Meeting Minutes: November 1, 2013

• Wine and Beer Tasting: Wednesday November 6^th at the Bull House in Chestertown, 5:30pm- 7:30pm. Sample wine and beer from area vendors, including the new Paradox Brewery from Schroon Lake, free appetizers, lots of great raffles & Chinese auction, and Jazz music by Ray Alexander. Jacob & Toney, Tops, the Bull House and the Panther Mt. Inn have donated food for the event, and many local businesses have donated raffle & auction items. This is one of the few fund raisers the Alliance has over the course of a year so pass the word and come out for a great weeknight evening! A $20 donation at the door will benefit the Tri-Lakes Business Alliance.
• Taste of the Tri-Lakes & Memory Tree Lighting: December 3^rd to coincide with the Chestertown Rotary’s Memory Tree Lighting at the main intersection of Chestertown. $1 tickets can be purchased to buy ‘samples’ of restaurant specialties throughout the evening, bonfires, free smore making and hot chocolate for the youngsters, Christmas carols and a wonderful community get together to start off the holiday season. Food will be served from 5:30 – 7:30 with the tree lighting around dusk.
  • We will be distributing the necessary Health Dept. permits to the restaurants and Donnie will pick them up and deliver them to Glens Falls.
  • Helena will organize music from NW Central School
  • Cindy will organize the Boy Scouts for the bonfires & smore supervision. Stone Bridge & Caves will be donating smore fixings.
  • Don and John MacMillan will organize bonfires, firewood, and lighting/electricity for the restaurant tents.
  • Each restaurant is responsible for supplying and setting up their own tent… let us know if you need to borrow one for the evening as the Farmer’s Market has 2 that can be used.

• Brant Lake Winter Carnival: February 8, 2014. Committee will start meeting mid-December. Anyone interested in helping with this event, please reply to this email and we’ll add you to the list. If you can just help out that day, we’ll need volunteers for parking, manning the information booth, and wearing the snowman costume. More information to follow over the next few months.
• It was suggested the TLBA develop a webpage and Mark Sissons will have Pam Sissons contact us regarding this. Newspaper & Radio ads, Face Book and our email chain get the word out for our events, but the more internet recognition we have the better.
• Placemats: We need to design and order more of the placemats we distributed last year with our event calendar and local businesses advertising. There will be a meeting at the Panther Mountain Inn at 6pm on Thursday November 7^th for anyone interested in helping. Many local restaurants used these placemats last summer and it was decided this was a project we should continue.
• Carol Theatre: General consensus was to try and revive the Carol Theatre as a historic landmark and gathering place for the town. We will be meeting with the owners to discuss this further.
• A discussion of how to bring more businesses to town was held, possibly having the towns offer a tax break to new establishments. A certified Grant Writer would be helpful as there are monies out there for both new and existing businesses, and the idea of the Town of Chester and the Town of Horicon sharing the employ of such a person would be beneficial to our communities. The TLBA could use assistance in applying for Warren County Bed Tax monies, and we currently keep a sign-in sheet for all of our meetings as we were told we could get monies for each signature each week, but no one knows how to go about doing this. Anyone with information or knowledge of Grant Writing please let us know!
• Holiday Craft Fair: December 6, 2013 sponsored by the North Creek Business Alliance
• Santa’s Train: December 7, 2013 leaving North Creek and traveling north to save Santa Claus.

Next meeting is Friday, November 15^th at 9am @ the Panther Mountain Inn. You do not have to be a business owner to attend! We only have two rules: