August 30,
2005
6:00 p.m.
Members Present: Peter Bez, Lynne Davies, Kathleen Fitzgerald, Laurel Guadazno, Michael Peregon, Mick Rudd (arrived at 6:45 p.m.) and Rita “Hersh” Schwartz.
Members Absent: none
The
meeting was called to order at 6:05 p.m.
There
was a brief introduction by Lynn Davies telling the audience what the meeting
was going to be about. The Board has
received a lot of input from many people, i.e., set a limit on amount of
grants, don’t fund very small grants, include no charities, finance no grants
for people who have received grants during the past years (5 yrs or 4 yrs) etc.
Lynn
continued that the Board wanted suggestions from the audience present on
grants. “We would like to receive
constructive suggestions – not complaints.
If folks could just help us understand the ways to limit this we would
appreciate it.” She then said the
ground rules would be that the speakers would be limited to five minutes
each. She also thanked them all for
attending.
At
that point Lynn introduced the Board to the assembled group. The only member missing (at that time) was
Mick Rudd.
Tourism Fund
FY 2007 Grant Guidelines
In
conjunction with the Visitor Services Board’s review of the tourism grant
guidelines, the VSB will be conducting a public hearing on Tuesday, August 30,
2005 at 6:00 p.m. in the Judge Welsh Room, Town Hall, 260 Commercial St.,
Provincetown, MA 02657, to obtain public input. The following are some of the
proposed changes the VSB has already received:
·
A
dollar cap for an individual grant -- either an absolute dollar or a percentage
of total funds available.
·
A
cap on the number of years that any event would receive funding; option also
includes reducing the amount over some number of years or to only fund a new
and innovative addition or enhancement of previous event.
·
To
not fund events that are fund-raising activities.
·
To
not fund the very small grants [$500 - $1,000].
·
To
set a certain dollar amount for larger grants and a certain amount for smaller
grants.
·
To
not have any promotional grants or to have a different sum of funds for grants.
Any
person or organization wishing to be heard will be given an opportunity at said
hearing. For more information, contact Acting Tourism Director Bill Schneider
at 508/487-7000 ext. 536. Written comments may be submitted to the attention of
the Acting Tourism Director at Town Hall.
Rick Murray, owner of Mussel Beach gym
and the Crown and Anchor, spoke first and said he thinks the time period should
be very open – keep windows open for a longer period. He cautioned the Board that they should go back to their mission
and think about the shoulder seasons.
He also mentioned that the Schooner Race on the same weekend as the Swim
for life should give you more “bang for the buck.” Each application should be funded on its own merits.
A lot of the grants have been cut by the Federal government, thus the dollar amount should be opened up to the applicants. “Think about,” Rick continued, “will this bring people to town and for how long? Don’t eliminate smaller grants.” He also felt it was nice to give to Castle Hill and FAWC, etc., but there are also smaller applicants who can enhance business as well.
Richard Connolly and his partner Mike,
founders of Mates Leather Weekend, also reiterated the suggestions of
Rick. They have received grants since
2002 and have had an increase in their 2005 ticket sales. (Richard C. read from a lengthy,
well-thought out letter to the Board.)
In it he said that we know how to market and we keep ticket prices at nominal levels. Our endeavor is the best run and the best
value. We have always done these
weekends within the guidelines of the VSB even though he’s opposed to
guidelines. He further feels that
tenured grants should be based on past successes. New applications should be scrutinized based on their marketing
plan and how successful the Board feels they might be. Some events fail because they’re poorly
planned. ASGCC benefits from his
event. The purpose of the grants is to
promote business. A suggestion would be
to set dollar amounts with no grant receiving more than 5% of the entire amount
available.
He
concluded by saying that most of these proposed changes will have a negative
impact on our town. He also said that
they own no property and have no interest in Town other than their weekend
happening.
Lynn Mogell – speaking as an individual
and also as a member of the Women Innkeepers of Provincetown started off by
saying that she had a great deal of respect for VSB, etc. “I know you’re trying to take activities and
see which are meaningful. The question
is – how do you take such a subjective process and do it fairly?” Big thought is “How does the money improve
tourism? How does the applicant bring
more people to town?” She said that a
marketing analysis, future projections, etc. within the application can make
the applicant’s case. She continued
with the suggestion that each funding be based on study. “Count up all the money in that pile and
just pro-rate it.” She thinks this
would be the fairest way. She feels
that it’s important to have grants funded by the VSB. Bottom line: How well do
the applicants present themselves?
Gabby Hanna, representing the
Provincetown Film Festival, said she realizes granting funds is a big
responsibility. The Film Festival does
advertising all over the world. The
Provincetown Business Guild uses its money for Holly Folly, etc. These are important things to look at when
you give grants. She doesn’t think
grants should have caps. They should be
looked at individually. She also felt
that the Board should support fund raising grants. All these things bring people here. Small events are important, too, and they only ask for small
amounts.
Don Murphy, representing both the
Portuguese Festival and the Schooner Regatta, handed out prepared material to
the members of the Board. He thanked
them for holding this hearing. His hand-outs
outlined his events and he shared them with the Board. Portuguese Festival is a great festival and
has been going on for 50 odd years. In
the last 9 years it has become the Portuguese Festival (combined with the
Blessing of the Fleet). He felt that
Provincetown’s heritage is one of our most important assets. He gets support from over 80
businesses. The Lions Club puts on the
Food Court which is another indication of the level of support. The Festival is run with a completely
volunteer staff. There are thousands of
donated man hours – which are all volunteer.
Their web site didn’t cost them a cent; it was a volunteer
function. Everything is volunteer! His organization receives funds from many,
many organizations. Everybody gives
whatever they can.
Don
continued that the Tourism Fund is part of our fund and leverages that. Again, people aren’t getting paid and they
do it because they want to. They main
problem is in not calling volunteers – so many want to help. It’s a great problem to have. Don then hopped to the Schooner Regatta
which is only 4 years old and compared it to the Portuguese Festival which is
58 years old. He said that the Schooner
Regatta is in the developmental stage.
They are resource-limited because they have a smaller base of
support. It is basically supported by
people who have a love of sailing. The
opportunity is there and we just have to reach out; there is a lot of work to
be done.
Don
went on to say that the biggest change is on page 10 (of his brochure). “The
Tourism Fund is the primary investor in the Schooner Regatta – so your role
here is a heavy one with lots of decisions to be made.” Citing page 11 he told the group that the
grant is used in the following calendar year thus making it difficult for any
heavy planning. We’re supposed to start
working on the regatta a year ahead so that’s an issue you need to think
about. We have to promote early; so
you’ve created a model – if you don’t use it – you lose it. That’s an issue. He then launched into a branding dissertation but by that time
his brochure had made the points he reiterated.
Mick Rudd came in at 6:45 p.m.
Hunter O’Hanian, director of the Fine Arts
Work Center (FAWC), said he shares the difficulty of granting guidelines. His FAWC receives 30 or 40 grants so he
knows how difficult funding can be. He
suggested being very clear in tying the VSB mission to your review
criteria. “How does it serve the
mission? Place as few limitations on
the grants as possible (multi yr, etc)” and lastly, “I think you should be very
clear on what should be excluded – and the rationale for this.”
Two
other observations from Hunter:
“Because it’s a small town – you might want to consider an independent
review of your guidelines – someone who doesn’t know the people involved – you
can probably pay someone to have this objectivity.” He suggested looking at other agencies that make decisions i.e.,
Associated Grant Maker – Court St – Boston – who advise people on how to award
grants. Hunter said they often bring
clarity to the review process.
Everyone
in the audience who wanted to be heard had been at this time.
Mick Rudd, one of the VSB members,
said that Jay Critchley went to his office and Mick interviewed him. Basically, Jay’s concerns are two fold – 1st
timing – having to pull together all the grants at one time in the year. He hopes he’s not extrapolating. One of the ideas that was floated was to
divide the grant application into
smaller segments, i.e., early Spring
needs might have different guidelines.
Break them up into seasons. Mick
said to take him with grano salis. He suggested that Jay e-mail his concerns to
the VSB.
2nd
concern is whether long-standing events that might be fund-raisers were his
major concern. Jay said that he had had
a great spread in the NY Times last Friday about the swim. Nothing runs on automatic pilot – there is
always preparation. He does a lot of
work. Jay said that the events should
be thought of in a broader sense.
Lynn
Davies concluded the meeting by saying that there will be another session after
Labor Day. In summing up what the
audience had to say she felt that “you basically want us to leave it alone with
some tweaking of the process.” She felt
the Board had received some very interesting ideas here. She promised that the Board will be putting
all your suggestions together and will present it to the BoS. The grant applications will begin November
15th and be decided by Jan 15th. Sometime in late October there will be an
informational meeting for all grant applicants. We will be here to help you and want to enhance your
initiative. There’s a lot more to be
done. She then thanked all for their
valuable inputs.
The
meeting adjourned at 7:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Evelyn Rogers Gaudiano
Approved by ____________________________on ______________, 2005.
Lynne Davies, Chair