Wine Road Board – October 18, 2023

Wine Road Board of Directors
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023
9:00am-10:30am
Note location – Hook & Ladder Winery

Minutes – Pending Approval

Members Present: Lillian, Devin, Helen, Harry, Danny, Aaron
Members Absent: John, Katie, Brooke, Oded, Lucas, Teri, Jack
Respectfully submitted by Beth Costa

9:00am Call to order

9:05am Review Meeting Minutes – July & Sept – sorry, no minutes to share today. I will get them wrapped up and sent prior to our next meeting. I need someone to take over this role, Teri has moved to a new winery and is not able to take on this extra duty. Helen has offered to take over as Secretary, starting with the November meeting. Beth will take minutes today.

9:10am Treasurer’s Report – as of Oct. 1 checking: $45,965.20 savings: 150,233.10
Pending bills: balance of Flipboard and recent map reprinting, glasses for WFA
Sponsors confirmed: Visit Santa Rosa has confirmed $8000 & Pure Lux $5000
Both checks are pending.

9:15am Website
Moved blog to WineRoad.com – Beth will have Growth Native create dashboard to show growth of traffic to site since we began this project in July. Plan to have at the December meeting.

9:20am Events
W&F Affair- goal 2000 tickets, to date: 1400
Winter WINEland sign-up has begun
Winter Wine Trail date has been shared (Feb. 10) sign-up in Dec – going to call it February Wine Trail, so there is no confusion with Winter Wineland, since there will be an overlap of ticket sales.

9:30am Marketing
Google tastings – today / not sure if we will offer to do more
“Locals” Tasting Offers / Sonoma County residents – Beth shared the page on the Napa Valley Vintners, who offer a Neighbor Discount – wineries offer what they want to anyone with a Napa County zip code. The Board settled on wineries signing up to offer either 2 for 1 tasting or 10% off wine and make a 12 month commitment. Beth to send out info in Nov to see if there is interest. If we move forward, we will launch in January with Press Demo and maybe some local radio. We will create a web page with the info for each winery and send the wineries signs (mostly for their staff) saying what they are offering and that it must be a Sonoma County address on the ID.
9:40am Wine Road Ambassador
Sending reminder to members to get their staff on board. Lillian suggested we provide a printed copy of the study guide and quiz, so members can do the training as a Staff Meeting and get multiple Ambassadors on board at once. Beth to do and share that info and idea via the weekly notice. At this point, we have put the names of the people online that have completed the program.

9:45am Membership
Assessments thus far 11 past due wineries, 8 lodgings – some payments pending
Member Benefits – 2nd Sales Seminar – 40 attendees signed up
Beth can work with WISE and see what other seminars they offer. The Board woujld like to see Wine Club, more Sales Training, Working on the Road – how to do tastings efficiently at club member homes, or at stores who offer tastings etc. Now it seems clunky getting the CC info and being secure with the information. We need a ‘best practices”. Beth and Board members can reach out to members and see if anyone would like to share how they make it work.

9:50am Old Business

9:55am New Business – Board Elections in February (7 wineries & 3 lodgings minimum)
Helen, Harry, Aaron confirmed they would run again, need to confirm with Katie, Lucas and Brooke.
General Membership Meeting – December 14th at Francis Ford Coppola. Beth and Lillian to meet and work out details. Brief meeting, printed take home recap of the year, then mix and mingle. Board members to man tables promoting our various programs: Insider, Ambassador, Podcast etc – get the word out, have people sign-up on the spot.

10:30am Meeting adjourns

John Viszlay termed out Mar-17
Devin Reddick termed out Mar-17
Teri Rolleri 2 more years on 1st term Mar-22
Jack Seifrick 1 more year on 2nd term Mar-19
Lillian Fechter 1 more year on 2nd term Mar-19
Dan Christensen 1 more year on 2nd term Mar-19
Oded Shakked 1 more year on 2nd term Mar-19
Helen Sharrocks can run again Mar-21
Harry Wetzel can run again Mar-21
Katie Ambrosie can run again Mar-21
Lucas Meeker can run again Mar-21
Brooke Ross can run again Mar-21
Aaron Krug can run again Mar-21