Discover Hartford Bicycle Tour Update - Aug 9

It's 6 weeks till the tour, and here's where we stand:

What I need from the Board:  

1. If you haven't looked at the Discover Hartford page on our site, please visit it. >  Discover Hartford   
2. Please rally your corporate contacts (think smaller companies, not your usual suspects) to consider becoming a sponsor before 8/15.  Send them a short email with the sponsor kit attached.  Here's the link from the website > Discover Hartford > Sponsorship Kit
3. Already emailed your contacts?  Please follow up with them if you haven't received a reply. One message is unlikely to produce results.
4. Start spreading the word among your personal networks to register.  Please use your email contacts and your Facebook and Twitter contacts if that's your thing.  >Discover Hartford > Register
5. Get ready to volunteer to help place signs on Friday 9/20, so Stuart doesn't have to do it by himself on Saturday morning, frantically trying to stay ahead of the riders! :)

Discover Hartford Committee:  KK, Kelly Rago, Ray Willis, Tony Cherolis, Kevin Sullivan, Rob O'Connor, Paula Ardel

Current sponsors:
Silver + 1/2 (but we'll call them Gold)  - Kohl's Road Safety Campaign - thanks to Luis!
Silver - Travelers - thanks to Anne!
Bronze - FHI (thank you Ken!), Transystems (thanks to Ken), Moe's Southwest Grill (thank you Tara!), and CT Parent Magazine as a media sponsor (thanks to Tara!).

Routes - a twist on the 40 mile route this year, for various reasons.  We're going through East Hartford, Manchester, South Windsor and Windsor, and emphasizing little known connections into the city. You can find links to the maps on the DHT page. Tony, Kevin and Rob came up with the routes. 

Rest stops - resolved a heck of lot earlier this year, thank goodness!  Trinity and The Village will host rest stops for the 10 and 25 mi routes.  Rob O is pinning down a South Windsor rest stop host. Kelly R is overseeing rest stops.

Food - Highland Park Market will donate bananas again.  Ray is working on other donations from Stop & Shop and Whole Foods. Kelly R put in the request for Larabars.

Advertising - we're going to do a 1/4 page color ad in the Hartford area Life publications for Sept.  Tara negotiated a nice discount. Gary's input sought.

Posters & tshirts - in progress We're trying to cut back on graphic design expenses this year.

Map printing - request is in with MDC.

Exhibitors - we'd like to work out a fee sharing arrangement with the 9/22 race organizers so we're not competing against each other. TBD.

CT Cycling Festival - aka the Hartford Criterium - we're in frequent contact, trying to limit the inevitable competition for funders. Some funder prospects thought DHT was part of the CT Cycling Festival.  CSG is or was being pursued as a race sponsor. The race day festivities will now include a citizens ride.  Organizers opted not to charge for it. I weighed in that I thought that would hurt our own ticket sales, and the organizers kindly agreed.

Publicity - Tara is going to town promoting the tour everywhere she can think of. You'll notice Facebook and Twitter activity is way, way up.  Our press release is starting to run in little local papers.  Stories are going on Patch.com and in CT Parent, with more placements to come, we hope. Tara's been spending most of her time on tour-related work.

Budget - advertising is a new expense this year. We'll also have to pay for sound and probably buy some new signs.  I'm tracking tour income and expenses, including cost of staff time.

Registrants to date:  23
Volunteers registered to date:  4.  It's early.  People are probably going to be in summer mode until Labor Day, but that makes it even more important to start letting your contacts know about it now, before they start making other plans...