Garretson Commercial Club Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, October 13th
Palisades Oil
In Attendance: Jay Buchholz with Sioux Valley Energy, Tim Mallatt and Steve Carlson with Performance Press, Leslie Black with Renovation Church, John Brinkman, Anna Uhl, Carrie and Garrick Moritz, Jordan Doane, and Kris Johnson.
The October commercial club meeting was brought to order by president John Brinkman. After reviewing and discussing the Secretary’s and Treasurer’s Reports, both were motioned to approve by Brinkman and second by Uhl and passed.
Moving into Old Business, John gave a sound system update. The biggest question on it at this point is where the equipment will be located, two great options are the library or Gazette building. As both are centrally located and either will work, the group promptly moved forward with discussion.
The first item in New Business was the commercial club’s Trunk or Treat event happening on October 31st from 4:00 to 6:00 pm at Split Rock Park. Spaces are first come, first served so it does not take a lot of planning from the commercial club. This event has been a hit in previous years and the commercial club is looking forward to what this year will bring.
From there, conversation moved on to the electric sign on Highway 11. It still needs upgrades and the funds have not been gathered for that yet. Someone mentioned doing a ‘blurb’ in the newspaper about people posting birthdays, anniversary, or other events on it for a small fee as a way a fundraising. Everyone agreed to the idea, and subsequently moved on to talk about the commercial club website. Carrie mentioned that she has not had many businesses reach out about creating a log-in for the site so she is going to go ahead and create those log-ins and send them out. She brought a page of stats from the website showing that June was the month with the most views, probably because of Jesse James Days, and overall the site has been viewed 4,958 times. Conversation went to how we can get more ‘hits’ but it seems the internet algorithm just takes time to work this website into the top pages for Garretson.
Next, the commercial club moved on to the biggest part of this meeting- Hometown Christmas. This year’s hometown Christmas will take place December 10th-12th, with most events happening Saturday the 11th. The first item on Saturday will be the commercial club’s brunch from 9:00am to noon for a freewill donation with those proceeds going toward the sounds system. Brinkman pointed out that two years ago the brunch fed around 344 people and that number had been rising from previous years. Uhl is organizing the vendor fair that will be happening at the legion from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. Anna pointed out that she can organize and set up, but she is also handling the kid’s crafts at the school from 1:00 to 3:00pm, so someone will have to be present and clean up without her. The Blue Dragon Academy supper scheduled for 5:00pm has been cancelled, so Brinkman proposed moving the parade of lights start time up to 6:30pm. All were in favor, so the set time will be Saturday the 11th at 6:30pm. There will also be a Humble Hill wine sampling event at the Treasure Chest from noon to 2:00pm with another free will donation for the sound system. Fire truck rides will also be happening, and punch cards will be utilized again this year.
Following hometown Christmas on the agenda was the event to replace Christmas lights. Ron Luke will be providing a meal for the volunteers at 10:00am, and Carrie is going to create an event asking for volunteers. The goal is around 30 volunteers to make this go quickly.
Leroy Austin recently opened The Combine downtown Garretson and some members were unsure what to charge him for a commercial club membership. The board agreed to just charge the base $125 this year as he gets the business running smoothly, and that amount will prorate into the following year.
A request came from Jaden King of King Kayak Rentals to pay Kris Frerk $287.98 for the kayak prizes given away at the “kickoff to summer” event in June of 2021. The payment was approved by the board.
The final item of new business was discussion about a “community board project”. Fueston presented what has been in the works, that the three main groups of Industrial Development, Commercial Club, and Grow Garretson combine under one Economic Development Organization. While Johnson, Carlson, and Mallatt were not in favor of this and doubted it would work, Black pointed out that trying to figure out the multiple groups in town was extremely difficult. Buchholz added that he is on Sioux Metro Growth Alliance’s executive board and sees this formation work in multiple towns, and Fueston added that the main difference is that her full-time job will be to take care of this organization. She also mentioned that there will be a meeting with the president and vice president of each group on October 21st, and to bring any further concerns to them.
In Other Business, Mallatt and Johnson brought ideas for the sign that the commercial club wants outside of Palisades to attract people to town. Some minor changes were made, but overall the commercial club like the idea.
The meeting was then adjourned. The next meeting will be November 10th at the Sports Cabin at 11:30pm.
