LOGAN LAKE GRAD PAGE 9
MOTOCROSS MADNESS PAGE 20
ABORIGINAL INAL DAY Y SECTION NB
Nicola Valley’s News Voice Since 1905
merrittherald.com
MERRITT HERALD THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2014 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
bcclassified.com
FREE
STORY TIME Dozens of children gathered around for story time at the teddy bear’s picnic at Rotary Park on Tuesday. The event was put on for the first time in Merritt by Kamloops-based Children’s Therapy and Family Resource Society with the help of various agencies from around the Nicola Valley. The picnic included visits from Merritt’s fire department and ambulance service, as well as an obstacle course station, bubble station, and face painting, and of course, plenty of teddy bears. The community event attracted about 170 people, which surpassed organizers’ expectations, Children’s Therapy and Family Resource Centre’s Brenda Gustafson said. Emily Wessel/Herald
City, TOTA going their separate ways By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
The City of Merritt has decided to stop working with the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) under its case study pilot project. They have also withdrawn from Destination BC’s Community Tourism Opportunities (CTO) program, which provides funding for tourism activities in B.C. communities, TOTA community development specialist Simone CarlysleSmith said.
At its regular meeting on June 10, city council approved the recommendation put forward by the city’s business and economic development manager to stop the pilot project. The recommendation ends the assistance and funding opportunities the city had received under the project. At the regular council meeting on May 27, Carlysle-Smith asked council to submit a letter in response to the opportunity to continue working together, and consider a website proposal and available funding oppor-
Home
hardware
building centre Locally Owned & Operated
1701 Voght St., Merritt, B.C. www.merritthomehardware.ca
tunities. Moving forward with TOTA on the website would have cost the city about $19,000. They could have acquired $8,400 from the CTO program for the website, Carlysle-Smith told the Herald. She said the cost includes not only building the website, but photography and marketing of the website as well. City of Merritt economic development manager Jerry Sucharyna was not at the June 10 meeting and chief administrative officer Allan
Chabot addressed council on the matter. He pointed out there were reductions in the budget to tourism plan implementations, and said there’s a need to harmonize brand implementation with the economic development strategy. Chabot told council the website proposal was one item deleted from the business and economic development department’s budget. Carlysle-Smith said a tourism website for Merritt was identified in the tourism plan as the number 1 prior-
ity for Merritt. She said it was possible to implement a scaled-down version of the website to build upon over time if the full proposal wasn’t possible. Part of the pilot project is the destination and community branding project, which includes producing a wordmark, tagline, brand imagery, positioning statement, web presence audit, website design, a visitor guide, print ad designs and sign concepts, which are summarized in a branding book to guide marketing. The branding book still needs to be finished.
For a your RV and d camping n ds,
Home Hardware is your one stop shop!
A recommendation regarding the brand tagline has been submitted to the city by TOTA, CarlysleSmith told the Herald. The city will now need to conduct a legal search to determine the chosen tagline’s availability and undergo the process of registering its trademark. She said TOTA can have the brand book completed after a legal search. The city also has no obligation to adopt one of the new taglines.
See ‘Funding’ Page 2