Executive Board Meeting Minutes

March 10, 2016  9:00

Wine Road Office

In Attendance:  Robin, Sue, Robert, Beth, Stacy

Absent:  Renae, Julia

 

9:10  Meeting Called to Order by Robin

 

9:12    January Minutes

• Motion to approve – Sue / Seconded – Robert

 

9:15    Treasurer’s Report

• Checking – $212,172.90
• Savings – $160,229.98
• Beth working on creating spreadsheets for expenses for 40th events

 

9:20    Events

• Barrel Tasting
  • Approximately 7,000 tickets sold for first weekend and 4,000 thus far for second weekend
  • Issues
    • Most issues reported are mostly from large groups coming in on buses – WR clearly states no buses, but certain wineries keep accepting
    • Beth response to angry complaint
  • Proposed format for pre-event meetings
    • 23 people did not make it to the pre-event meeting.
      • Discussion on how to create an alternative to physically attending meetings
      • Robin motion to approve an online meeting as alternative which would include interactive questions requiring responses throughout (to begin with WFA)
        • Seconded – Robert
        • Unanimously passed

 

9:55    40th Anniversary

• Alexander Valley Tasting – chaotic/unorganized but Beth helped get everything set up and attendees were happy
• Sonoma Chat – Twitter chat that happens every Wednesday – WR was featured 2 weeks ago and reported 1.2 million impressions within 1hr / great exposure
• Art of Oak – all barrels were successfully delivered to their location / still have 11 left to sell
  • Instagram contest – have a map of where barrels are and people snap pics with #s which would enter them into drawing for prize
  • May pick up some or all barrels to be at the Ruby Affair – cost estimated to be about $3k
• Mystery Tours – some tickets have sold / expected to sell out
• Ruby Affair
  • Working on auction items
  • Ticket sales are not great – usually tickets to events sell out right before event is to happen
• Movie Screening – May 7th
  • Beth scouting out Coppola today for the movie screening – estimates about 100-150 people
  • Want to have 5 founding members pour at the screening – multiple screenings at different times
  • Funding – have raised $6,500 so far

 

10:10    PRMD Update & ABC licensing update

• PRMD still having weekly meetings every Monday
• Licensing for events – resolved – do not have to pay 🙂

 

10:20    Public Relations

• LA with SF Travel March 30th – grapevine gifts completed
• VinDiego April 1st-2nd – Debbie going and 20 wineries are pouring
• Rancho Palos Verdes Trump Golf Course – will be sending out to members to see if any interest
• Contract for Wagstaff due April
  • WR does a lot of publicity in-house through Jolene
  • Bringing up to full board if WR would be better off letting contract expire and promoting Jolene to do more publicity

 

10:30    Old Business

• AVA groups meeting monthly at Wine Road – a social media person will be brought on board to promote the AVAs

 

10:40    New Business

• Looking for new office/warehouse space by April/May
• Members in good standing per bylaws
  • Sunce Winery – discussion on termination due to repeated problems with not turning in money.  Bringing this info to full board meeting
• Retreat
  • Location:  Geyserville Inn / Dinner at Coppola
  • Date: April 28th
  • Topics:
    • Add sonoma Coast or expand AVAs
    • Ad space for Breweries

 

• Ballot – nominees
  • John Vislay
  • Jonathan Demichael
  • Nancy Beeken
  • Bruce Thomas
  • Jim Connell
  • Mike Salinas (Geyserville Inn / lodging representative)
• Articles re: 40th anniversary
  • Healdsburg Tribune/Sonoma Discoveries/Northbay Biz
• New Maps – still about 3-4 weeks out from printing

 

11:15  Meeting Adjourned

• Motion to adjourn – Robin / Seconded – Sue