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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-11-22 - MinutesFayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission Minutes from November 22, 2021 Fayetteville Town Center Commissioners Chrissy Sanderson, Andrew Prysby, Elvis Moya Present: Todd Martin, Sarah Bunch Commissioners Katherine Kinney, Chair; Absent: Staff: Molly Rawn, CEO; Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance I. CEO Molly Rawn called the meeting to order at 2:00 pm noting that she would be chairing this meeting in Commissioner Kinney's absence. II. Old Business a. Commissioner Martin motioned to approve the October 2021 minutes with Commissioner Moya seconding. The minutes were unanimously approved. III. New Business a. CEO Report, Molly Rawn Rawn began with the HMR numbers, noting that HMR collections in October 2021 compared to October 2019 were up 17%. We are 9% ahead of our revenue target and 13% below in expenses. She does expect that expense gap to close a bit with some upcoming expenses. In Personnel, we've promoted Eden Moore to our full time Visitors Center Manager and we've also brought on Philip Purifoy as part time Event Services Coordinator for the Fayetteville Town Center. While the Visitors Center saw slightly fewer visitors and sales in October compared to September, we are ramping up for a great holiday season. Rawn further noted that many people stopped by to see the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree at an event organized by Chloe Bell, noting a thank you to Commissioner Moya who helped with some of the logistics. She also noted we had a very successful Lights of the Ozarks light night event and parade and expressed appreciation to Chloe Bell, Community Engagement Manager, and our team. Cyclo-cross vendor applications will be up on the website this week. Rawn reported that we hosted the first Spartan US Trail Championship with approximately 200 runners the last weekend of October. We were pleased with how many states were represented by the runners, but the number of runners was lower than expected. 1, 211 tickets have been purchased for the 2022 Cyclo-cross Championship event with over half of the VIP tickets already purchased. We are hosting a couple of events for our HMR partners in December to talk about what to expect with the upcoming Cyclo-cross event. Rawn reminded the commission that the December meeting will be a budget only meeting with one additional item, a request to approve an expense for replacement carpet at the town center. Commissioner Martin requested to go into executive session at the December meeting and Rawn asked that attorney Vince Chadick state the procedure to do so. Commissioner Martin asked how compensation could be handled in an executive session. Chadick stated that everyone could leave the room, including attorney and staff. Commissioner Martin asked to hold an executive session to review the executive director and compensation at this meeting. Commissioner Moya asked if there were any documents available ahead of time to review. Rawn said she could pull together anything they would like and that she would pull salary history and any past evaluations. Vince Chadick clarified that the person the executive session was about could stay or ask to step out of the room. Rawn presented the tentative 2022 Commission agenda schedule. Commissioner Martin asked if we could meet the 3rd Monday rather than 4th. Commissioner Sanderson asked if we could also consider meeting every other month. Vince Chadick pulled up the bylaws to see if we could consider meeting every other month and discovered that the bylaws would not prohibit meeting bi-monthly. Commissioner Martin asked if we could reconsider meeting bi-monthly at the March 2022 meeting and have meetings in January and February. Commissioner Martin made a motion to move Jan and Feb to the 3rd and then withdrew it. Rawn asked that she be able to talk to her team on when we could do January and February meeting and get back to the commission with a plan. Commissioner Moya asked if there was an opportunity for all buildings on the downtown square to have the option to be lit during Lights of the Ozarks and especially the Fayetteville Town Center. Rawn said she wasn't certain if the city would be able to string lights on private buildings, but we certainly could consider the town center as it was a city -owned building. Commissioner Bunch said the Active Transportation committee did vote for more ambient lighting for the square which would be helpful. Rawn said she would like to connect Commissioner Moya and Community Engagement Manger, Chloe Bell, who coordinates the Experience Fayetteville aspect of Lights of the Ozarks to discuss this. Commissioner Moya also asked about the speaker system to see if it could be upgraded and/or could be spread out with embedded speakers throughout the square. Rawn stated that the speaker system could be a capital expense request. b. Financial Report. Jennifer Walker, Vice President of Finance Our revenue is at 92% and expenditures are at 73% of our budget projections, this is good news. HMR is exceeding our budgeted projections and our YTD net income is just over 1 million dollars. Cyclo-cross spending ramped up during the World Cup event. The balance sheet shows our cash and investments at 5.1 million dollars at the end of October. Fayetteville Town Center is showing $140,000 in unearned revenue, which indicates many upcoming events. Additionally, we have 3.3 million dollars in our unreserved accounts. Rawn commended the entire team for a good year of keeping expenditures in line. Commissioner Moya asked for a specific financial report for the Art Court in the future. Rawn said we will not be open and activating that space before our January meeting. c. Marketing Report. Susie Nicholson with Sells Agency gave the report on behalf of Hazel Hernandez who is offsite for a photo shoot. Nicholson stated that 71% of views on our website was via mobile phone, which is on trend with how we are consuming our data "on the go." In talking about videos, Commissioner Prysby noted that doing "snackable" pieces of video, i.e. 5-10 seconds was the trend for optimal engagement. Viewers were 90K in 2020 with more than 130K users so far in 2021. In listing the top 5 continents, she showed lots of growth in European countries, driven by Cyclo-cross. The top 10 states and most popular pages were discussed. Nicholson showed what the Cyclo-cross tickets looked like, with Walmart serving as our sponsor. d. Vote. Contract with Boondock, Inc. dba Texino. Approval of a contract totaling $113,800 for the purchase of a Sprinter van and interior build out for the Mobile Visitors Center. Memo Attached. CEO Rawn asked for approval for the contract. Commissioner Sanderson asked if there was another company we considered and Rawn outlined the process which, with working with this company, will be "soup to nuts," something we were not able to find in another company. It was discussed that both the drive back and the build out of the van could be very engaging — a time lapse video was discussed. Commissioner Moya discussed having a swag bag of Fayetteville items to give out at various stops. Commissioner Bunch asked what the timeline would be and Rawn said the van would hopefully be ready for the January Cyclo-cross event. Commissioner Martin moved to approve the contract with Texino for $113,800 with Commissioner Sanderson seconded it and all approved via a vote. d. Vote. Cyclo-cross Vendor Payment Approval. Seeking approval for the payments in the attached Cyclo-cross Report — Contracts and Expenditures. Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance, presented this item, noting that we realized in July 2021 that we'd be running into a need to have many contracts approved that may be over 20K, with the caveat that we'd be presenting the contracts in bulk after the event with this presentation. Walker presented that cumulative Cyclo-cross revenue to date was 3.5 million with expenses at 1.5 million. Commissioner Martin asked if we were being asked to approve vendor payments listed at $525,556. Commissioner Moya asked about the Race Directors amount, which is Medalist Sports. Commissioner Martin moved for the approval of the payments to vendors and Commissioner Sanderson seconded it; it passed unanimously. e. Presentation and Discussion. Clinton House Museum Board of Directors. Jana Mayfield, Board President discuss the museum's plans for 2022 CEO Rawn introduced this topic by stating that the YTD revenue and income was included in the packets distributed. Last year, the commission voted to wind down operations at the Clinton House Museum. Board President Mayfield began by saying that the museum has a full board of 12 directors and they have spent this year building the board and brainstorming. Mayfield stated that pre-covid they had 5,000 visitors a year which is exceptional for a small museum. The board has been considering a collaboration with the University of Arkansas and Mayfield stated that the museum is working with two entities on two different documentaries. Additionally, they are working with the university to hopefully negotiate a less expensive lease. One of the board members is also on the board of the Clinton Foundation. At this point in time, the Clinton House Museum board of directors is asking for a budget consideration in the 2022 Fayetteville A&P budget of $40,000. CEO Rawn stated that key things on the lease negotiations that Mayfield mentioned include a longer lease for stability, an option to purchase the property and also a lower rent. Rawn stated that going from a budget line item of $200,000 to $40,000 is not an unreasonable ask and Rawn has seen quite a lot of work by this new board. Some of the expenses seen on this 2021 income and statement will be reduced or eliminated in a future budget. Commissioner Martin stated he sees the economy and consumer spending in a euphoric period coming after Covid and stated that he didn't think this increase in revenues would continue for the long term. He sees us doing a good job of our main goal of promoting tourism. He stated that he sees three line items in our budget that can take us away from promoting tourism. The first item being the Clinton House Museum; he is not in favor of extending this line item to $40,000 again but would consider a smaller amount. He also mentioned the line item of $200,000 with TheatreSquared and stated that he thinks we need to vote on this amount annually. The third item he mentioned is Walker Stone House, noting that it shows up as a million -dollar asset. After Cyclo-cross and Governor's Conference, Commissioner Martin would like to see the commission spend time forming a plan for Walker Stone House and also continue to focus on items such as the Cultural Arts Corridor. CEO Rawn stated that the CFO by Design presentation in January 2020 included "finding a way that we are supporting our cultural attraction but not owning and managing." She stated that she is seeing real progress with this with the Clinton House Museum board and that she things it's very important to continue supporting it. CEO Rawn and Vince Chadick discussed the MOU with TheatreSquared, outlining that it is intended support for up to 3 million dollars, up to $200,000 installments each year for 15 years. Commissioner Martin said that he would like to review the installment every year. Martin also stated that he'd like the Clinton House Museum taken care of and asked if the budget could be tightened up to less than $40,000. Commissioner Moya brought up the idea of in -kind support such as a free rental at the town center for a possible fundraiser for the museum. Commissioner Moya asked Board President Mayfield if there was a timeline of potential activities for 2022. Mayfield stated that they wanted to get a sense of the ongoing lease expense and also any budget from A&P to help them determine this. Commissioner Sanderson said she would feel okay with $40,000 if she could see a broad picture of what the board would do in 2022. Commissioner Moya asked if a regular update for Clinton House Museum could be given, as well as a regular update from TheatreSquared. 4 CEO Rawn stated her plan for Walker Stone House is to include the standard maintenance and upkeep for inclusion in the 2022 budget and she is preparing to bring a broader recommendation after the first quarter of 2022. CEO Rawn thanked Board President Mayfield for her time and Mayfield asked for careful consideration and stated that the Clinton House Museum board is very excited about the future. As CEO Rawn was asking for any additional agenda items, Commissioner Moya stated that there's nothing in particular to point out someone has entered the city of Fayetteville. Commissioner Bunch mentioned that the city has taken over College Avenue from the state highway department and there's an opportunity to create a welcome sign. Rawn talked about the unified wayfinding project the NWA Council began in 2014 and said this could certainly be a collaborative effort with the city. Commissioner Moya mentioned that Siloam Springs had a great landscaped sign. Discussion about where a welcoming sign could be placed ensued and putting a welcoming sign project on the agenda after Cyclo-cross was mentioned. With no other business, the meeting was adjourned by CEO Rawn at 3:48 pm. Minutes submitted by Amy Stockton, Director of Operations, Experience Fayetteville