Saugerties Area Chamber of Commerce

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 Board Meeting Minutes

The meeting began at 6:40 p.m.

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John Bassler, from the Saugerties Economic Development Committee addressed the board, on the topic of an upcoming survey that the EDC is conducting. John wanted to work out an exchange of lists, whereby the Chamber members could be encouraged and contacted about participating in the survey, and in turn, the Chamber could gain access to the EDC list of businesses in Saugerties, for our use in membership drives.

The board was in support of John's sharing the survey information with the membership.

It was agreed that:

• John would address the membership at the March 26th meeting and cover the strategy of the EDC and their efforts as well as the survey.
• Assuming members agreement, we can conduct the survey by email and follow up with those who don't open their mail with a hard copy, U.S. mail survey.
• John will obtain comments on the survey itself from 3 chamber members -- Kevin Brady (representing a large business), Mery Rosado (representing a smaller, Town business) and a Village business (Mike Campbell to identify).

The general target for conducting the survey is the end of April.

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The next item was a discussion about the possibility of moving to 6 meetings per year, rather than our current 12 meetings per year. The plusses (more time to prepare, more time to work individually and in committees between meetings, better planned and more focused meetings) and the minuses (a missed meeting means it would be 4 months between meetings, might generate a feeling of some lost momentum).

The net of the discussion was to table this and allow the new board members to come on board and then possibly revisit. For now, this will not be a topic planned for discussion at the members meetings.

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We laid out the schedule for board meetings and members meetings for 2009. Board meetings will be the 2nd Wednesday of each month (with a backup plan if something comes up and many board members are not able to make that date of the 3rd Wednesday of the month). Members meetings will be the last Thursday of each month. Evening meetings. (The observation being that morning meetings are never very well attended.)

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In the course of a discussion on Special Events, Mery Rosado mentioned that the bill for the Sunset Concerts this year will be $3500, a general figure which is still open to change. It was noted that it is unlikely that the Town or Village will be able to fund any of that cost, and Mery indicated that her work team that looks after the concerts will figure out a plan. Mike suggested that if the concerts had a Quadricentennial theme, that some additional Quadricentennial money that Congressman Hinchey has announced might be able to be used, via a Greenway grant. Mike will be getting Mery the necessary web site and email information.

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Agenda set for the Thursday, March 26th meeting:

• We will ask the newly elected Mayor to be our speaker
• John Bassler will cover the EDC and surveys, as described above
• The election results will be recapped and the elected board members will be recognized
• Special events (Hors'n Around Saugerties, GIANT Flea Market, Sunset Concerts) will be covered
• Members comment period
• Socialize

The meeting adjourned at 8:13 p.m.

Submitted by Michael Campbell.