Minutes
Big Sky Chamber Board of Directors
55 Lone Mountain Trail | Big Sky, Montana 59716
406-995-3000
September 10th, 2013
www.visitbigskymt.com
PRESENT: Sarah Griffiths ABSENT: Bill Simpkins
John Richardson Pat Straub
Dave O’Connor
Victor DeLeo
Shawna Winter
TELECONFERENCE: Greg Pack
VBS LIASION: Catherine Gilb
STAFF: Kitty Clemens ABSENT: Danielle Miller
Andrew Peterson
Marci Lewandowski
· Call to Order: 8:45 am
Dave made a motion to start the meeting.
· Visit Big Sky Liaison Report
a. Visit Big Sky is moving quickly.
b. VBS contracted with Fuse Ideas for media buying service and with Pruiett Designs for advertising to push the winter campaign out and develop a year round strategy.
c. VBS discussed the idea of partnering with West Yellowstone to have a kiosk in West Yellowstone to highlight Big Sky’s summer activity while
partnering with West Yellowstone to highlight its winter activity.
· Approval of the Minutes:
Motion to approve minutes was made by Dave O’Connor and seconded by Shawna Winter. The motion passed unanimously.
· Financial Report
a. The Chamber has some financial overhead and is good shape financially.
b. When the minutes are approved from Visit Big Sky, Visit Big Sky can open a new bank account.
c. Motion to approve August’s financials was made by Sarah Griffiths and seconded by Shawna Winter. With all in favor, the motion passed animously.
· Standing Agenda Items
a. Kitty is creating the Tourism Master Plan. The board needs to decide how to accomplish the goals in this plan and develop a timeline to implement the plan.
b. Kitty cited the tourism master plan for Vancouver as an example, and the board watched a brief video on the Vancouver’s tourism Master Plan. c. The board discussed the main points of the video and how it pertained to Big Sky’s tourism mater plan. There were many parallels, and the video brought up a lot of high level questions and issues.
d. The board discussed how the merger would affect its future.
1. Dave O’Connor explained that it is important that with the
merger the board is placed as a partner not a spectator.
2. Victor DeLeo noted that the board needs to make actions to aid
in the destination management plans.
3. Sarah Griffiths mentioned that the Chamber board needs to
continue to support the local community to provide world class
customer service in Big Sky.
e. The board discussed relinquishing marketing and branding to VBS while the Chamber focuses on continually providing quality services to visitors and members of the Big Sky Community.
f. Kitty stated that is the Chamber board’s role is to provide the institutional
framework for development to happen within the tourism master plan. We
can be gathering and analyzing data from a tourism and development point
of view right now, while these high level investments are being made.
The proposal includes:
1. A technical committee to development a survey and conduct one-on-one interviews with decision makers.
2. A policy council to address public policies that affect stated goals for the Chamber and educates elected officials.
· Directors Report
a. The lighting is in. John Richardson said he’s gotten feedback and that it looks a little incomplete. We have 5 lights, and he suggests we need to go further with perhaps 8 or 12. He also stated that it’s hard to see the lights because of light pollution. John Richardson argued that the board needs to
make it a resort tax request for next year to add the additional lights.
b. Big Sky Public Library will be added to the wayfinding sign in the canyon.
c. The banner RFP is out and is due on the 15th of September. There will be a week turnaround until Danielle gives the bids.
d. Kitty has an appointment with Jeff Eber at the Montana Office of Transportation to discuss making transportation projects in Big Sky eligible.
e. Kitty also discussed plans for a Big Sky Business Barometer which will be Her goal is to get the first one produced in about 6 weeks.
· Standing Agenda Items
a. Summer Business Activity
1. John Richardson’s biggest months are June, July, August, September. October will also be a big month for the 320 Guest Ranch. It will have several big groups during that month.
2. Sarah Griffiths explains that the Yellowstone Club is having a big event last week in September, a golf tournament at the Spanish Peaks Golf Club. There will be shuttles running from the East Coast for the event.
3. The board discussed how to extend Big Sky’s summer season in the future.
b. Membership Report:
1. Kitty gave the membership report in Danielle’s absence.
2. The Chamber has been picking up about one member a week on average.
2. Danielle hit all of her goals for the golf tournament.
3. Accounts receivable is coming in pretty well.
c. VIC Report:
1. Numbers have remained high for the month of August with 2,278 visitors for the month, which is an average of 76 visitors per day.
2. More visitors are coming from the state of Montana during the month of August, more specifically from Bozeman and Great Falls.
3. There has been an increase in Canadian visitors, many from Calgary.
d. Website Update:
1. Wildlife gets the most shares on facebook. We had 90 shares for a black bear picture.
2. Andrew will come up with a list of twitter hashtags to give to the board.
3. We had 55 new followers on Instagram within the month of August.
4. The old chamber site had 74,000 new visitors in a year. The new Chamber site is seeing a lot more traffic to new site. Andrew has projected 100,000 unique visitors for the new website over the next year.
5. We need to build the Chamber end of the website and figure out how to give a password to chambermaster so that members can manage their own listings on the site.
· Parking Lot
Plan to hold small marketing classes for businesses in Big Sky. Perhaps Andrew could assist with this.
Create a one page hand out on what the Chamber does.
· Adjourn: Victor DeLeo made the motion to adjourn and it was seconded by Shawna Winter. With no other business the meeting was adjourned by 11:20 a.m.