Thursday October 19th, 2023
6:03pm – 6:49pm
CAP Board Room at 555 Concession Street with optional dial in via Zoom Meeting.
In Attendance: Eva Martens, Brenda Eszenyi, Terry Rhodes, Subbu Subramonian,
Additional: Jim Foreman, Jake Wyatt, Jane C, Cristina Geissler, Kathy Archer, and Alexa Chavez
Regrets: Esther Pauls, Joanne Emberson, and Sarah Matacic
A. Welcome & Introductory Remarks: Chair E. Martens
See attached document. (AGM Report)
B. Review & Approval of the agenda: Chair E. Martens
Motion: Terry Rhodes
Second: Subbu Subramonian
C. Presentation of 2024 Budget: Chair E. Martens
See attached documents. (APPROVED – 2024 Budget – Concession Street BIA + Budget Explanation)
D. Safety Report: J. Foreman
This past year has been fairly quiet. Retrosauraus had a couple of breakins – but they now have bars on their windows. The primary concern still continues to be unhoused individuals on our street. They often stay in the RBC foyer and in some doorways. We continue to stay in contact with the city and our MPP Monique Taylor to keep this issue top of mind.
E. Beautification Committee: E. Martens
See attached document. (Beautification Report)
F. Events Committee: A. Chavez
This past year of our events became a great opportunity for us to get some feedback from the businesses and the community on what they want to see and experience when they come to our street. Overall, many were happy to see the continued comeback of in person events after a few years, with it being something the community needed. A lot of people were also very keen on there being more children/family focused activities during Streetfest and for our smaller events such as our Bunny Hop & Shop. We had a fair bit of feedback on Sidewalk Sounds as a whole in regards to the timeframe of each monthly event, many felt they were unable to make it out to attend on a weekend afternoon as people may have other summer related obligations taking up their day. This is something we have to look into as the reason behind our events is to create an engaging activity to bring people to the street and support all the businesses in the BIA and a big part of that is making sure everyone is able to attend if they can. There was also the request of more communication to the membership in regards to the events and planning, this is something that we will be increasing with the events committee being in place and having more check-ins with the board via the committee. We appreciate all the feedback we receive as it allows us to better our planning process to include what those who attend our events want to do and what the businesses want to participate in. We are hoping that what we learned from this year will help us with the changes we want to implement for next year and make our events more enjoyable for everyone.
Now for our upcoming events, we will be taking part in Hamilton Day again this year on November 4th! Through the economic development office, we have the ability to hire entertainment for the day to bring people out to our BIA to shop local and support the businesses on the street. We encourage all businesses to register online with Hamilton Day to be in the directory of participating businesses and have specials or sidewalk sales during the day. The details are to be confirmed soon and sent out to the membership.
We are not able to host Fall for Concession this year unfortunately due to budget constraints but, we are planning to host a winter event to coincide with the installation of our holiday planters this year. We will be working with Mountain Kidz Klub and many families will be a part of this project to help bring some cheer to our street. We are hoping for sidewalk sales from local businesses and inviting businesses and families to help decorate the trees with the hope of bringing more traffic to the BIA and encouraging the community to shop in the stores and fuel up on warm drinks and food available from shops along the street. Again, the details are still to be confirmed and will be sent to the membership as soon as possible.
As for next year's plans for programming, we have a number of ideas and changes on the table. One thing is that we will be working on bringing back a farmers’ market to the street to make local produce and handmade goods more easily available to the community directly from the makers. A noted change we are making is that Sidewalk Sounds will be moving back to Friday evenings and bringing back outside local vendors each month. We had a lot of feedback from businesses and community members that it was easier for people to attend in the evening of a weeknight rather than during the day on the weekend and that it was a more enjoyable time overall. Hopefully this will also allow us to cut down on some performance costs as we will be shifting to fewer artists during the shorter timeframe of the evening, we will also be bringing in revenue from opening up this event to local vendors again to set up along the street during the monthly event. Some other activation ideas that have been brought up are winter markets through the slower season, community-based events like a meet your neighbour plant swap, dog parade along the street on national dog day with a photo contest on social media, increasing the engagement of our easter event with a bunny/egg hunt in the shops of concession, adding a Halloween event with a pumpkin carving contest, costume contest, and “trick or treating” in the shops, and hopefully more as they come up.
For Streetfest, there are going to be a few changes based on feedback we received this year and to make the event hopefully better. We are going to be shifting the time of the event to start a little later and go on into the evening a little more. There is going to be a theme of sustainability for next year's event and we are going to be adding more activities for children and families. Along with that, we are looking at restructuring the entertainment to be more staggered allowing for people to be able to see more performances throughout the day. We are going to be opening the event to more outside vendors this year as well, we want to increase the amount of local vendors to give more variety and options to attendees. With these changes we are hoping it will cut down on some costs and increase the revenue for this event to cover the continuous rise in certain costs associated with putting on Streetfest.
I invite everyone who is interested in any of these ideas, has some of their own or wants to help plan our events for the year to join the events committee and take part in the process. We can’t accomplish things by ourselves, we have to work together to make it all happen! Please let me know if you are interested! The events committee currently meets in person at the BIA office on Thursdays at 12:30pm once a month with the next meeting to be scheduled soon.
G. Executive Director BIA Updates: A. Chavez
We have had a bit of turnover this year with the businesses that populate our street. However, there is a net positive with more new businesses opening vs those that closed up shop or moved away. We are very excited to welcome all of these businesses to the street and look forward to the great things they will do!
A big welcome to our new businesses on the street! Joining us are Mi Ranchito, Kabab House, The Body Shop, Fat Bastard Burritos, Concession Tattoo, Mountain Budz, Station on Concession, Lady Glaze, Atom Beauty, Green Machine Kitchen, Beautiful Nails, Wow Pop Pizza & Chicken, Jennifer Book - Desjardins, Lemon & Ice, and 7 Seas Pizza are all new to the Concession Business Improvement Area! We also had the long awaited Townhall finally open earlier this year. We sadly saw The Juice Kitchen, Chris’s House, Hi-Anxiety Society Fitness, Muttedly Pawsome Grooming, Mountain Beauty Supply, Charlie’s Sewing Machines, Flow Lifestyle Boutique, and Suzy Sweet Tooth leave the street.
This year has seen quite a few changes as we have come out of the pandemic and we will continue to see the effects of it all with more changes surely to come. As we noted in the previous reports there are many things we are working on as a board and on the committees so there will be changes being seen not just next year but continuously throughout the coming years to hopefully strengthen the BIA and better our presence in the community.
I would like to thank all the businesses and the community for working with us as we have gone through quite a transitional year, we couldn't have done it without everyone that took the time to participate in our events and come out to support the local businesses.
There is also a big thank you to the board and the Chair, Eva Martens for putting in their time and energy that it takes to be a big part of how the BIA operates while running your businesses, all volunteering to the betterment of the street and the community. Thank you, you are all greatly appreciated and valued!
Meeting Adjourned at 6:49pm
6:03pm – 6:49pm
CAP Board Room at 555 Concession Street with optional dial in via Zoom Meeting.
In Attendance: Eva Martens, Brenda Eszenyi, Terry Rhodes, Subbu Subramonian,
Additional: Jim Foreman, Jake Wyatt, Jane C, Cristina Geissler, Kathy Archer, and Alexa Chavez
Regrets: Esther Pauls, Joanne Emberson, and Sarah Matacic
A. Welcome & Introductory Remarks: Chair E. Martens
See attached document. (AGM Report)
B. Review & Approval of the agenda: Chair E. Martens
Motion: Terry Rhodes
Second: Subbu Subramonian
C. Presentation of 2024 Budget: Chair E. Martens
See attached documents. (APPROVED – 2024 Budget – Concession Street BIA + Budget Explanation)
D. Safety Report: J. Foreman
This past year has been fairly quiet. Retrosauraus had a couple of breakins – but they now have bars on their windows. The primary concern still continues to be unhoused individuals on our street. They often stay in the RBC foyer and in some doorways. We continue to stay in contact with the city and our MPP Monique Taylor to keep this issue top of mind.
E. Beautification Committee: E. Martens
See attached document. (Beautification Report)
F. Events Committee: A. Chavez
This past year of our events became a great opportunity for us to get some feedback from the businesses and the community on what they want to see and experience when they come to our street. Overall, many were happy to see the continued comeback of in person events after a few years, with it being something the community needed. A lot of people were also very keen on there being more children/family focused activities during Streetfest and for our smaller events such as our Bunny Hop & Shop. We had a fair bit of feedback on Sidewalk Sounds as a whole in regards to the timeframe of each monthly event, many felt they were unable to make it out to attend on a weekend afternoon as people may have other summer related obligations taking up their day. This is something we have to look into as the reason behind our events is to create an engaging activity to bring people to the street and support all the businesses in the BIA and a big part of that is making sure everyone is able to attend if they can. There was also the request of more communication to the membership in regards to the events and planning, this is something that we will be increasing with the events committee being in place and having more check-ins with the board via the committee. We appreciate all the feedback we receive as it allows us to better our planning process to include what those who attend our events want to do and what the businesses want to participate in. We are hoping that what we learned from this year will help us with the changes we want to implement for next year and make our events more enjoyable for everyone.
Now for our upcoming events, we will be taking part in Hamilton Day again this year on November 4th! Through the economic development office, we have the ability to hire entertainment for the day to bring people out to our BIA to shop local and support the businesses on the street. We encourage all businesses to register online with Hamilton Day to be in the directory of participating businesses and have specials or sidewalk sales during the day. The details are to be confirmed soon and sent out to the membership.
We are not able to host Fall for Concession this year unfortunately due to budget constraints but, we are planning to host a winter event to coincide with the installation of our holiday planters this year. We will be working with Mountain Kidz Klub and many families will be a part of this project to help bring some cheer to our street. We are hoping for sidewalk sales from local businesses and inviting businesses and families to help decorate the trees with the hope of bringing more traffic to the BIA and encouraging the community to shop in the stores and fuel up on warm drinks and food available from shops along the street. Again, the details are still to be confirmed and will be sent to the membership as soon as possible.
As for next year's plans for programming, we have a number of ideas and changes on the table. One thing is that we will be working on bringing back a farmers’ market to the street to make local produce and handmade goods more easily available to the community directly from the makers. A noted change we are making is that Sidewalk Sounds will be moving back to Friday evenings and bringing back outside local vendors each month. We had a lot of feedback from businesses and community members that it was easier for people to attend in the evening of a weeknight rather than during the day on the weekend and that it was a more enjoyable time overall. Hopefully this will also allow us to cut down on some performance costs as we will be shifting to fewer artists during the shorter timeframe of the evening, we will also be bringing in revenue from opening up this event to local vendors again to set up along the street during the monthly event. Some other activation ideas that have been brought up are winter markets through the slower season, community-based events like a meet your neighbour plant swap, dog parade along the street on national dog day with a photo contest on social media, increasing the engagement of our easter event with a bunny/egg hunt in the shops of concession, adding a Halloween event with a pumpkin carving contest, costume contest, and “trick or treating” in the shops, and hopefully more as they come up.
For Streetfest, there are going to be a few changes based on feedback we received this year and to make the event hopefully better. We are going to be shifting the time of the event to start a little later and go on into the evening a little more. There is going to be a theme of sustainability for next year's event and we are going to be adding more activities for children and families. Along with that, we are looking at restructuring the entertainment to be more staggered allowing for people to be able to see more performances throughout the day. We are going to be opening the event to more outside vendors this year as well, we want to increase the amount of local vendors to give more variety and options to attendees. With these changes we are hoping it will cut down on some costs and increase the revenue for this event to cover the continuous rise in certain costs associated with putting on Streetfest.
I invite everyone who is interested in any of these ideas, has some of their own or wants to help plan our events for the year to join the events committee and take part in the process. We can’t accomplish things by ourselves, we have to work together to make it all happen! Please let me know if you are interested! The events committee currently meets in person at the BIA office on Thursdays at 12:30pm once a month with the next meeting to be scheduled soon.
G. Executive Director BIA Updates: A. Chavez
We have had a bit of turnover this year with the businesses that populate our street. However, there is a net positive with more new businesses opening vs those that closed up shop or moved away. We are very excited to welcome all of these businesses to the street and look forward to the great things they will do!
A big welcome to our new businesses on the street! Joining us are Mi Ranchito, Kabab House, The Body Shop, Fat Bastard Burritos, Concession Tattoo, Mountain Budz, Station on Concession, Lady Glaze, Atom Beauty, Green Machine Kitchen, Beautiful Nails, Wow Pop Pizza & Chicken, Jennifer Book - Desjardins, Lemon & Ice, and 7 Seas Pizza are all new to the Concession Business Improvement Area! We also had the long awaited Townhall finally open earlier this year. We sadly saw The Juice Kitchen, Chris’s House, Hi-Anxiety Society Fitness, Muttedly Pawsome Grooming, Mountain Beauty Supply, Charlie’s Sewing Machines, Flow Lifestyle Boutique, and Suzy Sweet Tooth leave the street.
This year has seen quite a few changes as we have come out of the pandemic and we will continue to see the effects of it all with more changes surely to come. As we noted in the previous reports there are many things we are working on as a board and on the committees so there will be changes being seen not just next year but continuously throughout the coming years to hopefully strengthen the BIA and better our presence in the community.
I would like to thank all the businesses and the community for working with us as we have gone through quite a transitional year, we couldn't have done it without everyone that took the time to participate in our events and come out to support the local businesses.
There is also a big thank you to the board and the Chair, Eva Martens for putting in their time and energy that it takes to be a big part of how the BIA operates while running your businesses, all volunteering to the betterment of the street and the community. Thank you, you are all greatly appreciated and valued!
Meeting Adjourned at 6:49pm