The meeting was attended by about 15 people, merchants and residents, and the purpose was to solidify what the merchants wanted to present to the VCTC at it’s Thursday, July 12th meeting and to select the spokespeople.
I once again facilitated the meeting and the Tahoe House was a great place to have the meeting. Theresa was a gracious host.
The agenda for this meeting and the updated documents are at the end of this summary.
The group reviewed and edited what’s working and whats not working. Not much changed but it served as a great springboard to the next topic which was to refine the top 3 issues that they had with the VCTC so that they could be presented at this weeks meeting.
A lot of discussion went into defining both the issues and the proposed solutions.
The top 3 issues that they settled on were:
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Lack of a direct and clear “voice of the merchants” into the VCTC planning process has led to several issues with Events
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Lack of effective communication between the VCTC and the merchants.
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The elimination of the Docent program has had an effect on the experience of our visitors. We know that people don’t come to VC to shop at our stores. They come for the experience.
There was quite a bit of added content under each of these issues as well as a number of proposed solutions for each one. I will post that detail when I do the summary of the VCTC meeting.
Then Richard Oates, Canvas Cafe and Breck Greninger, Kettle Corn, volunteered to present the issues at the VCTC meeting.
The group set the time and place of the next meeting which will be on July 30th at 6:00pm at St. Mary’s Art Center
Below is the agenda and the updated lists of whats working and whats not working in italics.
Stay tuned for the summary of the VCTC meeting to see how it turned out!
Agenda for the July 9 Merchant Meeting at 6:00- 7:30 PM at the Tahoe House
Alexia Sober-Richard Oates Welcome 5 min
Nicole Barde Review of June 26 meeting notes 45 min
- -Clarify whats working/not working
- -Firm up Top 3 with recommendations
- -Define our objectives for the next VCTC meeting
- Next steps
-one and done?
-form a standing group-purpose/objectives?
-form a formal organization?
-purpose/objectives?
Arika Perry Observations and Close
WHAT IS WORKING
It works for THEM…ie VCTC/RAD/Liquid Blue but not for us
Central group to plan events..Liquid Blue
Merchants and residents meeting to fix it
Getting people ( visitors) up here who don’t normally come up
Liquid Blue feedback loop to the VCTC
-metrics
analysis, +/
Recent RAD hire is good.
Radio experience
The Train
Pipers Events
Merchant involvement
The Storey County Community Coalition
Quicker and better trash pickup after events
There are more Hispanic families coming up and they have been good for business
Seems like there are more friend referrals from people who had a good time up here
The videos are good
Tour buses…but need more and more notice
Father daughter event was really good for business….family centered
We are a unique location and people want to come here
WHAT IS NOT WORKING
No bid vendors ( ie RAD/LB) ..we need two bids
Vendors ( ie food/goods) competing with us
No information on some events
Merchants being charged fees for booths at events, don’t know if its free or not
Conflict of interest LB ( need a party of 3 to represent the merchants)
Rules not clear about Liquid Blue
Mobile ATM machines compete with the merchants ( have signs directing people to the ones in the shops)
Closing the streets are a safety issue and keeps people from going to shops not at the center of town
Need to quantify the damage done as a result of the competition and due to blocking the streets
Need a better PA system
Contracts need to go out to bid yearly
There is nothing about VC in the Reno airport
Communication
Chili cook off—vendors were competing with merchants
Merchants not getting the money out front of the stores
Communications, advertising , posters
VCTC office doesn’t promote events that are not sponsored by THEM. Ie t-shirts etc
Parades begin and end at the Bucket, the rest of town gets nothing
Bar crawls….see people getting sick, urinating on the street
Don’t promote the merchants…we need to help each other
What is VCTC authority?
No music with parades…need to liven them up
We as merchants don’t know enough about what we all offer to be able to do a good job of referring visitors to other stores.
Vendors are too close together and block people from getting into the stores. Need access points between vendor booths
Partially shutting down the street is keeping people from the other parts of town..keeps them in there. Shut the whole thing down.
A central place to go to make reservations at the various lodging and restaurant venues is missing. Visitors don’t know where to go to get help doing that
TOP 3 issues
#1=Lack of a direct and clear “voice of the merchants” into the VCTC planning process has led to several issues with Events
#2=Lack of effective communication between the VCTC and the merchants.
#3=The elimination of the Docent program has had an effect on the experience of our visitors. We know that people don’t come to VC to shop at our stores. They come for the experience.