Directors News

AGM

The Annual General Meeting of Similkameen Country will be held on Nov. 28 at 7 PM at the Info Centre. Anyone interesting in becoming a director of Similkameen Country please contact us (click Contact Us link above).

Next Directors’ Meeting

March 21, 2013

Info Centre Hours

Effective immediately, the Info Centre will be closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well as every second Thursday until the end of February.

Christmas Lightup Planning Meeting

There will be a meeting to plan and organize the Christmas Lightup event on Nov. 3 at 12 noon at The Branding Iron.

Next Meeting

Next directors’ meeting will be Sept. 20th at 7:30 am.

New Lease

The new lease with amendments was passed and signed.

Networking Conference

Annual Tourism BC Networking Conference is on Oct. 20 and 21 in Victoria. Colleen will be attending.

Taste of Our Valley

1st meeting is set for Sept. 6 at noon at the Grindhouse.

Budget Meeting

August 30 at noon.

Canada Day

Everything is ready for the big day. There will be a number of vendors, booths, and displays. The Elks are doing the breakfast and concession. The Legion will be doing the colour guard. There will be several games including frizbee toss, bean bag baseball, and bocce ball. Clown Around will be here for face painting, bubble machine, and bouncy castle.

Manager’s Report – May/June 2011

Visitors for May were 517 (up from 494 last year).

Colleen completed the Train the Trainer workshop.

Natasha Guenther has been hired for the Visitor Centre Counselling job. Natasha is well qualified for the job as she is very familiar with the area and has a friendly manner.

Visitors Guides have been distributed to Hope, Chilliwack, Abborsford, Mission, Langley and White Rock as well as Vancouver Island.

New Website Design

It was agreed that Terry Findlay should proceed with the design of a more user friendly and better organized website. The new design should be up and running early in June.

Summer Student

The hiring of Summer Student for Info Centre was discussed and as we only received nine weeks of funding not  thirteen weeks as  requested the manager asked if the board could approve the hiring of our student earlier than July 1^st so that a training program and a Fam tour could be scheduled before our July 1^st commitment to BC Tourism.  That commitment  as per our agreement with BC Tourism is to be open 7 days a week 8 hours a day for July and August.  It was pointed out that because the minimum wage was increased to $8.75 our application for funding amount per hour which  was based on $8.00 per hour was  approved at  $8.75.  This increase in the hourly reimbursement wage was equivalent to 25 hours.

It was moved by Terry Findlay and seconded by Arlene Arlow that Similkameen Country would approve the hiring of our summer student early to a maximum of 40 hours for training as deemed necessary by the manger of the info centre. (carried)

Similkameen Sizzle

The Sizzle committee has started their monthly meetings and the planning for  this event is well underway.  Vicki Morgan is the chairperson of the event this year.  At our last meeting Vicki announced that Valley First has committed to another three year term at Title Sponsor .

Canada Day

The first planning meeting for Canada Day has been held.  The letter to the Elks/Royal Purple asking them to do the breakfast has gone out.  Clown Around has confirmed that they will be here for face painting and the bubble machine and clowns.  We will be going with the same format but some new events and ideas.  We are still looking for volunteers for this event.  The committee consists of Joan McMurray, Colleen Christensen, and John Bachewich.

Email and Website Advertising

The email and web site advertising program is  ready to go  for members to advertise.  We will be sending out information with our yearly billing for Similkameen Country by the end of the month to put out the information to our members for this program.

Chamber of Commerce

• Work on Event Society updates ( gaming reports, Financial reports, AGM minutes )
• Colleen attended Canada Day meeting and started writing letters and contacting volunteers for the event.
• Colleen attended meeting on the WorkZone Proposal
• Colleen attended Sizzle meeting
• Billing for membership in Similkameen Country is almost completed
• We sent a Support letter for Grist Mill
• A flag pole was purchase and arrangements are being made for installation at the info centre
• FortisBC is going to do another Laundry Campaign at the info centre July 6^th.
• Rick Hansen 25^th Anniversary Relay would like Similkameen Country to oversee the planning of the relay through Cawston and Keremeos on May 2012

BC Tourism Information Centre

Visitors for the month of April were 404  (up from last year of 374). Very busy with Spring Wine Festival  visitors.

We have advertised for a summer student and have received notification that we have been approved for 9 weeks   40 hrs a week at  a rate of $8.75 per hour on the HRDC Summer Jobs Program

Spring Wine Festival

The Spring Wine Festival will be from Apr. 28th to May 8th. Various events are planned. For more information visit www.similkameenwine.com

Info Centre News

There were 350 visitors in March.

Colleen will attend the training session in Penticton on April 28th.

The Info Centre is now open regular hours from Monday to Friday.

The volunteer staff will be starting in May.