure smooth transition to incoming board, recommend a policy on board roles and responsibilities.
  • Could be other policies that OBIAA has that would be useful for our board as well, will review them further and we could implement them over the course of the year.
  • KTD – Thank you to the Milton Winterhawks for their generous donation from the Winterhawks for Hospice. They donated $2,065 to the Townsend Smith Foundation. Buds Cannabis also made donation.

Adjournment

  • SB moved to adjourn. KTD seconded the motion. Motion passed.
  • Meeting adjourned at 7:55 pm