GALLATIN COUNTY FAIR BOARD
October 25, 2004 Special Meeting Minutes
(Approved at November 16, 2004 Meeting)
The purpose of this meeting is to review the Fair Board’s current Mission and Vision Statements, develop a minimum of 5 departmental Objectives along with Performance Measurements for each of the objectives. This information was requested by the County Commissioners and must be turned in to the CAO and Performance Measurements Steering Committee by November 5, 2004.
I. CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order by chairman Greg Raths at 6:35pm in the Ag Center.
II. ATTENDANCE:
1. Board Members – Dale Nerlin, Joel Farrell, Blair Howze and Greg Raths
2. Staff – Sue Shockley
3. Absent Board Members – Bob Brekke
III. MISSION STATEMENT: The Board reviewed the current Mission Statement - “The Mission of the Gallatin County Fair Board is to serve the community interests of Gallatin County by promoting diverse activities, maximizing the use of the Fairgrounds to be an economic, and cultural asset, to manage according to State Statutes and to encourage an appreciation of agriculture.” After a lengthy discussion Blair moved to change the Mission Statement to read “ The Mission of the Gallatin County Fair Board is to serve the regional interests by promoting diverse activities maximizing the use of the Fairgrounds to be an agricultural, economic and cultural asset.” The motion was seconded by Joel and carried unanimously.
IV. VISION STATEMENT: The Board next reviewed the current Vision Statement – “ A Fairgrounds that will contribute to the quality of life of our community by providing facilities that will encourage and accommodate educational, recreational, cultural and commercial activities and events and do so in a businesslike manner so as not to be a liability, but an asset to our residents.” Again after a lengthy discussion the Board decided to remove the last 13 words to make the Vision Statement read ““ A Fairgrounds that will contribute to the quality of life of our community by providing facilities that will encourage and accommodate educational, recreational, cultural and commercial activities and events and do so in a businesslike manner.”
V. DEPARTMENTAL OBJECTIVES – Another lengthy discussion produced the following results.
1. Increase profitable facilities rentals
2. Develop alternative revenue sources (grants, sponsorships, donations)
3. Develop a strong marketing plan
4. Recruit and retain volunteers – enough people to do the work that needs to be done, while staying within budget constraints
5. Produce a successful County Fair and other signature events
6. Improve facilities to meet growing and changing demands
7. Provide excellent customer service
These are the departmental objectives the Board will submit to the steering committee. The Board feels these will need to be reviewed each year and may need to be tweaked. We are new at this and this is very difficult for us. Some of our objectives also seem to be measurements. We will have to try this for a year and see if it works out. In order to accomplish some of these objectives, we will need to develop customer surveys and hold public meetings to gather input. We have purchased new scheduling software that will track hours of use for each building, event attendance, equipment used, new events, and return events. We are going to go back from July 1 2004 and input all the data so that we will have good records for the 2004/2005 fiscal year.
VI. PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENTS FOR OBJECTIVES.
1. Increase profitable facilities rentals
a) Number of new events
b) Number of repeat events
c) Number of number of events lost
d) Percentage of increase in revenues from rentals
e) Percentage of increase in revenues vs. expenses
2. Develop alternate (non-tax) revenues – grants, sponsorships, donations
a) Sponsorship dollars generated
b) New sponsor dollars
c) Repeat sponsor dollars – increase/decrease
d) Lost sponsor dollars –why
e) Donations either through Foundation or directly
f) Grants – number and amount written - success rate, amount generated
3. Develop strong marketing plan
a) Web page – active and updated
1) Number of hits
2) Number of web inquiries
3) Survey – developed and placed on County web page – responses
b) Increase in attendance at Signature events
c) Increase in off-season usage
d) Increase in sponsorships – numbers and dollars
e) Development of marketing tools
1) Printed materials
2) Press releases for events and off season usage
f) Organization of historical data – photos, articles, past Fair information
4. Recruit and Retain Volunteers
a) Number of new volunteers
b) Number of returning volunteers
c) Number of lost volunteers
d) Number of volunteer hours
e) Value of work accomplished by volunteers had paid staff been used
5. Produce a successful County Fair and Signature Events
a) Attendance
b) Gross income
c) Net income
d) Entries
e) Customer satisfaction
6. Improve facilities to meet the changing needs of paying customers, while increasing efficiency.
a) Number of new events
b) Size of events – attendance and facilities used
c )Customer satisfaction
d) Revenues vs. Expenses
7. Provide EXCELLENT customer service
a) Number of compliments
b) Number of complaints
c) Number of return customers
d) Customer satisfaction
The Fair Board members present worked through this process and agreed that for this year, these would be our objectives. Sue will type up the minutes and email them to the Fair Board for their review before sending the information to the CAO.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm
Respectfully Submitted By: ____________________________________________________
Sue Shockley, Acting Secretary Date
Approved: _________________________________________________________________
Chairman Date
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