On December 6, 2016, the Waterbury (Vermont) Tourism Council and Revitalizing Waterbury held simultaneous membership meetings in the Steele Community Room to make decisions on their future.
At the meeting, members of the Waterbury Tourism Council unanimously voted to dissolve WTC and assign its assets to Revitalizing Waterbury. RW and the Tourism Council spent most of 2016 in conversations strategizing how to eliminate duplication and combine marketing activities under a single organization. The two entities have had separate roles in the community, but there was significant overlap in their efforts for promoting Waterbury.
“I believe it’s important for people to work together and share resources whenever possible,” said Kim Dixon, owner of Insights Marketing and former President of the Waterbury Tourism Council. “The merger of Revitalizing Waterbury and the Waterbury Tourism Council takes that idea to a new level. It creates one, unified voice for the business community in Waterbury, which will have a powerful and positive impact on the work we are able to do moving into the future.”
In the second portion of the meeting, Revitalizing Waterbury members unanimously voted to accept changes to the By-Laws and mission statement and to elect a new board. The new RW Board includes three members continuing from its old board, two members of the former WTC Board and two new community members. Jeffrey Larkin will be the new President of the RW Board of Directors for 2017.
Revitalizing Waterbury’s new mission statement reads “to preserve, promote and enhance the economic, historic and social vitality of Waterbury, Vermont for residents, businesses and visitors alike.” To combine the goals of the Tourism Council into RW, two words were added to the mission statement, “promote” and “visitors” and one word was removed, “downtown.”
“It’s been a year of planning for this vote,” said Karen Nevin, Executive Director at Revitalizing Waterbury. “RW continues to be committed to all of its work on behalf of Waterbury. However, I’m excited to start seeing the benefits of the two organizations truly working as one.” Revitalizing Waterbury will be calling on its members and the community to participate in a strategic planning process in 2017 that will help define its activities and plan for the future.