ARLINGTON All downtown businesses are encouraged to gather around the table at the Downtown Arlington Business Associations monthly evening meeting Nov. 14 to discuss all the regular annual events and new events to attract people into the beautiful new downtown. The evening meeting is from 5:30 7 p.m. at Little Italy Trattoria, 318 N. Olympic Ave. in downtown Arlington.
Our goal for the next evening meeting is to outline all events planned by our group and those that are co-planned with other groups from December 2007 December 2008, said the president of the group, Jeanne Watanabe.
Wed like to use this time to work through any logistics issues and get the committees started on the right foot, she added.
The new and refreshed DABA is brainstorming potential new projects with assistance from citys capital projects manager, Paul Ellis, who offered his guidance on planning events.
Its much like planning a street project, Ellis told the group Nov. 7.
The business association has discussed moving its first Saturday events like the May Hunt and the October Hunt, and the car show, to the third Saturday in order to avoid conflict and to compliment the already established Super Saturday, which is the first Saturday of every month of the year. The group is also considering new projects in order to have at least one event every month.
Anyone wanting to help build new events is welcome to join in, Watanabe said.
We are going to build committees and figure out what each event needs to be a success. Our mission is to keep downtown Arlington viable. We want to enhance our downtown business community and provide a lot of good reasons for people to shop in Arlington, she added.
The group identified starter committees for each event at a recent morning meeting and those committee leaders will welcome volunteers to help on their projects. A powerful team of guys has been recruited to run the car show, with Ken Johnson taking the lead with help from Tom Sanders, Bob and Marilyn Bullock, Tom and Marilyn Oertle,
Julie Tate, of Julies Barber, who is the newly elected treasurer of DABA, volunteered to chair the street fair committee and Nola Smith, of Pacific Learning Solutions, agreed to take on the Hometown Holidays and maybe even the Holiday Open House as well.
I was wrong, Smith announced at the Nov. 7 meeting. She had been concerned that it was too early to hold a Christmas event.
Even without much planning and promotion, I had 60 guests stop in that day, Smith said, adding that she is now enthusiastic about the Holiday Open House which is a tradition at Flowers by George with some neighbors joining in the fun.
Next months evening meeting, on Dec. 12, Mayor Margaret Larson will be the guest speaker at the meeting, and will speak on Arlingtons current initiatives and future goals.
For information about DABA, call Watanabe at 360-403-8322 or e-mail to her at Jeanne@threesixtyhome.com.