MCLA Board Meeting - July 19, 2006
Abalone Hall, Little River Inn, Little River, CA

Called to order @ 1: 22pm

Board Members present:
Jo Bradley, Jan Rodriguez, Steve Musser, Kevin Gallagher, Jitu Ishwar, Mike Bradbrook, Richard Strom,

Non-Board Members present:
Jeff Stanford, Pam Amante, Ted Kidwell, Josie Perla, Richard Carpenito

Staff Present:
Scott Schneider

Additions, Deletions, and Approval:
None

MCPA Presentation
Julia Kendrick-Conway, Vice Chair of MCPA discussed history of MCPA, the new vision, mission and values statements. They would like to bridge county wide promotional organizations.
Talked about their “3 page plan”, including:
• Hiring executive director
• Link to other sites regionally, not just county-wide
• Outsourcing work when skills are not present or available
• Continue to provide “deliverables” to County Board of Supervisors
• More web advertising on website to generate funds
• Wait 4-6 months to see what happens with Lodging and Wine
• Enhance links to Mendocino lodging type searches

Privilege of the Floor
Webervations discussion – should we use it? Should individual properties pay or MCLA? We should use Webervations for all properties. Is this possible? We need to require every single property to buy into this program. Just have MCPA do it for another year as is? They pay for it and we will figure out our scene within the next few months? We should not do this, but have each property have a link to its own website and own booking engine. See if a unified field for all availability calendars for all properties. If Webervations is continued, there should be free access for all properties. MCPA should bill individual properties if they want it to continue. Whatever we do it should be fair.
Richard – Motion – MCPA is requested to bill individual lodging properties that use or will be using Webervations. We will request MCPA to find alternative software to develop uniform availability system within 3 months; Steve – seconded – UNANIMOUS

It was realized that we had forgotten to approve the Minutes from last meeting.
Motion to approve prior minutes – Steve – Jitu Seconded – UNANIMOUS

Administrative Report
Passed out survey results, discussed additional comments; Discussed conversations and trip to Sonoma County Tourism Bureau meeting in Cloverdale. Met with CPA. Developing database. Submitted contract to County by July11 deadline. Joined all 4 Chambers of Commerce. Sent requests to Chambers and MCPA for reciprocal links on their websites to one another.

Discussed the task of communicating with 525 properties:
Monthly e-mail & Quarterly newsletter – archive minutes and newsletters on web site – send link to minutes to members; Should we send communication to people that do not want to be communicated with? Yes we should. Communicate with everybody. Newsletter to go out by snail mail. Direct to web site for more information. If they want monthly minutes, send email. Email when requested.
1. Call each vacation rental agency to see how they want us to deal with future communications.
2. Jan will work with Scott on newsletter.
3. On our web site, do an executive summary for each set of Board Meeting Minutes with links to read more information.

Reported on Sonoma County visit and future visits – approval to attend Sonoma County Tourism Bureau’s Annual Meeting September 13 in Santa Rosa.

Scott to communicate with John Enquist to investigate how to communicate with the newly formed Wine Commission.

Report from Board Seat Committee
Motion to table Item by Kevin, due to time restraints, but also to move Anderson Valley Seat to Inland At-Large seat. The issue will be revisited again next year – Steven seconded – UNANIMOUS

By-Laws Rewrite
Richard move the marketing committee be allowed to have 11 members. A minimum of 6 board members, no more than 5 non-board members – Kevin seconded – UNANIMOUS

Scott to work with Richard on getting by-law changes mailed to pre-BID membership to prepare for annual meeting.


Marketing Committee Report
Committee met prior to Board Meeting. 11 people present to go over and look through 12 RFQ’s received. The top 3 were chosen and dates were set to set up interviews. Interview date will be August 17. There will be a one hour presentation from each firm with one hour permitted for Q&A for each firm. After these interviews, 2 will be chosen to present in front of the Board of Directors. Prior to interview it will be determined whether any of the firms have a conflict of interests within Mendocino County. If so we will continue down the list of firms in rated order.
Comments:
Ted Kidwell – pleasure to be in marketing meeting with point system and how the meeting was run by Richard.
Jan Rodriguez – good input by everyone that was present. Everybody was working together.


Appointments to the Board
Richard Carpenito – NC at Large – Auberge Mendocino – innkeeper@aubergemendocino.com
Pamela Amante – Fort Bragg - Beachcomber Motel – pamante@hotmail.com

Annual Meeting
Jim Abrams – for keynote speaker?
Presentation of marketing firms hired
Scott to email Board Members for ideas on the annual meeting. Scott requested a committee be formed.

County Promotional Groups Meeting
Tabled until next meeting

Meeting Adjourned 4:25pm