Office Update Sept. 2024 – No Board Mtg this month

Hello to the Board.

In lieu of a Board Meeting this month, I am simply sending along an update of our recent activities.

Our next meeting will be October 9th at Francis Ford Coppola, 9:00-10:30am

Assessments  

48 wineries and 17 lodgings not paid, along with 20 partial payments, leaving us $60,000 short.

Normally we have about 20 not paid this time of year.

Many have reached out to say they are going to renew, but they can’t pay until Oct…ish.

A note went to all Wine & Food Affair wineries that have not paid and I requested some type of payment before we print the program – there are 20 of them.

Treasure’s Report

Bank balances as of today – Checking $5,665.59    Savings  $19,352.33   6-month CD  $100,818.84

I have been transferring $10,000 per week as needed from savings to checking (we had $50,000 in savings).

On Oct. 1st I will be charging approx. $7000 in assessments, for those who paid 1/2.

We will have $4000 + from the Harvest Wine Trail to deposit in about two weeks.

Our only other income will be in the form of assessments pending, until Wine & Food Affair in November.

Office Move

I am working to close our physical office – everything is now in a large storage unit on Grove Street.

We will be moving the pallets of maps and glasses out of our small unit into this new larger unit.

Debbie and Liana will be working from home – starting in a few weeks.

Jim Carlsen is letting us out of our lease (which ran until Jan. 31, 2025).

I will keep my small office space I have for now – at least through November – possibly long-term.

We do need a physical address to send email campaigns and a Google My Business landing page.

Jim Carlsen is willing to let me keep my individual, small office space and our map box outside, for no rent.

This move will save us $18,000 a year in rent.

Christopher Creek

A letter was sent to the winery rescinding their recent membership approval.

Our attorney Elizabeth Palmer wrote the letter, signed by Lillian.

Their payment was refunded.

Updated Website

Based on the feedback from our recent member survey, everyone would like to see a new or updated website – which is in the works. We will be paying to “reskin” what we have, new colors, fonts and layouts. This will be ready to launch by Jan. 1st, and we can share that news at our Holiday Member Meeting.

Updated Map

We are in the midst of designing our next printed map, based on the colors, fonts and design of the new website.

Those will also be out Jan. 1st – we will be able to do a big distribution during our Winter WINEland supply day.

Harvest Wine Trail

85 tickets as of today – email blast went out this morning. Tickets are available online through the day (this Saturday).

Wine & Food Affair

675 tickets sold as of today. Our VIP Tickets are sold out.

This morning an email with both events went out. Sept. 26th will be our 1st Wine & Food Affair dedicated email.

We are reaching out to a few more businesses to see if there is interest in sponsoring the printed event program.

Without a sponsor, we may have to cancel our plans to print this multiple page piece – save the $3500.

We can discuss at the end of Sept and see where we stand with more assessments being paid or a program sponsor secured.

We have three wineries that are offering a Friday night “event”, they each paid $50 to have it listed on our website.

Marketing

Wine Road will get some exposure at the Sonoma County Tourism annual meeting next week – as the wine sponsor.

We collected 10 cases of wine and offered the donating wineries the opportunity to give out POS that we will tuck into our maps.

Seminars 

Tomorrow we have our final seminar of the year, Event Planning – we have 36 people registered.

CA Wine Month – we did send an email to promote the month, which included special offers from 12 wineries and 2 lodgings.

Only 30% open rate – our regular monthly news averages 47%.

Most winery offers had 100+ clicks on their links. Hopefully that translates into some visits or sales.

Come Over October – we have sent information and links to this new industry-wide initiative and encouraged our members to “get on board” and talk about this and share on social.

Social videos – Mysty and I went out and shot 10 videos at various wineries to promote: Walk-Ins Welcome, Find Your Fun (on our event caldendar), Harvest Wine Trail, “Search” for your favorites on our website, Wine Road Ambassadors, Wine Road Insiders.  Mysty will start sharing these over the next few weeks. So far two have posted and they each have over 1000 views.

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When we officially are out of an office, our plan is to meet at a different winery each week. This will keep the three of us in sync and it will be a positive way for us to connect with members each week – we can share photos on social, let people see where we’re at.  I see it as a BIG financial savings and a positive connection with members.

Side note –  Yesterday in the midst of moving things out of the office, I fell loading things in the car, off the front office steps, landing on the back of my head on the cement – so I’m home with a concussion. I will be out for a few days – my whole world is spinning. I do have a podcast recording tomorrow which I’ll get through, but then I’ll take off the afternoon and Friday.

 

Regards,

Beth