I attended the BID Marketing meeting today

I was at the BID (Business Improvement District) marketing meeting today. The first one in a long time. It was nice to see all the familiar faces that I know so well. I did feel a bit out of the loop, but I guess it's easy to slide back in.

Natali Latorre, the BID's new PR person, was introduced. She will do everything the former PR firm did but a bit more, including social media and such and she is part of the paid staff now, so the BID is not a client of a PR firm now, they have their own salaried person.

A bunch of items came up, which I'll write about this week. One thing the committee was really concerned about was the City's trolley, which almost everyone wants to come to the Center Grove.  Actually, I think it's safe saying everyone on the committee wants it, as there really is no down side of it coming here.

The BID wants to hire a photographer to take photos of events, not sure why my name didn't come up as I am at every event and have thousands of photos of everything and anything, maybe they'll think of it and contact me. 

And at first I wasn't sure why they needed a marketing person when they had me, after all, I get the Grove stories in the Grapevine as well so many other publications, local and national, but I guess the truth of the matter is I am not going to run the Grapevine under the aegis of the BID or the Chamber or anyone else. I say this with all respect. I have the freedom to publish what I want, which is really quite special when you think about it. So Natali, the new marketing person (who I am glad to work with to get the Grove news out) is the right person to have.

I was just told recently about some organization, I can't remember which one, that will not let a Facebook message or Tweet go out without having it checked first by the higher ups of the organization. Talk about being stifled. I don't like being stifled. Reminds me of "All in the Family," remember Archie saying, "Stifle, Edith!" all the time?

Exciting news is that there's a lot of hustle and bustle over the Coconut Grove Arts Festival and St. Stephen's Art Show, you can feel it as you walk around the village, they have already started setting up for this weekend's big events. The weather is supposed to be incredible, so it should be a lot of fun. See you all out there.