SHOP AT HOME UPATE - BR&E

“Shop at Home First”

September 6th Committee Meeting

The “Shop at Home First” Committee met at 6:30 pm in the Imperial City Offices located at 740 Court Street. In attendance were Janet Beck, Tony Cribelli, Merrilyn Leibbrandt, Russ Pankonin and Leslie Carlholm.
The first item on the committee agenda was to create a mission statement. The mission of the “Shop at Home First” Committee is to increase community awareness of the variety of items and services available locally while providing education on the benefits associated with doing business here at home.
The second item the committee addressed was to determine a slogan that would be used on lawn signs, posters, and weekly ads. The committee decided on the slogan: “Give Us a Shot; Shop at Home First” All printed materials need to include the following tagline: “This project is funded in part by a grant from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development administered by the Nebraska Rural Development Commission.”
The third item for discussion was the “Shop at Home First” Kick Off Event. The committee members will request that Perkins County, Imperial and Wauneta Chambers host the event and provide beverages and finger food. Business owners and managers will be approached face to face by committee members and/or volunteers to update them on the event and the upcoming “Shop at Home First" Promotion.
“Shop at Home First” Kick Off Event
Location: Open Country Adventures
Date: September 20th
Time: 6:00 PM
Agenda: 6 to 6:30 Social time – with food and beverages
6:30 Speaker – Doug Cunningham
Balance of evening:
­ Questions for Doug.
­ Brief overview of campaign
­ Networking time
The Store Posters were the fourth item of discussion. In the BECA grant we requested funding for bumper stickers, but the committee felt that store posters would be more appropriate. Ann Burge has been asked to inquire if we can redirect the dollars set aside for bumper stickers to the posters instead. All the posters would be printed with a common border and the campaign slogan on them. Some of the posters would be printed with general information relating the importance of shopping local. There would also be other posters available with just the border and the slogan which could be used to create business specific posters. One of the possible uses would be to print a comparative shopping list for customers to review.
Other discussion included the importance of thanking customers for their past and continuing patronage and making this promotion fun for both the businesses and the customers. To this end the committee will explore the option of hiding an object relating to shopping in each weeks advertisement. Readers who can find the hidden object could cut out the ad and enter it into a weekly drawing for $20 in Chamber Bucks.
The committee then reviewed the budget below. Committee members and volunteers should track the hours they invest in this effort as part of the chambers in-kind contribution.

The balance of the meeting was spent roughing out the 12 weeks newspaper ads. These ads should run the weeks of October 1st through December 20th. The meeting concluded at 8:30 PM.