Heritage Festival SWOT Team spokesman Clinton Vuorimaki. Photo by Kate Adams. ___________________________________________
With the Tuesday deadline looming for submission to city council of the much anticipated report on the North Bay Heritage Festival and Air Show, the SWOT team has been working overtime to analyse and condense all the information and feedback from the community, spokesman Clinton Vourimaki says.
Vuorimaki has volunteered well over 100 hours of his time in the last 30 days trying to make sense of all the correspondence received, he said, but you will hear no complaining from him.
“I’m happy to have taken on this challenge, and it has been an invaluable experience. If we’d had no responses it would have been disheartening. But we had absolutely the best response for an event in the city. I have personally read every piece of paper,” Vourimaki said.
The team received a great number of suggestions regarding the the future of the festival, with 265 SWOT feedback forms, 95 letters, and 95 emails received. Also supported by 23 calls to the radio stations, 30 calls during a live phone-in show and 900 responses to a newspaper survey.
Vuorimaki said one clear message has emerged from the feedback: the importance of the event to the community.
“It is hard to gage the number of individual conversations I’ve had, those chance face to face meetings with people, be it when I ran out to pick up milk or walking through the mall, but all the responses have been invaluable. This festival is one of the most important events for the city and hopefully this report will keep them (the community) behind it,” Vourimaki said.
In gathering the community feedback, the SWOT team also looked to other sources for comparisons.
And the business of festivals was a poor one this year.
“That information is relative, everywhere was down in the business and that adds to part of the explanation (of the festival’s poor showing), but will not reflect what we do,” states Vourimaki.
“I think this report, if nothing else, is a clear picture of where we need to go for a successful event in ‘05’. We don’t have all the answers but it gives a clear direction for a 30-day project.”
With all the information gathered, the team has been able to correctly identify key issues and how they tie together with the community’s concern in order to put forth a thorough report to council. Vourimaki said he was fortunate to have come to the project with an unbiased look at the whole package.
“This is an incredible deal when you look at cost and value for a four-day event, outside of the area you will easily start to pay $50. We need to repair people’s sense of value,” says Vourimaki.
When asked about the fact that the report could go to council and be shelved like so many other reports, Vourimaki was quick to comment.
“I don’t think that would be in the best interest of city. The community feedback has given a mandate with a clear process for a successful event and to shelve the report would be counter productive. The public will let council know they are part of the process.”
The SWOT team will present their findings to council on Oct. 18.
