Agenda - Economic Development Authority - 09/07/2006

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CASE # 2 2006 Business Appreciation Day Recap By: Sean M. Sullivan, Economic Development Coordinator Background: The City of Ramsey's EDA hosts a Business Appreciation Day to celebrate the Business Community in the City. A Business of the Year is awarded at this event and the business, or individual, is inducted in to the Ramsey Economic Deve19pment Hall of Fame. This year's event was held on August 15th and it was a successful event. Hole sponsors were able to talk and network with businesses and the event moved along quite smoothly considering the amount of players involved. In order to keep this a successful event it is important to revisit how the day went and to address question and concerns held by the participants and organizers. Observations: The plan for this year's event was to have 36 teams and 144 golfers. This year we almost achieved that goal and ended up with 37 teams and 148 golfers. Three teams: Dynapast, St Germain Style, and Quality Metalcraft were turned away from the event this year. Letters were sent and phone calls were made explaining that the event was full and that the City was very sorry we could not get the groups in. Some businesses that had submitted foursome were kind enough to go down to twosomes to accommodate other businesses and their concessions were appreciated. Attached is the balance sheet for the 2006 event. The tournament lost $764.58 due to the fact that 17 golfers were not required to pay for participation in the event. Among those were the Business of the Year (4) and last years Business ofthe Year (4) which would have balanced the budget. There were also additional costs associated with the printing of Hole Sponsor Signs that also raised the deficit. This deficit should be looked at as an investment from the Ramsey EDA to promote business communication and networking. There were a couple of observations brought to Staff's attention regarding the event and its success. The following recommendations/suggestions were made: 1) Play was too slow, too much time at hole sponsor games 2) Play was slow, no other reason 3) The specific prize donated was not awarded individually 4) Large Prizes donated did not have a dollar value assigned to them. The criticisms were definitely in the minority compared to the compliments issued at the event. Most businesses enjoyed the networking opportunities and couldn't wait to sign up for next year. The fact that there were some teams that were not allowed to enter the event is disappointing. There are options for accommodating this in the future. Options include: utilizing two golf courses, doing a morning/afternoon shotgun or not changing a thing. Another thing to consider is the payment of City Staff and elected/appointed officials for participation in future events. A number of City Staff and officials did a good job of hooking up with area businesses to help reduce city costs. Photos from the event are available by request and for a future EDA meeting if desired. Staff intends on using the photos to help promote next year's event. ' - -19-