February 2014 Minuts

Great Meeting!

• ExperienceMeadville.com is now going live. Lou Baxter, from JET TV has sent a letter to his tech staff to work on linking the ExperienceMeadville.com calendar page to their YourErie.com web site. and we have linked YourErie.com weather to ours. This is very exciting. We will be promoting ExperienceMeadville.com to every outlet we can. It is our hope that this will also generate new members and expand our customer base.

• Isaac Pineo talked about what we need to do to get a 501c3 status. There are a lot of steps to go through. Some more complicated than others. Our main concern was by-laws. We are going to tackle this first. A sub-committee will look at different by-laws from other organizations and we will pick and choose what we like and don’t like about them.

• Second Saturday. This is very exciting. There were a lot of great ideas going around the room.
   -  Art being created each week by the students that go to Second Saturday and have it displayed in each store during the last Second Saturday. A Hay Ride that would take people around to each of the stores to show off the art.
   –  Closing off Chestnut between Market and Park to expand the festivities into the downtown.
   -  An Art Walk that would go along with each theme of Second Saturday.
   -  Creating Second Saturday Banners to be placed throughout the downtown.
   -  Creating Painted Rain Barrels to be placed throughout the downtown.

• We talked about the businesses that are moving in, out and around, in the downtown. The desire to have coffee and ice cream up by the Diamond, and what we can do to help fill the empty store fronts, like the Eldred Building.

• 15 Minute Free parking meters. The city has several parking meters that, if you give them a crank, you get 15 minutes of free parking. It cost $105.00 to switch out the guts on an existing meter to put in these special meters. We talked about the DMBA finding sponsors to fund the change to these meters, with a sticker placed along the top that would read. 15 Minutes Free Parking / Sponsored By: Name Of Business. The business would pay for 1 or more meters plus the cost of the sticker. Isaac Pineo will be presenting this to council along with several other parking issues. That date has yet to be determined.

• Park and Ride. Tim, from CATA, suggested two possibilities.  (1) A bus could be chartered at $40.00/hr.  If we chose to operated the bus one day/week for 6 hours that would be $12,480/year.  That, of course, would only work if a grant were provided.  The second option would be establishing it as a regular route.  A fare would have to be charged although seniors and handicapped persons would ride free.  The fare, for example, might be 50 cents each way.  The fares might also be handled by some kind of grant.  In any event, it is nothing we could do in the short term.  Tim is checking with PennDot.

Great Meeting Everyone!

After meeting developments:

• We are looking into a Food Drive for the end of May. ‘Comic Walk’. We are hoping to partner with the Chamber of Commerce for the Food Drives. This would expand our reach and give us an opportunity to work on a project together. We are also looking into the possibility of having a central location for all the organizations that need food, to be able to go. Our job would be to keep those shelves full.

• We are moving forward, with the Second Saturday leaders, to have a Second Saturday Art Walk throughout the downtown. We will be meeting with Steven Prince, an art professor from Allegheny, to enlist his help and also to involve Allegheny College.

January 2014 Minutes

• Parking - Customer Only Zone

• 'Experience Meadville' web site and the use of categories

• Membership drive

• Second Saturday

• DMBA as a 501C3

• Park & Ride utilizing a CATA Loop

• Setting up a Subcommittee on Business Development

We began the meeting by reviewing past issues we went over parking, the progress being made on the website and new efforts to increase our membership. Then we moved on to Second Saturday. Isaac Pineo was at the meeting, and his wife Becky, ran second Saturday last year.

I have been talking with one of the coordinators for Second Saturday, this year. Her name is Tracy. It is our hope and our goal to expand second Saturday to include the businesses in downtown Meadville. Our first initial concept was to create an art walk.

For stores like the Water Store that did not have art as a part of their business we could bring in local artists to display their art in those stores. We would have maps that would go along with each walk.

If you have anymore suggestions as to what we can do on Second Saturday, please let us know.

Joyce Farrell from Farrell’s Hook, Line and Stitches suggested we create a 50/50 drawing to help promote Second Saturday and the Meadville Art Walk.

There was a discussion about the 2 Million Dollar grant the the Redevelopment Authority of Conneaut Lake approved for it's downtown and that conversation lead to the suggestion that the DMBA apply for a 501C3. This is Non-Profit status so we can apply for grants to help improve our downtown.

Tom Collard suggested there be a Park & Ride set up in Meadville Meadville that utilized a CATA Loop from the mall across from the Baldwin Reynolds House.

Sandy Cheropovich brought up a concern that there wasn't enough support and local political response for businesses trying to locate to the downtown Meadville. She sighted several businesses that she knew of that wanted to move into the downtown and was having a hard time getting the information they needed from the powers that be. This topic has come up before under a different set of concerns. At that time it was suggested that Tom Collard work with the Chamber of Commerce in regards to the empty store fronts. This is a topic that can be expanded to a Subcommittee on Business Development. Where we are the first stop for businesses that want to move into Meadville’s downtown and 'we' are connecting those potential businesses with the people or organizations they need to meet with.

I had sent out the request for  information about your individual businesses and how the categories work. We will be going door to door to gather this information. The web site 'cannot' move forward without that information from each of you.

When the weather gets a little warmer, we will be working on getting more members. Right now our membership is mostly retail. It is the goal of the DMBA that we represent a cross section of the Meadville business community.

~~~

After meeting developments. Isaac Pineo wants to spearhead the DMBA's attempts to become a 501c3. This is nonprofit status that will allow us to apply for grants to improve our downtown.

experiencemeadville.com is up and in the review stages. If your business is not on experiencemeadville.com you need to contact Heather at Off Color Gallery.

The Second Saturday leaders have been contacted and are very  excited to work with the DMBA to help expand this event to include the entire downtown. Tracy will be at our meeting, this Tuesday evening.

November 12th Meeting Minutes

Minutes for the November 12th meeting.

We started our meeting by hearing from a representative from the area shopper. His name is Pete Mierke. He gave us an amazing quote for a full page ad for the Downtown Meadville Business Alliance. 2" x 3" ad black-and-white will be $40. This goes out to 38,000 people.

Heather Rachel presented draft on our website experiencemeadville.com. She showed how the website is interconnected with our own business websites or Facebook pages. She showed maps that she worked on and how they are integrated with each business. A parking map will show up with parking areas near each place of business. Heather has done an amazing job. The biggest challenge will be to now gather information. It will be up to each and every member to supply Heather information about our own businesses. Categories will be set up and if your business falls into one or more of these categories it is up to the businesses to supply that information to Heather.

Wlll done Heather!!!

We reviewed the Downtown Map that Tim Kirk is putting together for us. There was a lot of enthusiasm to advertise on the back of the map! The base of the map, that Tim created will be available for other organizations to utilize. He did a great job in drawing a ‘very’ accurate map of Downtown Meadville.

Next Andy Walker gave the talk about the Main Street program. It's history and how we, the downtown Meadville business alliance, can draw from that program.

The DMBA are using the same borders as the Main Street Program. The borders are defined by Walkablility, the Historic District, and it’s Charming. The areas along Park Avenue that are not in this Historic District, could be located in any city throughout the United States. Downtown Meadville is unique.

Christa Battin From the Meadville chamber of commerce spoke. She talked about the changes she is hoping to make in her new position. It is our intent for the DMBA to work closely with the Chamber of Commerce in the future.

We talked about Light-up night and the theme being White Christmas. The Academy Theater will be playing a free showing of White Christmas but you have to get tickets. Light-up night is December 6. She also is hoping to get fireworks and have a decorating contest.

The discussion moved on to Free Holiday Parking. This discussion lasted for a long time. Parking brings out a lot of emotions. Even though we all want to offer our customers free holiday parking, it is very difficult in the town where employees will take advantage of the free meters. In the end we all decided to try having free holiday parking with bags that clearly state Free Parking - Customers Only. We are hoping to have a temporary Customer Only Zone for the Holiday Season.

It was a great meeting. It showed the Downtown Meadville Business Alliance working well, with the City of Meadville and the Chamber of Commerce.

10-17-13 Meeting Minutes

We had another great meeting! I will get to the minutes later but for right now I want to talk about the advertising that was presented to us.

First the Froggy / WUZZ ad proposal.

There are 2 aspects to this. The first is the Froggy ads. Businesses would be set up in groups of 3. The ad would start out with a blurb about Shopping Downtown. Experience Christmas in Downtown Meadville. Then the Three 15 second ads. Then a closing blurb. The ads would run for 2 months, starting November 1st. The cost to each business would be $275.00. If we could get enough sets of 3 businesses then the Downtown would be advertised with every set of ads. We have to act on this very quickly. The ads would start running on November 1st. This is for 15 spots.

The second part of this package is called "Jingle Bell Rock"

Somewhere in Meadville, WUZZ would hide a rock with their logo on it. Each day they would give clues. If the customer misses a clue, he or she has to come to come into one of or stores to get that clue. The other part of this is that each business that advertises with Froggy would get their web link or FaceBook page on the WUZZ web page. The only cost for this part of the ad is a $25.00 gift certificate for each month that it runs.



The Meadville Tribune ad proposal.
This is a block of ads with 3 different price structures.
The first is a typed ad $25.00 a week

Giggles Toy Shop
Unique Games & Toys for Kids
100 Union Ave • Northcrest
000-000-0000

The second is a 2 column by 3 inch ad

Standard ad type.
Black and White would run $49.00 a week.

Full Color would run $55.00 a week.

The more people we have buying ads the bigger our presents is in the paper.
We would have it run on Thursdays. The same day as Bravo.

Again, we have to act fast.

So please make a decision if you want to be a part of either one of these promotions and get right back to me!

Thanks

Viki Allin
Creative Crust Bakery

PS This would be a great time to ask your business neighbor to be a part of the Downtown Meadville Business Alliance

09-26-13 Meeting Minutes

09-26-13 Meeting Minutes (Dubbed, the Think Tank)

Attendance:
Heather Reichel / Off Color Gallery
Tim Kirk / Meadville Fine Art
Mary Kirk / Meadville Fine Art
Bill Grasinger / Hovis Interiors
Nancy Asmus / Nancy’s Under The Steps
Jennifer Murphy / Tattered Corners
Viki Allin / Creative Crust

We reviewed the information we received from the Crawford Count Convention and Visitors Bureau. We will propose to the members that we join the CCCVB but not advertise in their directory at this time. It is expensive and we do not have a clear identity yet.

We will create our own identity instead of handing it over to the CCCVB and all the services that we can 'buy' through our members, we will buy from our members. Services that we ask the CCCVB to provide will be purchased through them. Brochures that they would put on the interstate etc…

There was a great discussion about 'Branding' Meadville. How do you sell it? How do you bring more businesses into the Downtown?

'Tool City' was a brand. This brand does not bring shoppers into the Downtown.

What is Meadville none for? Allegheny College, Zippers, Channel Lock and Dad's Dog Food. Meadville Medical. None of which bring shoppers into the Downtown.

Most of the retail in the Downtown is comprised of Arts & Crafts. There are 8 art galleries, 3 theaters (this includes Park Ave. Cinema), 3 specialty bakeries, 1 micro brewery and another on it's way, 3 florists, 3 frame shops, 3 print services of different types, 3 dance studios, 4 places to work out. And DMBA must market these businesses as a whole. The Think Tank came up with "Experience The Arts".

The spin-offs are endless. "Experience The History", "Experience The Taste", "Experience Second Saturday", "Experience Meadville".

This lead to experiencemeadville.com

This leads us to the next topic of discussion. The Dot Com directory site. We threw out all different kinds of names:

ourmeadville.com
whatsinmeadville.com
makeitmeadville.com
celebratemeadville.com
thinkmeadville.com
mymeadville.com
experiencemeadville.com

Everyone at the meeting chose experiencemeadville.com
Of the members so far, there are a total of 16 yeas 2 nays and about 15 who haven't given an opinion.

The last thing that came out of the meeting was the discussion of subcommittees. These are small groups of people, focused on one topic.

At this time we are forming 3 subcommittees:
Advertising
Networking
The Think Tank

It was a great meeting and everyone really liked using the Council Chambers at the City Building.







--

Downtown Meadville Business Alliance

'Strength In Numbers'

http://dmba16335.blogspot.com

dmba16335@gmail.com

09-12-13 Minutes

09-12-13 Minutes

Started at 6:10 and ended at 7:45

Attendance:

Tom Collard / Tom's Train Terminal

Rich Thomas / TechBox

Brian Byers / TechBox

Sandy Cheropovich / Sandy's Art Works

Nick Cheropovich / Sandy's Sign Works

Sarah Chapp / Confections Of A Cake Lover

Viki Allin / Creative Crust

Tim Kirk / Meadville Fine Art

Mary Kirk / Meadville Fine Art

Randy Byham / JCB Woodscript Ltd

Heather Reichel / Off Color Gallery

Diann Frampton / Art By Diann

Nancy Asmus / Nancy’s Under The Steps

Kay Coches / Park Ave. Cinema

Shaneka Butler / Ocean’s Cafe

Matteo Rachocki / Voodoo Brewery

Bill Grasinger / Hovis Interiors

John Prinkey / North American Karate And Fitness

Sarah Chapp / Confections Of A Cake Lover

Christine Yamrick / Chateau Christine

Diane Kerr / Jeron Jewelers

John Kerr / Jeron Jewelers

PARKING:

The following items were approved.

• A ‘Customer Parking Only’ zone that is in the heart of the business district.

--  The meters in these areas would be painted a different color.

--  The 'Customer Parking Only' zone would run along Chestnut from Main to Water.

Along Park Avenue from W. Center to Arch. Along Market from W. Center to Arch.

Along Water from Walnut to Arch. And would include the parking spaces around the Market House.

• Long term, 12 hour meters to accommodate part time employees.

• A tier system for tickets. Violating the ‘Customer Parking Only’ zone would be higher ($30.00) than regular expired meter at $7.00.

• Changing the hours that the meters are enforced from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. to 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

• A clear and concise definition for validating customers tickets.

• Business owners that need to park near their businesses for ‘Loading And Unloading’, need to get a uniform yearly pass to display in their window during times of Loading And Unloading.

• A clear definition of the rules of conduct for the Meter Men.

• All Meadville businesses, that meet the need to make deliveries within the downtown metered areas will be able to purchase ‘Delivery Passes’ the same as Windstream uses now. These passes are sold to Windstream for $10.00 a month.

A formal letter will be written and presented to City Council.

Note:

During the discussion, the explanation of what the current validation of tickets is. It was explained that in order to validate a customers parking, that customer must have put the full 50¢ into the meter and stayed at your place of business beyond the 2 hour meter limit.

LEROY STEARN’S BUSINESS ASSOCIATION:

We talked about the Business Association that is being started by Leroy Stearn. We compared his Association to the downtown development aspect of the Main Street Program and the DMBA to the promotion aspect of the same program. Tom Collard talked about the meeting he had with an Erie Association that was trying to achieve the same goals as Leroy’s association. We also talked about all our storefronts and what they need.

MAP:

Tim Kirk presented a rough draft of an 8-½ x 11, 4 panel brochure that would be a map for of the downtown business district.

- The area of the map would use the boundaries set up by the ‘Main Street’ program. North Street to Arch Street. Water Street to the Diamond.

- Advertising would be paid directly to the printer. Price of each ad would be based on the cost of the printing divided by the numbers of ads around the map.

- Ads could include QR codes that would link directly to each businesses web sites.

Discussions that stemmed from this topic:

- The use of QR codes on our storefronts that would lead customers to our web sites and a secondary QR code that would lead directly to the DMBA map, located on our Dot Com web site.

- The possible development of an app for the downtown with an interactive map.

WEBSITE:

- The name of the website was discussed. The only name that was talked about was Make It Meadville. Everyone like this name.

Note: In discussions after the meeting it became clear that in order to ‘choose’ a name that there needs to be more than one name put on the table. Make It Meadville is on hold until we can all have input and several different choices.

- Heather Reichel, from Off Color Gallery will be creating our Dot Com website. She will be using GoDaddy as our host.

ZOMBIE WALK:

The discussion started out by describing the roll the DMBA would play in creating events that benefitted the local charities.  - Events would be geared towards drawing customers into our brick and mortar stores.  - Events would benefit one or more local charities.  - Events would be engaging and entertaining to our customers.

Christine Yamrick of Chateau Christine would like to see a lot more activities for the Zombies to participate in. Like a Zombie Yell contest, either at Diamond Park or inside the Mall, depending on the weather. There was discussion about the first one being small and building. Advertising the Zombie Walk outside our area. Possibly changing the theme each year to keep it fresh. A Scarecrow Walk, etc…

There was a brief discussion regarding the insurance and auxiliary police. But since all that information is not available yet, there was limited discussion.

Squeeze will be painting faces inside the Mall and then at the Market House for the Zombie Walk.

It costs a lot of money to get a specific movie like ‘Rocky Horror’ so asking for sponsors to obtain specific movies brought up.

Other events were discussed:

Having a Doo Daa Walk in the spring.

A scavenger hunt, where customers would have to go into each store to obtain an item.

A customer appreciation week, with the cities permission, the meters would be bagged for a week and customers would be given items like the DMBA map and discount coupons for businesses throughout Meadville.

HEAVY-HANDED WAY THE CITY COMMUNICATE WITH IT’S CITIZENS:

There was a brief discussion about the need to address the way the city officials communicate with it’s citizens, from it’s official letters to the way it presents itself in newspaper interviews.

TWO MEETINGS A MONTH:

Matteo Rachock brought up the idea of having an E & I type meeting. This would allow each of the DMBA members to discuss their businesses so we would all get to know each other better and be able to recommend our businesses to each other's customers. Everyone needs to bring plenty of business cards to our meetings to share.

Diane Kerr brought up the idea of a mixer where we could mingle and get to know each other in a casual setting.

Two meetings would be set up similar to the way the city has their meetings. The second Thursday meeting would be the regular meeting and the fourth Thursday would be a type of study session.

ADVERTISING:

There was a little talk about advertising the Downtown Meadville Business Alliance but the main discussion was brought up by Bill Grasinger of Hovis Interiors.

The idea being that 3 or 4 businesses would group together for 1 TV ad. One ad with the cost divided up between 3 or 4 businesses. An example was given: Jeron Jewelers, Cobblestone Cottage and Gardens and Confections Of A Cake Lover.

Diane Kerr is going to talk to her TV sales rep for more details.

~~~~

After meeting chit chat:

Tim Kirk brought up the idea of kiosks that would be located in key locations throughout Meadville.

~~~~

The Downtown Meadville Business Alliance will be strong and grow with the involvement, communication and participation of it’s members. Keep up the enthusiasm. It’s contagious!

~~~~

List Of Members:

Academy Theatre

ARC of Crawford County

Art By Diann Frampton

Bill Lawrence Studio

CCHS Second Chance

CCHS Vet Hospital

Chateau Christine

Cobblestone Cottage And Gifts

Confections Of A Cake Lover

Creative Crust

Creative Expressions Of Art

Fine Print

Hovis Interiors

Market House Grille

Meadville Council On The Arts

Meadville Fine Art

Miller Brothers Staffing

Nancy's Under The Steps

Off Color Gallery

Orealia's Catering

Park Avenue Cinema

Pineo Law, LLC

Sandy's Artworks

Sandy's Signworks

Save Room For Dessert

Tattered Corners

Tech box

Tom's Train Terminal

Whole Darn Thing

08-08-13 Meeting Minutes.

This was a true round table discussion about the topics that affect our businesses and our town.

Downtown Meadville Business Alliance

Attendance for the meeting held on 08-0813

Tom Collard / Tom's Train Terminal

Rich Thomas / TechBox

Brian Byers / TechBox

Dan Hunter / Cobblestone

Sandy Cheropovich / Sandy's Art Works

Nick Cheropovich / Sandy's Sign Works

Sarah Chapp / Confections Of A Cake Lover

Viki Allin / Creative Crust

Tim Kirk / Meadville Fine Art

Mary Kirk / Meadville Fine Art

• Facebook, Blog site, Web site.

-  Everyone is going to work on a name for the public web site.

-  Everyone is going to LIKE the Facebook page to get more people to LIKE the Facebook page.

•Membership:

-  All agreed that we need more members and everyone is going to work on making it bigger.

Parking:

After a lengthy round table discussion the members that were present, came up with these solutions to the downtown businesses. These solutions will insure a vital and vibrant downtown commercial district.

• A ‘Customer Parking Only’ zone that is in the heart of the business district. (The meters in these areas would be painted a different color.) *

• Long term, 12 hour meters to accommodate part time employees.

• A tier system for tickets. Violating the ‘Customer Parking Only’ zone would be higher ($30.00) than customers. Regular expired meter would be $7.00.

• Changing the hours that the meters are enforced from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. to 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

• A clear and concise definition for validating customers tickets.

• Business owners that need to park near their businesses for Loading And Unloading, need to get a uniform yearly pass to display in their window during times of Loading And Unloading.

• A clear definition of the rules of conduct for the Meter Men.

*All agreed that the 'Customer Parking Only' zone would run along Chestnut from Main to Water.

Along Park Avenue from W. Center to Arch. Along Market from W. Center to Arch.

Along Water from Walnut to Arch.

** We were unclear as to how the ‘Business Sponsored’ 15 minute spaces would work as far as enforcement goes. We need to look into this a bit more.

We also talked about the business owners that allow their employees to park in prime customer parking spaces.

What 'IS' the current policy of validating the parking tickets.

The conduct of the meter men.

The state of the Market Square parking ramp. It being well lit and having cameras in it.

Other Topics Discussed.

• How different cities handle their parking issues.

-  Franklin was brought up. We talked about the hand held devices their meter men had at their disposal to ticket meter feeders.

• Maps.

-  We talked about having a PDF map that anyone can print out and having a place mat map with advertising. Along with that discussion was the fact that all of us end up pointing out where everything is to customers that are visiting downtown. And, city council probably doesn't realize how much retail there is in this town.

• Advertising.

-  We talked about the cost of advertising and the different venues that help each of our businesses.

• More retail businesses.

-  The cost of the store fronts versus the low customer base was a big issue.

• The heavy handed way in which the City Of Meadville is dealing with all of us.

-  Meeting with Hovis with the cities lawyer there.

-  Not replying to questions from businesses owners or potential new business people.

-  Doing what they want regardless of what the business owners and citizens want and need.

-  Business owners that were afraid to come to the DMBA meeting for fear of retribution. This was a recurring theme and several business owners were mentioned.

• We discussed how we would approach sending our needs to city officials. The consensus was that ALL members would personally sign every letter that went to the city.

• We talked about getting a lot of media involved. (TV and Radio) to get any message we want out there.

• Several businesses want to participate but are afraid of retribution from some aspect of the city. This needs to be discussed further!

• The next meeting will be on the second Thursday of September and there will be Facebook, blog and email correspondence between now and then to determine the location.

After meeting chit chat:

DMBA will be holding 2 events. This is very exciting!

1)  There will be a Chocolate Chip Cookie Competition. It will have 2 categories, amateur and professional. We want to have it in the Gallery at Council On The Arts. The date is yet to be determined. Either October 24th or November 2nd.

2)  A Zombie Walk! On November 2nd, the DMBA will be sponsoring the 1st Annual Zombie Walk. We will lay out a course through Meadville. If someone comes into a business, dressed up like a Zombie, that is participating in the Zombie Walk, that person will get a token gift or 10% off their purchase. Each business will decide how they want to participate.

This could be an all day event where Zombies walk when they want to or it could have a designated time frame. To be discussed.

Members List as of 8-10-13

DMBA Members List:

Creative Crust

Sandy's Artworks

Sandy's Signworks

Tech box

Tattered Corners

Miller's Brothers Staffing

Confections Of A Cake Lover

Save Room For Dessert

Whole Darn Thing

Cobblestone Cottage And Gifts

Tom's Train Terminal

Meadville Fine Art

Bill Lawrence Studio

Meadville Council On The Arts

Market House Grille

Park Avenue Cinema