NEW BETHLEHEM, Pa (EYT) — September’s Peanut Butter Festival dominated the August meeting of the Redbank Valley Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors on Thursday, August 10, in New Bethlehem.
According to Board President and Festival Co-chair Gordon Barrows, overall, the festival planning is coming along “surprisingly well.”
Vendors and sponsors are registering with the Chamber for the three-day event beginning on September 15 in Gumtown Park along the Redbank Creek.
Mr. Barrows told the assembled group that among other things, his company Tech Ready Professionals had designed and set up, and has donated, a completely new website for the festival. Answering a query from Diane Brothers, Barrows explained that while his company did the work, the chamber owns the website and will have total control over future use of the site. The new website is linked from the chamber’s home page and contains, not only general information and promotion for the festival, but it also has all the necessary forms for crafters, vendors, and contestants to download, print and use. The Peanut Butter Festival website can be found at www.pbfestival.com or through the Chamber’s website at https://redbankchamber.com.
Gordon Barrows also reported that he and co-chair Lisa Kerle have been working on “playbooks” which will outline the roles and responsibilities of the various committee chairs and the overall festival chair persons. He said the idea is to create a working framework, based on previous experiences, that will help future Festival planners put each new year’s event together. Barrows called the playbooks “living documents” that would be updated and amended as planning, development, and marketing strategies and tactics evolve with time. In the discussion that followed, several good ideas and thoughts were floated. Among the ideas was a suggestion that Gordon and Lisa tap previous event leaders in developing the playbooks and that each subsequent year’s festival teams should be put together as quickly as possible after each year’s, allowing each next year’s team the greatest amount of time to plan and develop the next Peanut Butter Festival.
Wendy Wyant, of the Peanut Butter Festival’s Wine Walk, presented a version of the flag that the committee wants to use for those merchants who are hosting each of the Wine Walk stops. The flag is green, brown, and maroon and captures the “Mr. Goofy Peanut” that is being used on all of this year’s merchandising materials. The chamber board approved the purchase of the flags for the Wine Walk merchant stops. Mrs. Wyant reported that the area wineries are well represented.
Gennie Gerow, Chair of the Advertising and Promotions Committee, told the group that she has already put out over 1,100 “rack cards” into the community. The rack cards have the Festival’s schedule of events and other information. Mrs. Gerow said that she had given out quite a few of the cards at the Clarion County Fair, where the festival had a trade show booth in the Merry Go Round building. She reported that her committee had done a “guess how many peanuts in the jar” contest at the booth at the Fair and had distributed nearly 25 pounds of peanuts to fair goers. Festival yard signs and grocery bag fliers are about ready to be printed, she said, and Lucky Kline is working on the updated billboards. Mrs. Gerow also told the group that C93 radio has been running PSA announcements for the festival and that the radio station will be doing a remote broadcast from Gumtown Park at some point during the Festival. Mr. Barrows said that he hopes to have at least one more meeting of the committees before the Peanut Butter Festival.
In Other Business:
President Barrows said that he, Lucky Kline, Chuck Huber would be meeting soon to finalize the purchase of new weighing and measuring equipment for the Big Buck Contest. He also reported that Andrea Harmon, a past PBF Queen, has offered to do videos of the New Bethlehem parades if the chamber is interested.
Barrows reported that Chris Ramos has opened his new Fox’s Pizza Den Restaurant on Broad Street.
Jamie LeFever reminded the board that there was to be a Ladies’ Business Network “All-Ladies” get together at Snug Harbor Restaurant on September 21. This is an event for women entrepreneurs to get together and build supportive networks.
The Clarion County Fair Board has approached the chamber about the possible purchase of the chamber’s very old sound system. A motion was adopted to donate the system to the fair board upon receipt of a written request.
The board also approved the purchase of a new display rack for members’ use at the chamber office in The Jewelry Shop on Broad Street. Rich McGarrity says that there are so many chamber members now using the rack that the current one is too old and too small to meet the current needs.
