We had a small merchants meeting recently, and we had a guest -- an ad saleswoman from Community Newspapers, Robin Korth. She lives in Pinecrest and has lived in Dade County most of her life, she used to frequent the Grove all the time, she actually went to school at Carrollton, but now she doesn't visit us much, I asked her why and what her opinon of the Grove was. I loved that we had someone from the outside looking in since we are so busy telling each other how great we all are at meeings, and truth be told, people don't know we are so great.
Her answer was something like, "We don't even know the Grove exists anymore. Other than the Arts Festival, you never hear anything going on."
Ironically, we have something going on every week and almost every night of the week. Look at our Calendar of Events to prove this.
We need to tell the rest of the county what is going on. I like to think that everyone gets their news and events from the Grapevine, but honestly, our readers read us daily because they know about us, and the rest find us through search engines, while searching for Grove events. If people are not familiar with the Grapevine or are not searching for Grove events, they don't have a clue.
We are still working on the brochure to be given out at rest stops along the turnpike, but I think it may also be important to give the brochures out around the county at restaurants and events where people congregate.
Maybe the trolley idea isn't too lame. Maybe we need a rolling billboard to drive around the county and tell people we have events going on like art stolls and poetry night and the Bed Race and plain old "non-events" -- we have shady, tree-lined streets and a sailing presence where people can just hang out and enjoy. What we have that many other places don't have are characters -- we have our citizens -- our cast of characters -- the ones you read about daily in the Grapevine. People like mix and mingle with us, we just need to remind them to come back and visit.
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