Jan 12,2022 General Meeting

Brewster Chamber of Commerce

109 Bridge Street Chamber Office via Zoom 

January 12, 2022, 6:00 p.m.

  1. Call to Order

Mike called the meeting to order at 6:04 p.m.

  1. Roll Call

Present: Daniel Blanchard, Jeff Dowd, Manny Hurtado, Charlene Knox, Mike Mauk, Mike Maltais, Jennifer Best (3 Rivers Business Development Coordinator), John Hurley (PA-C Three Rivers), Malia Campbell

  1. Action Items:

  1. Officer Introductions—Mike introduced the newly elected board members

  2. Guest Speaker: John Hurley (PA-C Three Rivers Hospital), career has focused on serving underserved population and veteran care. Clinic located at 415 Hospital Way (former Hillcrest House)

  3. Circus- Saturday, June 4, 2022. They will be coming next month to have the contract signed

  4. Membership Drive: Going well this year with 41 members currently signed up

  5. New LOCATION: We have moved into the Brewster Senior Center building right inside the door. We have purchased a rack card rack for our Visitor center and Chamber information cards. We are working on signage for the building (maybe 4’x6’; budget around $1000.00) and around the area. This is a great move for the Chamber and for the Senior Center thrift store. We are splitting the bill for the internet and are paying a monthly fee for utilities.

  6. Downtown Strategies: DOWNTOWN STRATEGIES have given us their recommendation for the towns 5-year plan. A link has been posted on our Facebook page and sent it to our membership. Please take an hour or so to watch it. There are great ideas on how we can make Brewster more attractive to tourist and travelers as well as for locals. They are not going to leave us hanging. They will help us to implement these ideas. Now we desperately need committees and input on how to follow through. Manny has been recommending the video to local business owners. Discussion centered around creating some promotional videos, or even video shorts.

  7. American Rescue Act: The First time in the history of the United States the Federal Government has given every City Town and Village money without them asking for it. This money is to help recover from the shutdowns and all that hurt our towns this last 2 years.

Brewster received $51300.00 and Okanogan County received 8 million Dollars. The money has to be spent in certain ways, but it can be spent on signage to get people to come to our businesses downtown.  It can be used to give our town a facelift. It can be used for other things to help our town. That is why the Chamber will be talking with Firm Foundations to get a plan to have this money used to help BREWSTER and its businesses and the community! The Chamber is going to try to make a deal with Firm Foundations and owner Brooklyn Holton to come guide us on how too get this accomplished. 

  1. Signage: We did get an estimate From Greybill Signs in Wenatchee on a 12 x 17’ big digital reader sign, and the cost is over $90,000.00 and at the time we thought impossible, but with this American Rescue Act money we can do that. It needs to be on the Main Highway before or in the middle of town by Mc Donald’s to let travelers know what is downtown. It can have our businesses listed and events and our visitor center location. This could be our chance to have something nice like this for our community.
    If you have a chance go to the City of Pateros web site and see what they have plans for. We could do the same type of thing.

  2. Cascade Loop: We are talking about joining and getting our name on the map of cascade loop. Charlene recommended holding off on any additional advertising, sticking with basic membership, until we test our membership and map presence. Charlene made the motion, Daniel seconded, board unanimously approved.

  3. Memberships trade in kind- We voted to ask local Chambers and businesses that can not pay monetary dues to trade in kind. This is for local Chambers and the radio and newspapers and also OCTC and PBCRC, and EED and Economic alliance.

  4. We will be calling a public TOWN MEETING in a couple of weeks and hope to have our business owners and the families to voice their input on what they would like to see in Brewster. We will try to have Elliot and Jennifer from Downtown Strategies and Brooklyn with Firm Foundations and Roni with Economic Alliance and Alyce from NCWEED to help answer questions we all may have. The people at Downtown Strategies have worked all around the United States with small towns and have researched how the American Rescue Act money can be spent and they will work with us to get this for us. They cannot ask but they can direct us.

  5. Contact us at the chamber and ask how You can get involved.

  1. Adjournment

Next meeting is Feb 9th in person at the Chamber of Commerce Office 109 Bridge Street 6:00 p.m.

Mike called meeting adjournment at 6:41 p.m.