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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-11-28 - Minutes -Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission Minutes November 28, 2022 Fayetteville Town Center Commissioners Chair Todd Martin, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Present: Elvis Moya, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Andrew Prysby, Commissioner at -large Sarah Bunch, City Council Representative * Virtual attendance Chrissy Sanderson, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Commissioners Katherine Kinney, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Absent: Staff: Molly Rawn, CEO; Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance; Ashley Cane, Director of Brand Strategy Chair Martin called the meeting to order at 2:08 pm. Old Business A. Chair Martin asked commissioners to review the October minutes and asked if there were any additions or revisions. Hearing none, he stated that the minutes stood approved. B. Chair Martin asked to submit an agenda item concerning voting to approve the 2022 $200,000 expenditure for the TheatreSquared pledge. Discussion concerning the financial impact of paying this commitment in this fiscal year or next fiscal year ensued. Other discussion occurred concerning TheatreSquared financials and also a letter from TheatreSquared's leadership to the A&P Commission. Additionally, CEO Rawn shared an overview of a conversation she and Todd Simmons, TheatreSquared's board president, had in which they both agreed that an in person meeting would be helpful to improve communication and to discuss the request by A&P Commissioners concerning the A&P Commission having a seat on the board of TheatreSquared. Other comparable situations regarding board seats were discussed and the commission members discussed the overall situation concerning funding, timing, and ensuring the commission is being a good steward of the funds. After more discussion, commissioners asked CEO Rawn to re -state her proposed approach to this funding situation. CEO Rawn stated that the commission could authorize her to fulfill the 2022 budgeted pledge amount of $200,000 and authorize her and a commissioner to attend an upcoming TheatreSquared board meeting to discuss items the commission wants to put in place before we authorize expending the 2023 pledge. With regards to the 2023 budget, the commission could draft language to have a check point so that the pledge to TheatreSquared is voted on before it's dispersed in 2023. Chair Martin reiterated that his understanding of having a checks and balances process in place would be to ensure the commission was best able to meet the needs of organizations who were promoting tourism and that he could not support a vote to allocate the 2022 pledge with the current information TheatreSquared has provided us. Commissioner Sanderson made a motion to approve the 2022 disbursement of funding to TheatreSquared and to also create some of the guidelines that CEO Rawn set forth regarding the 2023 funding. Commissioner Bunch seconded it. Motion passed 4-1 with Chair Martin voting no. III. New Business A. CEO's Report. Molly Rawn, CEO CEO Rawn began by introducing two new team members, Sarah King who is serving as our Vice President of Marketing and Communications and Kelly Rich who is serving as our Director of Downtown Initiatives. Both team members have hit the ground running and we are so glad to have both on board. What to expect in the coming months: December: we will only meet if we need to approve the 2023 budget and we will arrange a specific date to do so. January: we will appoint or reappoint, per our bylaws, a commission chair who will serve for the year. March: we will have one of our tourism and hospitality representative commissioner positions be open for appointment or reappointment as Commissioner Kinney's current term expires 3-31. One of the requirements per our bylaws for this position is that it be an owner or manager of a hotel, motel or restaurant. Our Sales team is continuing to do good work with many events and activities listed in the CEO report including their hosting of an every other month Hospitality in a Heartbeat which has been very successful to aid in communications with our hoteliers. In cycling, Fayetteville has been recognized by the League of American Bicyclists with the 6t" most recognized Bicycle -Friendly Businesses in the country. Additionally, we have a bicycle boot camp in February where we hope to aid in adding more businesses to this list. Our Visitors Center saw visitors from a variety of countries in October, including Brazil, Japan, Bangladesh, Poland and more. We also participated in the Fayetteville Homecoming Parade by hanging signs to cheer the high school on. The Visitors Center also very successfully activated Vanny at the World Cup at Centennial Mountain the weekend of October 14-16. Community Engagement highlights include a successful Lights of the Ozarks kickoff with a great parade and vendors through the week with additional or different vendors joining for the weekend. Santa is scheduled to make several visits, please check our website to confirm his dates. The Fayetteville Town Center has hosted 22 events since our last meeting and has every weekend in December is booked. Furthermore, the town center is promoting Air on the Square which provides air and other basic cycling tools to aid in serving cyclists. Also, the parking garage update is complete with the new pay station being installed. In terms of HRM and lodging information, the numbers you see include September activity and do take into account the time period that would have traditionally included Bikes Blues and BBQ. You can see that lodging is up 18% compared to the month prior and overall we've had an 18% increase in HMR tax collections compared to the same period in 2021. This month's collection of $471,436 represents the largest amount the A&P has ever collected. Occupancy YTD is 64% which represents a 12% increase over the prior year. B. Financial Report. Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance Our financial statement for October is in your packet. As of the month of October, our target for both revenue and expenditures is 84% and we are hitting above that for revenue with 94% and below that with expenditures at 73%. Our HMR taxes are 10% above our targeted number, adjusted for seasonality. Our YTD net income is almost $1,000,000 and cash and investments are up slightly at the end of October at $4.8 million. Additionally, you'll see almost $116,000 in unearned revenue for the town center which is business booked in 2023 and late 2022 and the town center is on target to meet its revised revenue goal for 2022. With no questions, Walker concluded her financial report. C. Marketing Report. Ashley Cane and Mike Sells. Director of Brand Strategy Ashley Cane began by stating that we are doing several campaigns to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Fayetteville Ale Trail in 2023. She also pulled out a successful case study on social media which was a partnership between Experience Fayetteville and Ella's Table and was a giveaway featuring Ella's Unwined dinner and wine pairing. The numbers from this campaign are very impressive even with the campaign only being a small number of days in October. It showed a large number of new followers for this restaurant, and we look forward to doing more of this in 2023. Cane also shared that we would have another social media influencer in December. Mike Sells began by sharing that in the year of three Cyclo-cross events, we've seen significant traffic on our website from European countries which is not surprising given that Cyclo-cross is a very European sport. He also showed views and other metrics concerning our website and noted that the Events calendar page debuted on our website in April of this year. It is gaining traction as a go to source both locally and regionally and we've seen impressive growth in it's page views. D. Ideals Institute with the University of Arkansas CEO Rawn discussed the Ideals Institute proposal which includes training and conversation over 18 months on the topics of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This project includes various components such as a strategic assessment, group and individual work and time for leadership to work with Ideals team. Commissioner Moya asked more about the Scope of Work. CEO Rawn pointed out the Statement of Work and also stated that the expense was just shy of $20,000 and we would expense half of it in the 2023 budget and the remainder in 2024. Commissioner Sanderson asked additional questions which were answered concerning the types of training. Not only is this important to our team culture, it has a very tangible application to our outward work. With no further discussion or questions, Chair Martin asked for a motion to authorize the CEO to sign an agreement with the Ideals Institute at the University of Arkansas. Commissioner Sanderson made the motion with Commissioner Moya seconding it and it passed unanimously. E. Window Tinting for Fayetteville Town Center CEO Rawn discussed the memo and bid for the window tinting for the Fayetteville Town Center. Chair Martin asked for a motion to give CEO Rawn approval to accept a proposal from Architectural Glass Tinting for $27,942.35. Commissioner Prysby made the motion with Commissioner Sanderson seconding and the motion was approved unanimously. F. Fayetteville Town Center Utilization Services We will be holding the proposal from Jones Lang LaSalle Americas Inc. for an optimization study and not discussing it today. Please plan to see it again early next year. G. 2023 Budget Presentation. CEO Rawn began by discussing the documents included in the budget presentation and called out the voting document. She then began a budget presentation which shows some of the focus areas for 2023 such as personnel which shows both an increased head count and a proposed cost of living item, it also shows a focus on capital improvements and a budget with both outflows and revenues that match at just over $5.6 million dollars. One of the assumptions made with this budget is a 10% growth over what we've projected to end 2022 in HMR taxes. Revenue is made up of 88% coming in from HMR taxes, 9% from the Fayetteville Town center and a smaller amount from miscellaneous items. Outflows include 34% in personnel with tourism initiatives being the second largest at 32%. Town Center operations are 12% and bond payments are also 12%. Personnel changes include a cost -of -living adjustment of 6%, a full year of a Director of Downtown Initiatives, an additional marketing staff person and a part time facilities coordinator. Marketing changes include new photo and video assets; a digital, not print, Visitors Guide; a heavier focus on data collection tools; and building a visitor profile and identifying our audience. We'll also celebrate the 101" anniversary of the Fayetteville Ale trail and see further activation of Vanny. Community Investments includes funds for Clinton House Museum and also community events that would include distributions between $500 to $2,500. We will introduce a web -based form to use to apply for these funds. Capital Investments include Experience Fayetteville office remodel with a focus on updated, ADA accessible bathrooms and additional office spaces and town center improvements. Rawn turned it over to Walker to cover the fund balance which we are projecting to begin 2023 with $5.6 million and $695,000 in restricted funds for Cyclo-cross use. We have an operating reserve of $1, 000,000 or approximately 65 days. Walker also discussed our operating reserve which we keep at $1,000,000. Walker also discussed the capital reserve balance and the mechanics of how we fund that. Rawn discussed the Tourism and Client Development line -item increase, which addressed a question Commissioner Moya had. The increase is because some professional development and sales or sports items were moved from those line items to Tourism and Client Development. The line item also includes funds for a tourism master plan which may or may not be able to happen in 2023. It also includes funds for Walker Stone House if needed. Commissioner Prysby asked about the status of the solar array project for the town center and Walker stated that it was accounted for in the budget if needed. In reference to the voting the commission would be doing today, VP Walker pointed out that the commission would be voting to appropriate funds on three items: 1) The revenue and expenses of $5,670,722 of the consolidated budget 2) The capital expenditures of $638,000 3) The Cyclo-cross legacy funds of $40,500 Commissioner Moya asked if there was a Downtown Initiatives budget and Rawn said there isn't a specific one included in this document but there are funds included in this budget for downtown specific items. Additionally, we have and will be following up with the city to ask for funds. Commissioner asked about the Fayetteville Town Center lease from the city and Rawn stated that we've given our updated information to the city and we await hearing back from them. Finally, Rawn mentioned we'd built in funds in our benefit line to possibly begin a 401 K plan if we are able to move from our Simple IRA to a 401 K during the upcoming calendar. It was asked if there is a bonus structure at Experience Fayetteville or Fayetteville Town Center and Rawn said there currently is not. With no further questions, a motion was created which was worded as such: a motion to appropriate the 2023 budget funds with the following revision to the total expenditures to be $5,470,722 with all else in the voting document remaining the same. The motion was made by Commissioner Sanderson and seconded by Commissioner Prysby. It was approved unanimously. Chair Martin proposed that we move the January commission meeting to January 30tn and no one had scheduling concerns. Chair Moya gave a shout out to staff for the 2022 Lights of the Ozarks evening. H. Adjourn Chair Martin appreciated all the work the staff and commissioners did this year and requested a motion to adjourn the meeting and a motion was made by Commissioner Sanderson and seconded by Commissioner Prysby and approved unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 4:18 pm. Minutes submitted by Amy Stockton, Director of Operations, Experience Fayetteville