HomeMy WebLinkAboutDowntown Advisory Committee - 10/18/2016MEETING NOTES TW"`: "..--i;riC OFFICE
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION - DOWNTOWN S1ABQ,SG?NYMITTEI0: t}p
October 18, 2016, 6 PM y - „�i
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Members present: Nancy Wall, Chair
Matthew Cummings, Krista Hill Cummings, Beth Ashman Collins
Wheaton Student Discount Program
The idea is to organize downtown businesses to give discounts to Wheaton
students who show a Wheaton Student ID - no coupon would be needed.
• We need to learn more about how to reach Wheaton Students with the
message. Krista will write up some questions to identify where do students
get information: bulletin boards, Facebook pages, RAs -
• Nancy has already reached out to a few businesses who seemed willing
to participate. Nancy will work on signing up businesses.
• We need a flyer for bulletin boards and to post online
• Target date for roll out: January when students return from
Event Downtown in the Spring
Downtown Association is has a calendar of events:
Family Fun Night
Halloween Trick or Treat & Parade
Christmas Parade
Chocolate Walk
History Hunt (new Spring event)
Nancy will ask Caitlin Barrows to meet with us and brainstorm about how to work
together an a spring event.
We talked about Taste of Mansfield inviting restaurants to have tables. Could
have a vote for "best of Mansfield?" We talked about location on a Common or
along Main Street. We talked about the pros and cons of trying to create a new
event or trying to bring out downtown food vendors to augment an existing
event.
Food brings people. We discussed ways to tie an event to the downtown
businesses using a scavenger hunt map. The idea with the scavenger hunt is you
would collect a stamp at each business to get a prize. Each business could havE
a stamp of sticker. If you get the kids involved, people will come. Could we get
amateur and student music groups to perform - battle of the bands?
We need to do some research about interest from Downtown businesses.
Let's start with Restaurant Week idea. Ourjob would be to bring them together
to organize. It would take some publicity, but would require less event planning.
Restaurant Week should have dinner and lunch participants so we could include
lunch places like the Cafe on the Common, Mansfield Deli, and Main Street
Cafe.
Matt suggested that after Restaurant Week we could extend the idea to other
types of downtown businesses with a Treat Your Self - Spa Week.
Matt shared that Medfield has a lovely program called "New in Town". Itis
basically a series of organized meet ups at local businesses and bars. People
pay for their own food. Some events might have a speaker. We could do some
welcome event for Chocolate Factory or North Common residences when they
open.
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Signature of Clerk, Beth Ashman Collins