OVRCC Annual Meeting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact:

Marji Graf, CEO

OVRCC

mgraf@yourplaceinvermont.com

802-228-5830

New Board Members were announced at Okemo Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday May 18^th.

President Cote welcomed everyone and thanked Coleman Brook Tavern for hosting our Annual Meeting luncheon.   Cote spoke about the State of the Chamber and Treasurer Sirois spoke about our positive financial position,  CEO Marji Graf reviewed the 2015 marketing and membership accomplishments and 2016 goals. Our new Regional Guidebooks were well received at the CT show and spoke about our 3-year partnership with Google.

Member of the Year was presented to Angie Ross of Tygart Mountain Sports in Ludlow.

Outgoing board members were thanked for their service: Julie Bowyer, Doug Ficken, Sheldon Ghetler, Barb LeMire, Rick Paterno and Dan Cote who will be our Past President.

We welcomed new Board members:

Joe Evans, Gail Graves, Tom Gianola, Justin Hyjek, Scott Blair and Kevin Theissen, and continuing Katelyn Sirois, William Jenney, Kevin Marvelli and Steve Mulcahy. Returning Board members include Terry Bane, Emmett Dunbar, Marilee Spanjian, Margaret Vincent and Julie Lynn Wood. The Board agreed to allow Mr. Lamb to be a one-year term alternate without voting rights until we have an additional opening.

CEO Graf thanked her Manager of Member Services, Amy Balogh, for an outstanding job!

Three speakers were introduced:

Steven Cook who was appointed Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Tourism & Marketing 10 years ago. He is the publisher of Vermont Life Magazine. He spoke about the launch of the new VermontVacation.com over a year ago. Also about winter advertising and the departments overall marketing strategy for promoting the State as a tourism destination.

The next speaker was Ken Jones, Economic Research Analyst at the Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) for the State of Vermont. Ken works with Departments and Divisions within ACCD that promote tourism, manufacturing, housing and community development activities in the State. Ken has been the primary author of Vermont’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy and the most recent Benchmark Study on the economic impacts of Tourism on the Vermont economy. He shared with us VISA spending in our Region.

He was followed by Jeffrey Lewis who is working for the Vermont Chamber Foundation on the Vermont Futures Project with a goal of invigorating the Vermont economy through research and policy innovation.

We thanked Chef Scott and Chef Jason and they spoke about Coleman Brook Tarvern’s Farmhouse Dinners series beginning June of 2016.

The annual meeting will be available on lpctv.org within a few weeks.