Board Meeting – Nov. 23, 2015

Wine Road Board of Directors Meeting

Friday November 23, 2015

Vintners Inn – 9:00am

 Members Present: Robin, Renae, Julia, Robert, Jeff, Darek, Cari, Carla, Ross, Kevin, Sue, Aaron

Absent, Stacy, Kathleen

AGENDA

9:00    Meeting called to order

9:05    New Logo Design – Feedback has been great from our members. We have now ordered new “member signs”, updated the logo on our website and we will continue to roll it out for the next 2-3 months, replacing stationary etc. as needed.

9:08    Approval of August minutes = Aaron Krug made a motion to approve the September meeting minutes as is, Darek 2^nd the motion, all in favor. Minutes approved.

9:15    Treasurer’s Report

Checking $112,504.70 as of Oct. 31, 2015 statement

Savings $170,231.54 as of Sept. 30, 2015 statement

Beth to work on 2016’s budget, then meet with Robert to review prior to our next meeting.

9:30    Events

• Wine & Food Affair – ended up about 400 tickets under last year, but should make our budget numbers as planned. With the current number of events, it seems we need to continue to budget the numbers down.
• Winter WINEland – so far 130 wineries are signed up, we’re using EventBrite to manage sign up and the program details. Ticket sales launched the weekend of WFA and we’ve already sold 300+. Beth has suggested having a $250 check (1/2 of the reimbursement) for each winery at the mandatory meeting as an incentive to attend. Discussed, not decision made.

9:45    40^th Anniversary

• Sponsors – very slow going. Beth continues to follow up. Main sponsors have been SF Chron, Press Dem, EventBrite and Glasstech.
• Art of Oak – HUGE undertaking we (Beth) did not think through all of the moving parts. But was have sold all 40 sponsors and we are about done signing up artists. We have delivered barrels and have plans in place to heavily promote via social.
• Member Sign-Ups – everything that is needed NOW is done. As time gets closer we will need more participation for the Gala and Community Festival. But overall –looking GREAT!

10:00  PRMD Update – we continue to meet weekly. There will be a community meeting, which Beth will send out details to our members as it becomes available. We need to also kick-start a letter writing campaign to the Supervisors. As information comes to us from the Vintners, Beth will forward to our members.

10:10 ABC licensing update – at this point wineries no longer have to give up their license for the weekend. However Wine Road now has to submit a Special Event permit and pay $25 per day, per location for each event. Beth has spoken to the ABC multiple times at this point to no avail. Beth has asked our attorney to look into the matter and then we can schedule a meeting with the ABC Director and our attorney.

10:20  Public Relations

• Press Trip – VERY successful trip, the SF Travel dinner in NY was well attended and perfectly executed. Several of the press we met with is already planning trips to the area.
• 40^th gifts and new press kit/history – Clocks were a huge hit! We did create a new press kit specific to our 40^th; we only printed 100 to take on the trip.
• Central Coast – This was also a great avenue for us to promote the area. Beth suggests attending again next year and making a huge DESTINATIUON WINE ROAD tent. Even if we only have 3-4 wineries, we need a bigger footprint.
• Sacramento – we hosted a lunch for 8 freelancers and bloggers. Wagstaff continues to follow up.

10:30  Old Business

10:40  New Business

• Press Democrat sponsor women’s speaker series – Board reviewed their proposal but it is out of our budget range.

Meeting adjourned at 10;50

Minutes respectfully submitted by Beth Costa, as Secretary Stacy Rafanelli is out on maternity leave J

Posted by Beth Costa

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