Fort McLeod future

[Mkelder]

Thought I'd start the discussion in our private area about the grim future we are looking at, here are some thoughts.

Seems to me like the proper place for the club to be discussing strategy for keeping fort McLeod. You don't want  opposition to our rental of the airport to see our discussions and form their own strategy against us.

So far Reijo has been quite since the announcement, he is a busy guy for sure but I also hope this means negotiations may still be on the table.

Basically, public opinion is generally always against Motorsports (not in my backyard!!!) and we all know their has been at least one vocal opposer that may have had enough influence.

We definitely need to try and rally local business that benifits from our being there but we need to be careful that not everyone bombards these people with phone call and letters that may not be conceived as well as they should be.

I think the club meeting is the ideal place to form the strategy but unfortunately I can't be there.

One final thought, I think it maybe in our best interest to remove the Councillor information from the any dates post and keep what we know and plan in here.

[E6Cueman]

acknowledged.  I'm in agreement with moving a couple posts here and will do that from a PC later tonight.

I know the the four executive members have met on the topic and have some ideas for addressing the issue.  Not sure if they have suggestions for what the rest of us can do.

[majormojo]

I had a brief email exchange today with some WCMA board members on this topic. We want to assist somehow, just not sure what the best course of action is. I will try to convene a conf call meeting with club leaders in AB to discuss. One idea I had was for WCMA (that is, me...) to create a letter of support for the club that outlines the affiliation with ASN Canada FIA, and the large membership base, long history of facilitating safe motorsports, etc. Basically an attempt to lend some credibility from the regional/national organization. I'm hoping a meeting later this week can discuss that and any other suggestions for how we can help.

[NickST]

I think we have built pretty solid relationships with local motels and restaurants, we could ask them to help us lobby the council. I know if I reached out to Paul (Red Coat) and maybe the pub and A&W, we could get them to send a nice e-mail in support of our club to council on our behalf.

Similarly, if you guys have built first person relationships with your hotels, it may help to reach out to them.

Generally it lends us a lot more credibility to our positive impact on the community when local businesses are willing to go to bat for us.

I think basically what needs to be done is a quick draft of what we would like them to say, and a list of council e-mail addresses for them to send it to. Then in a single coordinated effort, we can contact the businesses to see if they would be interested.

Do they have a local paper? We could even get them to CC the media to help bolster support. Anytime I have chit-chatted with locals, they are overwhelmingly  supportive of our events. If they knew that council was trying to boot us out, they might have something to say about it too.

[Reijo]

We did the same thing last time they tried to kick us out and the local businesses did go to bat for us.  That is why we are still there in fact.   Also the executive is busy putting something together and looking at attending the council mtg on March 14....and visiting vendors, business owners etc.

A concentrated effort is the only choice and way that we may be able to hold onto this venue at this point .... imho.

Reijo

[94boosted]

Without getting into too many details we are essentially trying to approach this from two angles:

1. A letter to local business owners that outlines who we are, how long we’ve been using the venue and the fact there is a chance we may lose the venue, politely urging business owners to get in touch with their council members.
2. Assuming we can get an audience on March 14th at the town council meeting we have a presentation planned discussing our past economic impact and our mutually beneficial relationship with the town.

[Terry Johns]

Excellent, sounds a good plan