Satellite Rotary – Meeting Minutes May 15, 2018
Call to order/Welcome and Pledge opened by Tricia Byrom
Invocation was given by Tricia who led us in the Peace Officers Prayer.
Guests were introduced by Erin Wofford; Guest Speaker, Charlie McIlvain-CVB & Noon Rotarian, Cynthia
McNeely, Chris Chedzoy and Kristy Vandenburg- Noon Rotary President
Program was presented by our Guest, Charlie McIlvain-CVB
Charlie is the President and CEO of the Kerrville Convention and Visitors Bureau of Kerrville. He and his wife Rhonda live in Kerrville and Charlie is a Noon Rotarian.
Charlie gave us a great overview of how the CVB works, why it is important to have “heads in beds” and how they are funded. In addition, he presented how advertising has changed over the last few years and how social media advertising has increased.
The CVB is responsible for marketing and promoting Kerrville and
the surrounding area to target people and businesses who are looking at Kerrville to visit or hold conventions by presenting Kerrville as a premier destination for meetings, conventions, and visitors to the area.
Some of the targets they pursue for dollars is the Motorcycle and RV market, these are your visitors who usually have disposable or discretionary income and may or may not stay at an RV park, but they will eat here and spend money in the community. A side note, TACO is not food but the Texas Association of Campground Owners. Another market is the new athletic fields on Holdsworth drive, promoting this as a sports destination, with several groups already booking for the next year. The local camps are a great draw for tourism dollars, with most area camps busy all summer. Kerrville’s events like the Folk Festival at Quiet Valley Ranch and the Chalk Festival bring tourists and vendors, some who are new to the area.
“Heads in Beds” are important to our local economy, the Hotel/Motel Tax money is what funds the CVB. The spending they do is regulated by the State legislature.
Most of their advertising budget is dedicated to print, television and digital media. Previously, six years ago or so, they spent 92% of the advertising budget on print, now print is at 42%. Television and social media is at 39% and 18.8% respectfully. You will see over time an overall decrease in print advertising and an increase in social media. Facebook ads are cheap. CVB uses the tagline of “Retreat for meetings and Relax for leisure/vacation. They advertise 50 miles away from Kerrville and push for consumer dollars in San Antonio, Fort Worth and Austin. DFW is the 3rd most expensive market to advertise in. Some key features in the
advertising are the art galleries, museum, the river and events. 6 events were booked just for Memorial
Day weekend.
The Sales team works on conventions and meetings and the Service team gets involved 6-8 months prior to the event. Kelly Dunbar on the Sales team physically goes out to places like Austin and gets in front of people to showcase Kerrville and what we have to offer. She is attributed to over 581 sales.
One area where we struggle with is not having a convention center separate from our local hotels. Added to this is the age of our hotels and this makes the CVB more determined to attract meetings, conventions and visitors to the area.
Charlie is a positive force in our community, he sees the athletic complex, the river and the river trail as well as “craft agriculture” bringing more people to our area. He and his team have their work cut out for them as they spend money on market research and as Leslie Jones focuses on digital marketing to promote Kerrville.
Club Business-Tricia
• Proposed slate of officers for 2018-2019
Erin Wofford – Chair
Denise LeMeilleur-Vice Chair Donna Peterson – Secretary Caymen Gentry – Sargent of Arms
Rotary Announcements-Tricia
• Signups for Prayer and Food needed for the next 12 months
• Scholarship Award recipients - Thank you to Courtney Compton and Tricia Byrom for chairing the Scholarship Committee. The club awarded$25,000 in scholarships to deserving college and college bound students this year!!
• Next Month’s meetings: June 14th for the New Member Party (note the date change from the
5th) and June 19th – Regular Satellite Meeting at the Wells Fargo Bank Community Room at 5:30.
Meeting adjourned with the Four-Way Test
NEW MEMBER FELLOWSHIP -June 14th
Satellite members enjoyed the social event held at the Hutto's house on June 14th. New members were lassoed into a game ofTruth/Lie...where they had to say 2 things that were true and one that was a lie and the Rotary members had to guess which one wasn't truthful! Food was great with pulled pork sliders, homemade rum cake, appetizers' and more!
Satellite Rotary – Meeting Minutes June 19, 2018
Call to order/Welcome and Pledge opened by Erin Wofford
Invocation was given by Bryan Wofford
Guests were introduced by Denise LeMeilleur; Guest Speaker-Judy Eychner-Kerrville City Council Member & Noon Rotarian, George Eychner, KristI Vandenburg- Noon Rotary President, Delayne Siegerman, Dave Rittenhouse, and Jennifer Gentry
Program – Erin Wofford introduced Judy Eychner- Kerrville City Council
Judy said she was excited to be a member of the Kerrville City Council, she was excited and ready to serve the citizens of Kerrville. Judy and her husband George are Rotarians with the Noon Rotary. She said it is interesting how involved and complex the city operations are. It is more complex than the average citizen can imagine.
She talked about the budget for the City and where our revenue comes from and how it is disbursed for city operations. The City’s largest revenue sources are Services-16M; includes water, sewer, EMS, Kerrville
Schriener Park, Property Taxes-11M, and Sales Tax-7M.
As a city some of the biggest expenses are Personnel, Public Safety, Capital, Services and Debt Service. It is important all of this monitored and watched to keep it in balance. In addition, the city has savings for a Rainy-Day Fund. Standard and Poor recently updated the City’s rating to a “AA” rating. Judy did say the River Trail and the Sports complex were funded through the 4B Sales Tax and not through the city revenue sources.
IF you want to know more about City hierarchy, and who’s who in the City she suggested you go online. She did say Parks and Rec is so much more than softball. There is an actual activity guide for 2018 with something for everyone in it. Great assets to the city are the Sports Complex and the Kerrville Water reuse storage located on Spur 100.
The City’s Development services are working to become more business friendly, hiring new staff to implement and improve inspections. Another aspect of this department is the new software upgrades to help contractors and businesses in the process of planning and getting construction plans approved.
Kerrville 2050 is a comprehensive plan and will be used as a tool in the years leading up to the year 2050. There are 42 members in the committee with 7 sub committees. It includes planning for future growth, capital improvements, zoning and development planning, future land use, growth, infrastructure, and housing as well as bringing the EJT into the City. The City Council voted on June 12 to approve the plan on first reading of the ordinance with a final vote to be decided later in June. The plan is built around 11 strategic assets of our community and the community input through surveys, public meetings, and many
hours of discussion. There were many great questions from Satellite members and Delayne also a member of the City council helped Judy to answer some of those questions.
Club Business-Erin
• Proposed slate of officers for 2018-2019 – final vote
Erin Wofford – Chair
Denise LeMeilleur-Vice Chair Donna Peterson – Secretary Caymen Gentry – Sargent of Arms
Erin made the motion, Stephanie 1st & Austin 2nd. The vote passes and was approved by the Rotarians present at the meeting.
• Denise reminded the club about being at 50% of the scheduled meetings.
• Kristi last meeting as President of the Noon Rotary.
She thanked the Satellite Club for all of their involvement over the last year. Together with Noon
Rotary 187 trees were planted and Mosty’s planted 5 more today with 23 more to be planted! Blue Santa (Stephanie Skrumeda) is expanding to include Ingram. The KSH Christmas party (Pete Calderon & Courtney Compton) for the patients. The Rise against Hunger event and the participation of Satellite helped to make a difference. Veteran’s Breakfast (Donna Peterson) will now be twice a year and had a great turnout. The Labor Day walk was a huge success as well. The scholarship Committee was chaired by Tricia Byrom and Courtney Compton and gave away over $25000 in Scholarships. The Super Bowl Ball was a huge success and many of the Satellite club were active in the committees to help it happen. She again thanked us and said comradery with Noon Rotary is important for both clubs.
• If you paid cash for the cruise please let Kristi know, we need to reconcile against the records.
• Stephanie and Delayne both won a bottle of wine for wearing their Rotary pins.
• Our quarterly dues will now include $25 to go to the Rotary Foundation.
Rotary Announcements – Denise
• Signups for Prayer and Food needed for the next 12 months
• Next month’s meeting is July 17th at the Wells Fargo Bank Building
Closing – Erin-
Closed with the
Four Way Test
