Wine Road Board of Directors
Meeting December 8, 2016
11:00-1:00
Comstock Winery
1290 Dry Creek Road, Healdsburg
Minutes – DRAFT pending approval
11:05 Robin called meeting to order
11:06 Review minutes from October meeting – correction needed under public relations, should be Wagsaff not Flagstaff. Pending correction Kevin made a motion to approve, Ross 2nd motion, all in favor.
11:10 Treasurer’s Report & Proposed Budget pending approval. Beth presented slightly updated budget proposal, with update for Wineland income based on ticket sales. Robert made a motion to approve as presented, Julia 2nd the motion, all in favor
11:20 Events
Wine & Food Affair – Beth reported that with the tickets sold via our Fund the Film packages we ended upbeing short 88 tickets from last year. At this point we have not received one single consumer complaint. We have heard from several people how great the food was this year and there did not seem to be an issue with wineries running out of food. Beth did bring up a concern about the way wineries report expenses – catering bills are not broken down, so the winery turns in $2000 and it reimburse the full $1500. Other wineries turn in grocery receipts and end up not being reimbursed for any time, which is of course rolled into a catering bill.
Winter WINEland – Vintages, Verticals & Varietals – we have 117 wineries participating, all work is on time and ticket sales are where they were at this time last year. Crush really happens after the New Year.
Experience Wine Road – Events committee will need to work out the details for this event. Ticket sales should begin March 15th.
Formation of new committee – review goals. After our Membership meeting and the mail request we have about 5-6 members that are on board. More to follow.
11:30 Marketing & Public Relations
Oct. – SF Travel in NY. Great top tier group of press at this dinner, 30 people. Mysty will begin following up in January. Our pitch was the Magical Mystery Tours to connect with the Summer of Love theme. We also pitched our human touch “concierge” service, as opposed to a date base driven.
Nov. Wine Tourism, Omaha and San Diego – Wine Tourism was productive with excellent speakers on Google Ad Words/Phrases and Mobile Marketing also the owner of Balzar Communitcation. Beth is reaching out to all three speakers to see if they could do a presnetaion for our members. Omaha – GREAT group of engaged tasters. Beth suggests we plan a “Wine Road on the Road” and take 25-30 members there for a tasting.
Mysty Stewart –hired to manage our PR and social. Mysty will be doing a 5 minute update for the Board at each full board meeting. We will give her a review after 6 months to see if we’re on track with the goals we’ve outlined.
Formation of new committee – review goals – first meeting Jan. 26th, we have 5 interested members.
11:40 Membership
Evaluate Membership Meeting – Robert suggested we move date away from the busy holiday season. Beth suggests we ask members – first week of May or first week of Dec and go from there.
Pizza lunches – several members offered to host a lunch. Beth will set up some dates and send out invitations. We’ll see what kind of response we get.
Board Development – timeline – Applications have gone out, Robin and Julia are on board to interview the last week of January.
11:50 Seminars
Wine Club and VinQuest – both are filling up quicky, about 60 people for each.
From Texas: PR, Mobile Marketing & Google Ads – Beth to work on for 2017
11:50 Old Business
Board positions – how to handle President Elect position. Not going to move forward with that position, instead simply have the standing board elect a new Exec. Board at the Retreat.
12:00 New Business
Event reimbursements – Barrel Tasting (for what) WFA, how to determine food costs, what to include. For Barrel Tasting we will no longer allow staff to be part of the reimbursement and we will require receipts – printing, rentals, food.
12:20 LUNCH – catered by Backyard.
Next Meeting – Executive Board January 9, Full Board February 9 – both at 9:00am