Carlisle Chamber of Commerce
Executive Board Meeting
April 5th, 2007  12:00 p.m.
Deery Brothers Board Room

Members present:   President Tammy Davis, Dr. Jennifer Olson, Les Hartshorn, Dee Smith, Greg Grissom, Tom Wagenknecht, Jim Segreto, and Dan Crum.

Also present:  Ethel Lee, Executive Director, Shar Pardubsky, and Martha Willits from the GDM Partnership

1. Open Meeting:  Vice-President Davis opened the meeting at 12:05 p.m.

2. Approval of  minutes:

  • Minutes of the March 8th Executive Meeting were approved.

3. Treasurers Report:

Jim Segreto, Treasurer, reported the following:

  • Message from Bob Stuyvesant that tax returns for the Chamber will be done next week.

  • Rolled over a CD at GWB for $10,000, will mature 10/07.

  • Reported that Mike Olson would charge $200 for landscaping the Trail Head so that it looks nice, Also discussion on the Kybo at the Trail Head.

  • Motion by Tom Wagenknecht, second by Les Hartshorn to approve the Treasurer report.

4. Executive Director Report:            

Ethel Lee reported:

  • New memberships - The Cutting Edge, Four Seasons, Mary Sue's Salon, Studio 155

  • Potential new members  -  Mark Prall COnstruction, Farm Bureau, The Saw Dhop, David Doss Farmland Insurance.

  • Ethel will be finalizing the membership list in the next week to give to the Record Herald for the new directory.

  • Ethel has been working with Les Hartshorn to get our web-site up-dated.  He is going to list the members by type of business as well as in alpha order.  He also is creating a min-web page for the ones that do not have their own web-site. 

  • Directory  Map Change - Has been working with Cindy about getting better mapping for the directory.  Have one map to show where in the State, Carlisle is located and a downtown section that shows where the businesses are at is the 85th year for North Park.  The Garden Party, Fourth of July and Concert in the Park activities will be reflective of this event.

  • Emails - Had an e-mail suggesting that information on the Septuplets be added to the web site.  Because of privacy concerns it was not felt needed

  • 4th of July - Discussion on Float criteria /guidelines.  Consensus was to tell the committee there is $1500 in the budget to use as they wish.

  • Annual Dinner - Asked the board to be thinking about the Annual Dinner such as a date, time, cost (to be paid in advance) and speaker.

  • Small Business Advisory Council - One person is still needed for the council.

  • Meeting Next Week - Dee Smith can’t host this meeting; Tom Lane has arranged to let members tour the new Middle School.  Meeting will convene at the Family Life Center.  After a short meeting, the school will provide a bus to take members over for a tour.  Jim will check to see if Tom at Fizz’s can provide a sack lunch to keep the meeting at an hour.

5. Committee Reports:

  • Garden Party - Has the Urbandale Adult Jazz/Concert to come to play.

  • City-wide Garage Sale - Will be Friday & Saturday, June 15th & 16th.  Chris Pighetti is coordinating this event.

  • Shaklee Conference - Have met with Janis Wagenknecht.  Am working on a special brochure and map for this event.

  • Golf Outing - Denny Woodruff & Carroll Isley have consented to help Melinda Huisinga with this project, but none of them could attend the first planning meeting last week.  Ethel attended for them and took notes.  It was a very good meeting with new ideas for the Golf outing to be held Friday, July 27th @ Toad Valley.  They will be needing volunteers to help that day.

  • Revitalization Committee - Paulette Franklin, the Executive Director from Altoona, and Don Coates, Exec. Director of the Eastern Polk Regional Development, Inc. were there to explain how Altoona turned their downtown area around.   It was a very interesting meeting. Larry Watkins and Ethel Lee attended a Ready, Set, Go Workshop that was held in Ames last Tuesday.  It was an interesting day.  They picked up a couple of ideas that maybe will work for our community.  We will report these back to this Revitalization Committee at their next meeting.

  • Beautification Committee - Kay Scholl is going to be obtaining the last of the landscaping plants/grasses for the Van Patten corner in the next couple of weeks.  We need to get this lower level finished so the final report can be submitted to MWA to receive the funding.  Want to then start work on obtaining the financing for the Downtown sign to be placed on the upper level of the corner.  Would like to have all finished by this fall. Ethel asked for thoughts on ‘Hanging Basket Sale’ for funds to purchase flowers for bikes/planters this year.  Discussion followed.  Consensus was not to do anything at this time.

  • Farmers Market - Mary Sue and LaVena approached Ethel about having a Farmer’s Market type of event once a month for the months of May, June, July and maybe August.  Probably on a Saturday morning from 8-12.  I have talked with the Police Dept. and Neil Ruddy at the City Hall about blocking off School Street in the downtown area.  They said that wouldn’t be a problem.  Will be meeting with the individuals involved to finalize this event and get some publicity out. Need a catchy name.  It was suggested to have a contest with the school kids of who could submit the best name and maybe give a prize of $25? Consensus was to call it Carlisle Crazy Days. 

6. New Business:

  • 2007-08 Directory - Cindy Nelson from the Record Herald asked the board for new ideas for the directory, suggestions such as pictures of the new Middle School, bikes and flowers from North Park could be put on the cover. Also, list of past presidents, chairs for committees of events.  Other ideas are to put information about Little League, Girls Softball and other youth activities in the directory.

7. Old Business:

  • Marketing - Nothing new at this time.

8. GDM Partnership: Martha Willits was present to up-dated board on work of the GDM Partnership.

  • Martha spoke on the efforts of the partnership to increase the work force in the greater Des Moines area. 
  • Project Destiny, 11,000 petitions have been signed in support of Project Destiny and turned in on time. 33 towns are now on board with more to follow.  Besides lowering taxes, 1/3 of the funding will go towards trails and culture.

9. Next Executive Board Meeting:

  •   Thursday, May 3rd  12:00 noon, at  Deery Brothers.

10. Adjourn:

  •   Meeting adjourned at 1:25 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Dan J. Crum
Assistant Secretary