White Lake advisory board readies community event calendar, invites 60 businesses to Feb. meeting

The White Lake Advisory Board voted to accept minutes from its October meeting and focused the rest of its session on preparing a community events calendar and an outreach meeting set for Feb. 26.

The board’s discussion centered on collecting consistent event information from local businesses and promoting Trails Day activities at White Lake. "We are redoing the scavenger hunt that we did back in October," Susie, a board member, said, describing plans to run the scavenger hunt on the Highway 53 side of the White Lake multiuse path and to include family-friendly stations along the approximately 2.9-mile loop.

Why it matters: board members said a coordinated calendar could help spread events throughout the season and boost tourism. To gather standardized details, the board agreed to offer both an online submission (a Google form) and a printed form at the Feb. 26 meeting so vendors and business owners can provide dates, contact information, event type, cost or ticketing, and whether an event recurs.

Board logistics and outreach: the chair said a letter inviting 60 local businesses to the Feb. meeting was mailed; seven mailings were returned as incorrect addresses and Terry was assigned to help redistribute those. Members discussed signage and promotion responsibilities and clarified that the Elizabethtown White Lake Area Chamber of Commerce is handling event promotion and would be the likely party to provide a start banner for the scavenger hunt because the advisory board has no funding for signage.

Concerns about public information accuracy surfaced when members noted a discrepancy in event times: a Chamber brochure listed a Brunswick Stew fundraiser as starting at 1 p.m. while the Chamber website listed it at 4 p.m. "On the website it says it starts at 4," a member observed; the board agreed someone should contact the Chamber to correct the listing.

Format for Feb. 26: members favored an interactive format rather than a lecture-style presentation. Suggestions included a 20–30 minute welcome and introductions followed by an open ‘meet-and-greet’ with tables for each month where businesses can post events on small paper cards or calendar sheets. Ideas to make the session accessible included sign-in sheets with contact information, printed forms mirroring the Google form, table calendars, colored idea cards, light background music during the meet-and-greet, and staffing the door to welcome attendees.

Event eligibility and policy: Sandy, joining by Zoom, recommended the board define what qualifies for the calendar (community- and tourism-focused events rather than routine retail sales) and said the Google form should include a question about whether an event is ticketed. Board members discussed but did not adopt any exclusion list; instead they favored wording that the calendar will list community, family-oriented activities while leaving final content decisions to town oversight if necessary.

Assignments and next steps: members volunteered to build the Google form and a printed counterpart, assemble table calendars and small idea cards, scan and distribute existing lists of events, and arrive early the day of the Feb. meeting to set up. The board also asked Terry to re-distribute the returned mailings and for someone to follow up with the Chamber to correct the website schedule. The meeting adjourned after members confirmed those assignments.

The board’s next procedural step is the Feb. 26 outreach meeting; no formal policy changes or funding decisions were made at this session.