And the board members on teams. We just as I mentioned in my email just add it to provide the tours and boards provide feedback on the preliminary draft plan. Can I start off by asking, do you need to roll call or the thing Michelle? Okay. Sorry. I don't know if that's true. And we will do... Okay, let's start with how to say, sorry. I don't know, let's do. I'm able to. Okay, Andy, go in. Yeah. Airhairs. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to organize all the the time. In the back. In what you want? So, Mallory? Yes. Wendy Hearst. Mr. Hanks, here once. When do you do? Company. Sir, are you sure? Sir. I'm pretty sure I have a clear one. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. I'm pretty sure I have clear ones. absent in speedo. Thank you. Awesome. And Britta and Britta. Yep. You know the official next thing. Britta, guest of sand. We done. Thanks everybody. Can I ask first of all just for the context for today's meeting, how many of the the board members have already sat in on a presentation. We had one at council and two on virtual meetings? How many of you have listened to the presentation being the plan being presented? Excuse me. Derek, um, um, Britt, I know you have Vince. Have you heard it? You have not. Um, and. And see, it looks like Mary and Wendy have. So just a couple of people, John, have you listened to the plan being presented? I have. You have. OK, so just Vince. I watched one of the recordings. You did watch one of the recordings. That's not me. I watched. I was on the call last week. OK, because I didn't know how it at the time We should spend talking about the plan versus just hearing your feedback. It sounds like everybody but Vince has. Yeah. Okay, because I didn't know how it's time we should spend talking about the plan versus just hearing your feedback. It sounds like everybody but Vince has. He's not ready to get it. Yeah, so Sarah Jane and Deary, I'm gonna pass it over to you. It sounds like most of the board members have either been on one of the presentations or listened to a recording or read the plan. So I know you have liked to provide some context, but since we just have an hour today, I would like to spend most of the time hearing feedback on the plan. I will just preface this by saying, as I said in my email, this is a preliminary draft. The way town council and the way that we sort of rolled this out was that no one entity sort of looked and delved into this plan and started revising this plan. So I think it is a little bit of a broad. Town Council gave us great feedback a few weeks back which was recorded. I know some of you listened to that. We got some feedback on the two sessions, not a lot but some good feedback that we'll take into account. The tourism team is still delving into it but really it's just sort of no one's touched the plan and With today's feedback then we're planning to close the feedback loop and go back into a revised plan Which we're expecting we have sort of mid-April and then we really want the tourism team to kind of get more specific in that plan Before we bring it back to you and counsel because obviously the The tourism staff will need to implement a lot of this work and so we want to get more specific and more detailed with the language and the way the plan is written. So today really I think it's just more, you know, getting your feedback on the initial thing before we go into kind of a revision and that's really what the purpose of this meeting was to answer any questions you may have, hearing a feedback you you may on the plan as we go back to revising it to get to more of a final. I would expect the presentation to the tourism board and to town council to be more like end of April early May. So with that we may want to push back our April 17th meeting to allow more time for us to kind of dig into that more finalized plan, which we can discuss. People's schedules, I know we're kind of going into off season, but I would propose we push that back like about two weeks just to give us time to come back with the revision and a plan that's probably more close to like what we want to present as a final. So and let's just any questions on that. I would pass it off to our consulting team, Sarah Jane and Derek, to take us through some context for the plan and to gather feedback from all of you today. Right. Can you see my screen? Yeah. Okay, I, you know, good morning everybody. Thanks for having us. We do have some slides. I can kind of whisk through them. We can jump back into them if we need to. but as Julia said we're really wanting to kind of have a facilitated discussion with you all this morning to really get your your your feedback on you know if you kind of couple a few crucial areas for consideration. So we'll just kind of quickly with through I think as we just figured out most people have sat through some kind of presentation or watched, a recording of one of our industry or community presentations already. But just a reminder, this has been the validation process. I would also, I think, Julia, just to emphasize, we were asked to go to town council first. They wanted to see the plan at the beginning of our validation process and that's a kind of unusual way to all sequence to deliver a draft plan and present it. And I think when we get into April, we're kind of going in a somewhat different sequence and we'll be working with the staff and then with you before the final plan goes in front of town councils. So just to really emphasize that. Okay, and I would just make one revision to that to say the plan went to town council, the tourism board, the tourism staff and the stakeholders really around the same time. I think what was a different process for us in the way that I've done strategic planning is that the team or the tourism board didn't delve into it and make any revisions or any feedback. It sort of went out to everybody at the same time because what we really wanted this to be was this is what we heard from all the data we've collected from the community members from the tourism stakeholders in a sense it's like the raw data that we got. nobody sort of went in and started tweaking it. So really everybody sort of got it around the same time. We presented it to town council, I think before anyone had their hands on it, so to speak. And just to kind of set us up in the right way this morning, let's just think about what this is. This is, we've reframed it as a destination, excuse me, a destination management transition plan because this plan is designed to support evolution of functions for snowmasterism. Snowmasterism does incredible work in group sales events, visitor services and of course marketing. What we are creating is a plan that will help support broader functions that will manage tourism in the destination and just to remind us in this plan where we're offering new ideas, new actions, innovation, things like that to really support the staff and the tourism stakeholders. And I wanted to bring this up again as well. Destination management, this plan is not taking away from marketing. We had a meeting yesterday with the staff. There were definitely some questions and concerns about, well, what's in this for me? How does this support my role? And it does destination management when you have a destination that is truly well managed. And there is coordination around tourism among partners, including businesses, land land managers, the community, leadership, the municipality, a really well managed destination is ultimately going to enhance the experience that visitors are going to be having. And with new product, new experiences, we really talked about this with the group sales team, especially. There's going to be new things to talk about. There's going to be new offerings, new experiences that will hopefully give the sales team tools and ultimately make the destination even more compelling. I'll kind of skip over these if anyone has any questions or anything. Please raise your hand. Actually, I see Mary's hand. Is that Mary? Did you want to raise a question right now? No, that was from before, I think. Oh, OK. No, not at all. Just, we'll whizz through these. You've all seen these slides before. This has been a-month planning initiative. It's been a lot of work. There's been a lot of engagement. We really listen to the community using different mechanisms, everything from surveys, meetings, one-on-one interviews, focus group interviews, and then workshops as well. So we've really been listening in the best possible way to different voices including residents and the folks that live in the destination are ultimately the hosts of snowmess. These are the themes that emerged in those conversations. We categorize and we've organized the plan around these different themes of priority issues that we've heard while we've been in this engagement process. And you've probably seen these slides too. These were some of the recommendations that we also categorized into these seven different themes. Just another reminder, raise your hand if you took a survey. If you were in a one-on-one interview, if you took part in one of our workshops, I hope everybody around the table did. And so you're really understanding what's been involved in this work. Wendy, do you have a question? Oh yes, I see. Wendy, your hand is up. Okay. You just raise your hand if you participate. Oh, really? You're the only one who raised your hand. Thank you. Thanks Wendy. Wendy, I'm surprised. This is just a reminder we we really emphasize this too. Snowbrush tourism is more than the tourism department and the staff. It is this broader environment with different stakeholder groups and we really tried and made a lot of effort to identify all the stakeholders within these different categories and figure out ways for engagement during this process and then beyond. That's going to be a lot of the work and emphasis for tourism moving forward. So just to kind of touch on how the strategic plan works and what we call the plan framework, how it's structured. The vision and mission really help define what we're trying to achieve. We've also put into this plan a plan statement. Then we have the different themes. Those are those seven categories that are really defined and built around the priority issues that we heard about and that we're trying to address. We've identified goals and then strategies and then the action items. That's the work, the initiatives or tactics that are going to be the work that needs to get done over the course of the one year, three year, five years, and beyond. So we tasked the staff with coming up with a vision mission and also values. This has been a really interesting part of the feedback and we're going to be pushing these back to the staff to rework and you know there's definitely been some interesting conversation with partners reflecting on what do we mean by community? How can we incorporate family travelers into the things that we value and our true mission as a tourism organization? So if you have feedback on those, think about that, make notes, put it into the feedback form. This is the purpose statement that really helps define the plan itself and how the plan can support the vision emission for snowmusturism. Just a reminder, these are these emerging themes. What we have been thinking about as within our technical team behind the scenes, we are thinking about certainly with the feedback. Is there a way that we can kind of consolidate these maybe into five, maybe even into three pillars or themes that might make the plan a little little bit more streamlined. Just a reminder we have the seven themes we've got 23 strategies and overall 61 actions. This feels like a fairly realistic plan that is designed to be within scope for a tourism organization of this size. Just to highlight, you've probably seen these throughout the plan, this is to identify specific tactics, initiatives, programming that really is tied to the work of inclusivity in tourism, sustainable tourism, and also innovation, especially in inclusivity and sustainable tourism. These were two areas that snowmars tourism really identified at the beginning of this process. And before that, this is areas of work that the tourism department wants to put more emphasis on. So how we presented the plan, I think this is what I've just kind of landing on for a moment. When you look at the plan, it was presented to showcase the goals, the strategies, and then we have these action tables. And we've presented the draft plan in this way just to give a sense of that this is going to be a very actionable plan and that we are really identifying appropriate timelines for all of the actions. We've also identified what function of destination management, this particular action or initiative falls within an appropriate measurement for success or a KPI that might be something that is a particular metric. We've also identified whether or not snowmasturism is leading, partnering or advocating for that particular type of work. Partners, we have definitely had some great feedback about other local partners that might want to be involved in some of this work. And then any resource needs, for example, if there's a grant program that we're aware of that could support some of these initiatives. Okay, now it's time to hand the mic. So I just put this up here. I think these are particular categories that I want you to be thinking about in terms of consideration of the plan and the feedback that you've got. you've got. So I want you to be thinking about, you know, is there good alignment with the vision that we've outlined or at least the staff have outlined? Think about feasibility and implementation. What might be needed? Are there other partners or stakeholders that can support execution of some of these action items? How about the timelines? Think about impact and effectiveness. How are we measuring that success of the plan? Does the plan adequately address some of the initially proposed areas of focus around sustainable tourism and inclusivity. What else would you like to see? Maybe you've seen some other similar programming or work in other destinations that you think we could include in here. Also, want your feedback on operational readiness? Are there particular resources or support that you think the board or the staff might be in need of. And then especially think about stakeholder and industry partnership considerations. Does the plan reflect the needs and priorities of local businesses, the tourism partners of which many of you around the table are, are there any gaps for stakeholder input? And then of course review and continuous improvement. We've got some ideas around how the plan might be effectively tracked so that it is effectively being kind of measured and monitored in terms of is this work getting done? So I think I'll leave this slide up and I think you know maybe if we could go around the table, Julie, I might need your help kind of facilitating this but I'd love to maybe kind of start with John because he's closest to the camera. I'd love to get your thoughts. Yeah. And you know maybe you've got a comment maybe you want to you have a particular question or something in here that you want to pose to the consultant. But we're here to ask your questions. You can't ask me the first, somebody else. You can start the conversation. I think that, you know, part of my comment, my commentary is, I don't think that this conversation should fit into a category like this. I think we're here to talk about the broader idea of what we're actually trying to accomplish with the destination management plan. I personally am a little concerned that this whole process has run away from us that's taken a life of its own. And that ultimately this plan will become something that some people will look at as a gospel action plan. For me, it was never intended that way. It is a guideline. It's a new North Star, if you will. If you like to use that jargon for our already very successful marketing tourism department. I think that this is very wonky. I think that we're trying to put everything into a bucket, a pillar, a zone. I'm afraid that we're gonna spend a lot of resources in time creating this and the only people who are gonna look at it or like, I don't know what kind of people are gonna sit here and parse through it. Like we have already, and it's sort of what I finished our last meeting with when I said to you, Julie and the staff, like you are our people. And if you want this as a resource for yourself to manage this and to say, like, hey, we have some new ideas. We have some innovations. We're looking at this a new way. We've come out of code. What's everybody thinking? We have the same vision that we had in 2020 and 2025. But I really bristle at the idea of a consulting firm at usurping the power, authority, and action that we place in your department and that we oversee as a board and that ultimately the town council is responsible for. If I'm articulating that right, I want to maintain the authority, the action right here, I think that we are very, very adept at this already. We have really improved over the last five years. If I can be so bold, this is say 10 years ago, I think there was an idea that this was all in a little bit of disarray. And town council at that time was looking at some reaction from this board implement to the marketing department, tourism department, I personally feel like that all that work has been done. I think we are in great shape and that we have new challenges to manage perhaps over tourism. I don't know what I mean like I don't want to say we have too many people or too few. I think that we, and there's the just big enough idea. Anyway, I think that looks and I'm flabbing long enough. I just want to reiterate, I want this process to remain the authority over this process, the management of this process to remain here with your group. I think the roadmap is an excellent consulting group. They have good experience. I don't want this document to take a life of its own. I want it to be a tool and asset for you to run. I don't want us looking back on this and saying, slow the document says this. So we're going to plug into pillar number six to make our next action step. No, that's not the way it's designed in my mind. Is there anything particular on the plan that you feel has gone is going kind of in a different direction that you're not interested in or comfortable? Let me say no I'll double back because it sounds like I'm anti-plan or anti-witch in the plan. What's in the plan is is so many things that we already abide by here. We do and I don't it doesn't even matter like versus locals Making a better experience for tourists. We all want that because we're a business driven And this is a business driven entity. We want to bring tours in here to utilize our lodging, our restaurants, to ski on our mountains, to go home and say snowmasses in an amazing place and generate more interest in our locale. We want to do events that bring our locals out of their homes up to our businesses, etc. or our concerts. We want them to utilize our transportation. That's already built into what we do and it's very well articulated. We've is not new. And it's in there and they're right. You know, that's that's correct. When it comes to inclusion, I actually think that I'm a little insulted that DEID, IDID, I sustainability almost like it's a new idea here. It's not. We are one of the most inclusive demographically does a play out this way statistically, probably not, but are we one of the most inclusive communities imaginable? Do we put it out there to bring wide varieties of folks into this valley and this community? Yes, we do. Is it part of what we already do? Yes. Do we need to reply our ties? I don't think so, because I think we're already done good at it. Just things like that. I'm just saying. So there's a lot in there that I think reinforces what we have already constructed here. And really, I'm just, I think that what we might be able to derive from this is a little bit of improvement at the margin, which is I think all there's really room for here. We commit incredible resources. I can't even think of it a town, let a very small town, that commits the amount of dollars and the staff expertise and then the oversight coming from town council to a dedicated board. I can't even imagine another place that does this and does it so well and is so close where they want to be and yet continues to improve and improve And this is part of our effort to improve, but I don't want it to take on the larger part, the lion's share of what we all imagine ourselves here to do. It's going to be a resource and a tool for us. And I think that we have to have, I think that it should have come to all of us before, and we should have had this a meeting like this before it was presented to the town council, because I think that could have tightened up, it could have tightened up the draft process. But here we are, and I think we're in a good place where we're going and let's delay the next meeting so that we have proper time to examine and discuss et cetera before we put it To the town council and ultimately down the line to the public or whenever is our target audience here And again, almost like with the comp plan years ago, which is now a stale document This will become part of the public record. People will be going to the website, look at it. I don't want to be the wrong impression that this document is going to be the gospel of how the tourism department runs. And what we're aiming to do. Does anyone have any? I want to stop right there. I think I've said too much already. I kind of disagree that like this should provide a roadmap to like no pun intended on the consultants, but to like guide an evolution of like the good work that has been done because I do think that like the demands are changing in a lot of ways in terms of like what the expectations are from the community and like we do need and I do think there's some good value. I mean one of the things that I pulled out from the plan was the purpose statement at the beginning. I think does a good job of balancing and integrating like what community needs and wants, with what's going to have the most impact in serving the needs of the local businesses. Because I think where it misses is like, in some ways, there's too wide of an array of these themes, and they can be narrowed down to a little bit, be little bit more succinct in a way that's going to serve the businesses that really fuel the economy here in Snowmass. And we need to keep an eye on that. I mean one of the things that I think is missing in some ways is that like if you look back at our that's towards an annual plan and then all the great brand work that Virginia did in terms of like the rebrand logo because there was a lot of like vision mission statements in all of those docs and I'm not seeing a through thread from all of that work, the annual report slash mission, like the annual report plan and then what's in here. So I think that could all be pulled together to have some alignment because there was a lot of good work done in some of those previous docs. At the end of the day, I think if you're going around to businesses on a midweek in September, certainly in early December, through some lulls in the winter, certainly some periods in the summer. There's work that needs to be done to continue to build the economy here, so businesses can survive on the wall. One of, the council meeting was super interesting and that like, I think there was a little bit of misinformation being provided that like, you know, we have enough tourism. Like, I think you would get a quite a counterpoint if you go into a lot of businesses that are trying to operate here. Because it's inconsistent. And one of the things that I think could be built in here is an effort to build more consistency in the tourism. And we don't, we can protect the shoulder seasons like I don't, I think everyone's aligned with that and we should define what those shoulder seasons are. But within the seasons, I think there needs to be a little bit more emphasis in here on driving business to all of us that need it to survive through those peaks of hours. That's the point. The other Derek mentioned that in his presentation, which actually was the phrase that I was most positive that I took away from the presentation, which is building the season within the season. You know, because for there have been alternate efforts to build out the shoulder seasons, which there are simply just very many challenges to getting numbers here in the true off seasons. but building the season within the season, taking something that's already strong and evening it out, making it more consistent, bringing up the values. That's a very, that is really a worthwhile mission. Thanks, Derek. Other comments from board members? We do one thing I'll, and I agree, for sure, I agree on the business side of things. You know, selfishly more is better. But, you know, looking at the plan, to me, and this is just a personal philosophy, It's, and I know, as they, it seems doable for the size of the organization, but I would still shrink it personally because I'm a firm believer and just really, really, really honing in on finding what is the most essential of pieces and just thinking, doing less, but doing it better. Okay. It's difficult. I absolutely recognize how challenging it is in this community with a lot of constituents that are varied and have different goals and objectives. So it's a challenging reality, but I think at the end of the day, if we are able to grow smartly, I think it would not have a negative impact on the local community, while still having a positive impact on the local business community. And like Derek said, I mean, you know, John, like the peaks and the valleys are severely, for example, right now, this is pretty good spring break week, right? It's a normal, spring break time frame. But our occupancy is bad compared to what we would want it to be. Now, do I still have about 400 guests in the hotel? Yes, but we would normally have 650. So it's just a little different. In the you know the shoulder seasons, it's on the hotel side. Every owner I had when I was in the van valley and when I went here, that's everybody, every owner is like, wow, we've got we've got to fix the shoulders season, you know, they don't get it. They have no clue that by the time we get to April 20th, everybody wants to leave for at least a week and have nothing to do with their staff and the customers and anything. So, um, by take, you know, we got into Lovans, what June 20th, roughly 21st, so it's right around that time frame. So how do we make, you know, Memorial Day to that day. How do we make those three weeks more consistently better? Or do we give up on those three weeks and just say season starts on June 20th 21st? Those are some of the things that I think about it, but just again, it's great to start off with a lot of pillars and a broad thing, but now it's I think important to hone it in and pick a three maybe four that are most essential that we think as a board suited. The point is yes. I think similar to John, listen to the presentation. I need to read it in more detail, but I'm struggling to extract any value from this. And I don't know what the original intention was. Maybe that'll be helpful to revisit. But it's primarily probably a tool for staff. Like what is staff really looking to get out of this, but it feels very generic, very boilerplate, like you could be talking about any destination in the US when we're looking at what's been written, like what new ideas, what returner we looking to get out of this. And as John said, we're already lot of great stuff and that should be addressed in here in each section like here's all the stuff we're already doing with regards to this but here's some new ideas but again like the fields like we're maybe just wasting resources on reports and consultants without any real takeaways and I think it's helpful that update, refine our mission. But other than that, I'd rather be spending our resources on specific actions with our team versus these big generic things that I don't get any value from yet. Maybe it's still too early in the process, but I think we need to be careful about how we're spending money here versus what value we're gonna get out of this. The good point in here, is maybe think of that, you know, obviously we all know that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with our destination and with how it operates and it is still generally very, very successful. So it's always harder as we know to take something, it's easy to take something bad and to make it good. It's a little bit harder to make something good and bring it to great and then even harder to go from great to exceptional. And we're somewhere in that upper tier of refining and evolving and innovating. And that's why I think it just definitely requires some more tangible things like how do we, I mean, there's not going to be some like specific thing that's going to take us to the promised land. But you know, they're there should be a handful of tangible ideas that we can actually enact. Yeah. First is just the generic report that's telling us everything we already know. Yeah. Can I just start a comment? I mean, I think we, it does have 60 very actionable ideas in there. And so, and I think there are a lot of new ideas in there. That would be my comment. And I think if you have the plan there, you can kind of like really sort of focus on those and see which ones, you know, do stand out as maybe being new or innovative. But I think it is, it does, to me, it feels like a very actionable plan with a lot of initiatives in that. That might be some examples. Yeah, I think there's a couple of examples like I just drawn because you're saying, we're already doing all this. That's actually not true. There are some things in here that we aren't doing, but like John, to your point, you mentioned that we're very welcoming, very diverse destination, which I won't argue that, but some of the action items in this is that we actually have very little at any content on our website that caters to diverse groups of people. This is the first destination I've worked at that doesn't have that. So while I think we're doing really good work, I think there's some very actionable items on here. One of them is some content that would cater to the LGBT community that comes here for Gay Ski Week and other events. We have very little content on that. We have something about Gay Ski Week, that's it. We have a very good partner with Child and Jasmine. We have absolutely no information on how an accessible skier, adaptive skier would come here other than putting the Childland Jasmine logo on information on our website. So those are two action items out of those 60 that would be very ethical that the marketing team could action probably in year one to be a more inclusive welcoming destination. It's not to say that we're not doing any work in that space. The plan is working to address areas where we could easily improve with our existing resources. So those are just two quick examples of things that I feel is the leader of this department are pretty easy actionable items that would make us even more inclusive and welcoming. A person who's an accessible traveler, needs a wheelchair, needs something is for resources, and we don't have that. So I think it's a little bit inaccurate to say there's not anything actionable, and it's completely generic. I do think there are ways we can make this plan more specific to snowmass and the really attributes that make us stand up from other mountain destinations, which is always a challenge, because every mountain destination has outdoor beauty and their family friendly and things like that. But I think that does need some work and why say it's preliminary draft. I think there's definitely actionable items in here that the team could take and improve the work that we're ready to weigh. A lot of it is marketing. It doesn't mean we're not going to do our marketing to groups, but there's other ways we could enhance our marketing. So I would just caution to say I don't think that it's completely generic and there's no action items in here. I agree with you. I mean, maybe we want to streamline it. And you know, do you have the resources to do all 60 action items? I think that is a question that I have because we've been told we're not adding any resources to the team or to the budget because we're funding housing which is critical to our success. But I do think there's some good action items in here. So I would encourage everyone to read the plan and be more specific with your feedback because it's true that there's not actual items in here. As long as it's valuable for staff. And very much this specific. And Freda, maybe you can give some context to why we're doing this, but contrary to what you said, John, this is very much a roadmap for the team. This isn't something that's on the side that wouldn't be actionable. This is what I was asked to do was to bring a plan together that would provide strategy to the team of the next five plus years. So I would love more specific feedback on the plan if there's things that we should focus on or not focus on. But it's not that this isn't going to be something that's going to provide strategic direction to the team. And I think it does probably need work and it probably needs to be more refined, maybe less, less action items, but it is kind of the opposite of what you're saying. I was asked to bring a strategic plan, a destination management plan for the tourism team to action. So I'd love any specific feedback on the actual plan and how do we get to a place where we're actioning things that the tourism board would be excited to advocate for. If that's more about building business within the season, then the plan could have more specific initiatives around that and maybe let go some of the things that don't feel as important to the board. But I think it's very important for the council and Britta jump in here that the tourism board feels like this is something they want to advocate for and they approve, we're not doing this, I'm separate from the tourism board. So your feedback is very important, but I want you to really be specific with the plan to, you know, where you want to see us go with it, I guess. And the tourism staff will be doing the same. Yeah, I mean, I'm in that position. Oh. But if I may jump in, it just, my sense is, and it's always been this way with snowmasses, look, I've got the Ranger Station, I'm right there, and you know, on Grand Avenue. So, I hear everything, I see everything. The one thing that I hear over and over again, don't go change and don't change, whatever you do, don't change. Like people, you know, hear about the hotel, you know, it's under contract and okay, but you're gonna be okay, you're gonna stay. So to relate it back to what we're doing with this management plan, I think, you know, what we've always asked for is sort of like small clicks of the dial. I think we're super poised in the last five years since I've been on the board and we've been really working towards keeping people in snow mass as opposed to like the leakage of people going into Aspen instead of going back to their condo and changing and then coming back into snow mass. So you know just keeping that in mind like we don't need to like turn it it up super loud, like, just small clicks of the dial. And John, I do agree with John, there's a lot of things that are in this plan that we're already doing that we have been working on. And we have, you know, it's like, you know, you can't, it's a slow turn of the ship. Like, I owned the business for 10 years. And when I first took over, we closed right after Labor Day. And now we've filled in September and we're getting inching closer to staying open until mid October. So So that's an extra almost five, six weeks of business that we've we've filled in that we've been able to capture. So, you know, some stuff works, some stuff doesn't, but I do have to say, you know, if we can drill it down, like when I look at 61 action items, seems overwhelming to me, but if we can drill it down. when I look at 61 action items, that seems overwhelming to me, but if we can drill it down. And like you said, Julia, to be more specific, you know, I think once we, if we can suss it out and get back to, you know, what it is, we as a board, you know, can pass along to council and to Britta. You know, I think that's a powerful message and you know, there's really good discussion that's happening here and and keeping small, but you know, like in the plan, you know, it's working with small business, keeping, keeping like the local businesses. We have a lot of big new buildings and corporate partners coming in. And I just think it's, you know, I think we are on the right track, but it is quite vague. And I think it needs, we need to really drill it down and dial it in and continue to work with the business owners and small business. Also corporate and ski co-working with small business and whatnot. you know, like those are all important things. And to me, that's working from the inside out, you know, continuing to work on our infrastructure, if you will. But like small clicks of the dials, you know, we don't need, you know, big wild swings. Thanks Wendy. I think Brita was going to say something. Yeah. Well, I think the answer to your question, what is the kind of intent or hope for the goal of outcome here is to help, you know, council or just our community resort have that context so the community can continue to feel that we are putting effort into the resort community balance that we've valued for so long. And I think every so often you mentioned post-COVID, we get into the space where we start to feel that imbalance and that pressure. And depending on what room you're sitting in, obviously we want to support small business that's huge and vital emphasis. The balance is starting to feel like it's drifting. And I think that this process was an effort to kind of retain what we value the most. And I would say, you know, to what you mentioned, John, it reminds me a lot of the comp plan process. We kind of had to hover above ourselves and have someone perhaps from the outside take a look. And that helped us reinvigorate and engage with what we value most. And I think what I would love to see come out of this would be for you all to refine the purpose statement and the vision and the goal and bring that back to Snowmass Village because it's nice to have a consulting firm kind of put on outline for us but now we have to do the hard work and take this and turn it into what means something so that when our community says, what does the tourism department do? To address what you've mentioned, sometimes we feel like we just don't understand. The value of that building the in season more or those kinds of perspectives because we spend a lot of money, we feel like we're great, we've got all the resources to have a beautiful mountain resort. So I think community will say, well, why do we need to push for anything more of this place cells itself? So this is an opportunity for us to say, here's what we do, why we do it, we do it for the economy, for the community, but we don't lose track of the authenticity. And that's what makes it, you know, a visitor experience that matters, that brings people back year after year because there's something authentic, because it's not a cookie cutter resort that you could find anywhere. And then, you know, the feedback from council, if you didn't listen to it, you was, you know, we felt the generic aspects and we emphasized that resort community, that family friendly bringing that just big enough, those values that I know that we all know. Sometimes it helps to remind ourselves of them, but I'd like to hear us take that to another level and put it in focus of what tourism means in that realm, because we have that in the comp plan. So I think there's a lot of work still to be done, and I really value this group as a component just like when we put the comp plan out there, we had to refine it with think tanks and focus groups. And this is, you know, we're leaning on your own lot to provide the essence of what this can be and what it should mean for us. And so I hope that it can be a guide to refine all those thoughts and bring them into a document that we could share with the communities, the community understands that we're still trying to maintain that balance. But I don't want to speak too much. I really want all of this to be long to say. Thanks, Bernard. Are there other board members who want to speak? Yes, I want to thank Sarah Jane, Julia, for all the work you've done. I know it's spent a lot of work put into it. I, first of all, I am a resident here. I am a business owner. I work, live, and play here. And so I believe in what we also do on this tourism board that we're mindful of the overall SMS community. I think that's a, obviously, spoken about from town council that we're mindful about the the whole picture. And I felt that this plan was very much what I felt like pushing tourism and not mindful of the whole picture. I realized that we are tourism, but that's part of our job as well because we are a community here. I did also feel that it was somewhat generic. You could have plugged in many other destinations and I really likeestination management plan. That is your destination, your destination. I thought that some of the, I think the things are too many things. I think they need to be some, need to be retold or combined. that some of the work that you were speaking about is work that is also done outside of tourism. We have many other departments within the town. You know, we have community engagement, community development, housing, parks and racks. We have other boards. We have the poster board. We have SOB. They are other either boards or literally town government that should be parts of this. And so I question a little bit of why we as tourism are, I don't know, I felt like that we're taking the lead in something like sustainability or some other things. So I felt that it was a little bit far-reaching. I think the whole it needs to be more concise. I also do believe that tourism has done a great job. It did a great job. Just like Wendy was saying, what it was like in September versus now, I originally moved here in 1978, left for many years and came back so I can tell you a very different story in 1978. I lived in Stem Aspen, which then, and I worked in a business up on the wall. So there's been great strides, certainly, in what's happening in tourism in STEMAS. But I just feel that it needs to be bialled in more. I feel that some of the actionable plans, and you just mentioned, Julia, about that you were all from this. I also feel like these are things that we've discussed many times that I'm not I'm not sure how much new information personally I felt that we haven't been discussing for years. And the challenges, there's always the challenges of yes, every business would like to have more business. That's a, you know, every business in the United States probably feels like that. But in tourism, we have our challenges, our ups and downs and weather as well. I mean, occupancy right now, we haven't had the greatest season. So there are things that we can't change. Anyway, I just feel that we need to be mindful of the entire picture of the town of Semas Village and how all of us work and working together for protecting that community. Great, thank you. Who's left online? I think Mary, Mary, do you want to make any comments before we adjourn? Sure. I kind of feel the same way most of the board does, you know, with the generic and how does this, how do we move this forward? I'm also kind of curious about staff. The staff is the one who has to implement all of this. And what is the staff's reaction? And what do they see individually? The group sales, the marketing, each division, how do they fill with moving forward and do they have enough direction through this plan? Or what is the next step? I guess I'm still trying to wrap my arms around how this is going to move us forward and how it affects businesses and what, you know, am I correct in the town council is asking for all of this? You know, tourism has been doing a great job and, you know, business has been really strong. So how can staff and the rest of us use this to move forward? Yeah, thanks Mary. I think we had a staff meeting yesterday. I think the staff is generally sort of echoing some of the themes here that it probably needs to be drilled down to a more simplified plan. As the department had knowing that we're not adding much resource to behind this, you know, and that we want to keep our existing programs. I think there's probably merit in, you know, simplifying the plan in terms of the actual implementation. And I think because the way this has been rolled out, like I mentioned in the beginning, there's a lot to it that we, you know, the team has heard from the community from tourism stakeholders from all the interviews they've done and it's sort of a data done, but it might be how to be prioritized. What would it hands the work we're already doing and really focusing on that and I think one thing we've heard from the tourism stakeholders is that to John's point that sort of building the season within the season is is season is is obviously a big concern right we don't want to see the peaks and valleys and what we're hearing from the community is we want to maintain the community charm the community feel and we want to make sure that the community is continues to have positive sentiment about tourism which I think they do have now in a lot of places don't have that they have negative sentiment around tourism and I think they do have now. And a lot of places don't have that. They have negative sentiment around tourism. And I think, Brita jumping here, but I believe that in the position in here, I think part of this plan being passed as a goal for me in year one was to really make sure we're maintaining that balance between the community and tourism. And I think that this plan is starting to address that, but I hear all your concerns about it being feeling, you know, it's too much and maybe it's too unwieldy and it's like how do we implement this and how does it impact the work? So I think the team is feeling a similar feeling of how do we get more specific in terms of really being added to the great work we're already doing and I'm not saying that we're not doing great work. You know, I've only been here a year, but I think there's a lot of really good work being done. And I think the goal of this plan was in why kind of switched out a transitional plan. It's like, how do we broaden the good work we're doing? You know, how do we take some of these themes and add to them? It's not that the good work we're doing is going away, that our metrics are going away in terms of measuring our success in the season. It's how do we continue to make sure we keep the community in mind that we have this balance between community and resort and that we add impactful initiatives to our plates in the next sort of five plus years. I don't think it's to make the team sort of go in a completely different direction. I think it's, you know, the revised plan should feel more like we're sort of steering the ship in a slightly different direction of like, you know, one thing that maybe has been done a lot in the past is measuring the community sentiment or, you know, how do the residents feel about tourism? Or do they understand what tourism brings and those kinds of things? So I think it still is very preliminary. I think there is a lot of work to be done. I think just having worked with Roadmap and I really appreciate what they've brought to the table and the work they've done with other communities. There's a lot of examples of what other destinations are doing that would I think be impactful to the work that we do that are sort of called out in this plan but not necessarily illustrated. And that might be helpful for some of the board members to see what types of things we're talking about. What does that look like in implementation? Like how would that enhance the work we do? Whether it's like some new content on the website, when we relaunch that, or just I think getting more specific would help. So I think the team in the board are having similar sentiments if I just kind of speak on anyone's behalf for the sake of time with what I heard yesterday at the team meeting, but I do think we have an evolution here with the plan. Sarah Jane jump in, but I think we want to come back with revision space on everything we've heard from not only this group, but the council, the community, the people on the webinars, the team and have a a more specific sort of drill down plan that we could dive into. And I think we need to take time with it and make sure that we feel like this is really something, you know, to John's point that we want to present to the council and to the community. And this was very much sort of a preliminary draft of everything that the consulting team has heard. And that's why I think it does feel like really broad because there's a lot of broad themes. And to your point, yes, there is a lot of things that the town's already doing. They're already working on housing. They're working on transportation. It's, I think we need to drill down on how could the tourism team collaborate or work together on some of these things? Like, not take the lead on them. I think that's how they sort of structured the plan is like who's the partner here, who's the resource. It's not that team tourism is going to give everything it might be. not take the lead on them. And I think that's how they sort of structure the plan is like, who's the partner here? Who's the resource? It's not that team tourism's going to do everything. It might be how do we advocate for the work housing is doing or how do we advocate for the public transportation or things like that. So I think the plan needs to get more specific and I think it'll be easier to sort of digest for everybody. and that's my hope for the next round is that we have a more specific, more streamlined plan that feels more actionable and then I think we can dig into that and take some time with that and I think the process will look a little different on round two where you'll have some time to dig in and really you know we'll have another conversation like this on a more streamlined plan. Does that sound good, Sarah Jane, for process? Sounds really good to me. I just want I'm wondering if Joanna Mallory has can give me two, whatever she's taking her. Sorry, I forgot you made that. She's got the big picture there. Whatever she has, I'll take two, man. I turn out. So anything, anything to add, Joe? I'm good, thank you. So to try to encapsulate what we've done here, I think that we've got from good wood. I think. For our next meeting, we can definitely distill this all down and into Guy's point. So much of the end ends is some of the other commentary. Obviously so much of what comes out of destination management plan is not new. It is, by definition, generic because we're trying to do great things and get people to love our place. But maybe we distill it down into this is what we do. This is what we're intending to do. And here are a few steps that we're going to take to move the ship a little further. And if we can maybe distill into a distinct mission statement, that will allow us to build the under that umbrella. Because I think that we all, all of us, roadmap, Julia, the staff, the board the board the council I think that we all kind of have the same idea here, but we can come up like let's say town like snowmass village is just big enough we hear it over and over we heard it for years it works it gives everyone a sense of kind of what we're about and what we're aiming to do just big enough which is that mean I mean so many different things but it has it kind of just jumps right in your mind and allows you to work from it so we can come up with a succinct mission statement what is our goal and and the and then we're gonna we're gonna take all these great ideas is this you this vast array of ideas and pillars which are all valuable for sure and reflect input from the community and from us and from everyone. And it's still down into things people can understand and people say, I see that in action. You know what that means? You know, that I think is going to be very helpful for us. Yeah, I would urge the board. If Sir, Jane, if it's okay, I'd say we have a week to give feedback, even though we're officially closing it tomorrow. I know next week is spring break. So that's kind of lost for a lot of people. If you take that feedback form, I can send it back out to you and really, you know, give roadmap any specifics of like, of like you'd love to see more focus on X and you know anything specific to kind of help us with this revision. Because then I think when we come back with a revised plan, I think it's gonna be closer to what you're, as a board you're hoping to see in terms of actionable items. So I'll send that back out to everybody and if you could just put your thoughts on paper and we can either on that or separately work on the mission, that will I think help us with kind of revising this plan and getting a more streamlined to where we want to see it to get to more of an approval process. Derek, do you guys still do a lot of on-mountain surveying and getting a sense of where the tourists are saying? Yeah, but it's not in person thing anymore. You guys person. Because if we could just get a little feedback, we have community members. Sometimes the loudest voices, they're not necessarily the best voices. Who shows up in the meetings? We had 135 people show up. We have 3,000 residents. So that's a rather small sound. And everyone to your point has an idea of idea what should happen or not It doesn't mean we're getting the best feedback just because someone showed up and gave us feedback So but some of the best feedback does come from the actual user which are an Andy's Condos and the hotel or up in the mall businesses or in these villainsas having pizza at limelight or up in El Camp Restaurant at lunch. That's where the people are who actually are the end user that we are addressing with our marketing dollars and everything else and our efforts. So I would like to somehow get some feedback from them and possible. It's a little late in the game I mean obviously but you know coming to know, coming to the end of the season. From your talk about from the visitors, visitors, people who are out there in the field, no, not just conceptually in a vacuum in a room, but out there in the field saying, I love the viceroy. But man, if I could only get from here to there, if I could only, you know what I mean? Like just give me something that people are experiencing here, what, or this place is so awesome. I'm coming back and I'm telling all my family, friends, but there's not enough for singles. Kind of gives us an idea of what's going on, okay? Just little tipets like that. Where are we focusing? What are we trying to accomplish? What are we missing one little thing that's easy to fix? That could be something that's kind of ongoing throughout the plan. Yeah, I know. Yeah, measuring, you know, the visitor sentiment, maybe a partnership with Sikko or other partners, and that will be measuring like resident sentiment on an ongoing basis. That might not be that we have to have it done for the plan. And that might be that we call that out as something we want to do as part of the plan, you know, to kind of get it. Those are action items for the plan that might be that we call that out as something we want to do as part of the plan, you know, to kind of give it. Those are action items in the plan itself. I mean, that would be my feedback, I think, for this group. Look at the action items specifically. I think that's where that is where your feedback is going to be most valuable to us as the consulting team. Yeah, there is measuring sentiment in there as an action. And I would also say, while you're looking at the details, I'd really task this group with looking at the purpose statement. Like, please help us understand what you think the purpose is. I think that would help us. As council, we understand that the purpose was to address community pressure and community concerns. And so, you know, and always trying to keep that balance refined. We understand that that's the purpose coming from the community and that was community that asked us to ask for this destination management plan. So we're filtering, you know, that feedback through us for the request to make this happen. So we're fine that purpose statement for us, like really get into it, rewrite it, you know, work with that. I would say that's a good starting point and the details, but that big picture of purpose, you know, that would help us a lot. I think as a destination, and I hear this all the time, and I recently, this one one I've met, I think about five different couples who have become full-time residents here. And we all talk to people who are on the lift and everything. And one of, of course, everyone comes here for scan. Everyone comes for the environment. But why do they come to snow mass? It's because we're different. We are a, again, back to that real community, where we have an energy ourselves. We have our own destination and feel that has to do with so much more than just that people come to go skiing. Because they can go skiing many different places. Why do they come here? It is about snow mass village and what we offer that's unique and that feel when you're here. I was speaking to somebody just recently who they just bought a condo where I live. And we were having dinner with them asked, why did you, what made you choose here? They had skied all over the place. And it was Stnomah's village as a town, as a place, as a destination to live. The skiing, the environment, all those things can be off. They are in many different places, but we are unique and I don't feel that uniqueness in this plan, speaking to that because that is what gets the people here. And that's why we live here and why I'm living here. I think we should try to distill down to that. And I do want to say, just a meeting like this is evidence of what we're all talking about, of how amazing this place is, and how hard we're all working to make it even better, even though it's already amazing. We have a town council person here, Vritta, thank you. We've got the head of the tourism and marketing department. We've got the head of events here. We've got a crack consulting team from the roadmap to Sarah Jane, thank you, Derek, thank you, And thank you for you are doing a lot of work. So I want to thank you for that. And I think that ultimately your framework is going to be a document that we use and we're going to do implement all these ideas that we had here today and and come up with a great plan and and something very presentable and understandable and very snowmass so thank you everybody for even taking the time to do this and for putting this together because again, it's emblematic of the great community that we have here. Thanks everybody for your time. I appreciate you jumping in an extra meeting. Now your thoughts. Great feedback. Very interesting. All right. Awesome. Questions are adjourned. So moved. Sorry. I need one more time. So I have to use the question. You can't even get a word in. It's working. Take donuts on your way out please. Take donuts on their donuts. And the council chambers by this thing. And coffee. And coffee. Oh, thank you. Thanks for being here with us. Yeah, and for future board meetings, I don't intend to really be an active participant or a listener. Yeah. I'm just going to help see our family. I mean, thank you for having your perspective. Yeah. And you can go ahead. for the Yeah, I appreciate it. I think this gives us one freedom. I will email you guys.