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2 | Page CHOCVB BOD Meeting Aug.21 , 2013 Reports Budget/Finance Penny Rich, as newly elected finance chair, reviewed the FY 2013 year-end budget highlights stating that $76, 821 was used from the $150,000 fund balance appropriated. Ms. Rich also reported that FY 2014 budget was approved at 1.3 million with $175,000 in support coming from the Town of Chapel Hill. Ms. Paolicelli reported that approximately $400,000 is the unassigned fund balance and that Finance likes to keep reserves at around 15%. Mike Gering suggested earmarking the fund balance for capital expenditures. The board asked that when the 2013 audit was received, a discussion take place to ask the county to earmark visitor bureau fund balance for visitor related spending in 2014 and beyond. Executive Director Report Laurie Paolicelli discussed the issue of CTOPS and the commission hotels pay on hosting parents for this event. CTOPS is the nickname given to UNC’s orientation program: Carolina Testing & Orientation Program Sessions. All incoming freshmen must attend one two-day CTOPS session, which are offered throughout the summer. At CTOPS students stay on campus but parents stay in local hotels. However this is a program that assesses hotels a fee (Aloft for example pays $1500) in addition to asking hotels to deeply discount rates. Several hotels have asked why this rate/gift keeps increasing and whether UNC would consider eliminating or greatly reducing this fee which, to some, feels unfair. Paolicelli met with Laura Morgan, UNC board representative who discussed the CTOPS rates with UNC program director, April Mann, who agreed to meet with the VB and hotels to explain the benefits wrapped around CTOPS and the ways in which the program works. Paolicelli will meet with Ms. Mann in September. Ms. Paolicelli revisited the mission and strategy of the Visitors Bureau and took the board through an updated SWOT analysis. The board engaged in Q&A surrounding strategy and mission. Tourism in OC generated $161 million in 2012. Paolicelli stated that if we did a hard audit on how much of that we influenced it would be about 10% or $16 million a year; a 16:1 ROI that is given back to Orange County and Chapel Hill. Mr. Pease inquired on how Ms. Paolicelli arrived at the 10%. Ms. Paolicelli replied that it is based on leads generated and applied to a travel economic impact model. Mr. Pease suggested having a rationale to back those ROI’s up when speaking to town officials. Continuing with her report, Paolicelli informed that 25% of visitor’s expenditures go to food, more that accommodations and the Bureau does address the whole market. A full report can be found here (http://www.nccommerce.com/tourism/research/economic-impact/teim) Orange County Arts Commission report Martha Shannon reported that the commission is gearing up for fall in which the commission works cooperatively with the Emerging Artists Program and the Piedmont Laureate Program among others. She also informed that they are offering new training classes for ExploreChapelHillARTS.com in September.