News : VU leaders review 2013; look forward to 2014 during annual meeting

When Director Nathan Hesson and Vinton Unlimited members and directors met earlier this month, they reflected on a year of activities in 2013, and looked forward to many more exciting adventures in 2014.

VU Board President Jon Clingman began the event by playing a video honoring local "Champions" for their work in the community and business. (See that video at the end of the story.)

Hesson shared a review of the activities of 2013, and praised those who have worked hard to make Vinton a success.

"Vinton is full of Champions who go to work each day with the goal of showing the highest integrity and giving the best customer service you can find anywhere," he told the audience at the Vinton Country Club on March 14."You go out of your way to provide unmatched service and quality products to those in need."

In 2013, VU continued many of its annual events, including Boomtown/Boomfest, which will take place in August of this year.

New events for 2013 included the Wine Walk and neighborhood block parties co-sponsored by area businesses. The 2014 Wine Walk, scheduled for May 10, is expected to be even bigger than last year's inaugural event.

The Destination Vinton Committee worked on several projects, including a brochure highlighting the chain saw creations of Brian Parr. The group also welcomed several tour groups, including a classic car club, to Vinton in 2013.

The complete remarks from Hesson are below:

VU Annual Meeting
3/14/14

Thank you, Jon, and thank you to everyone who came out and joined us tonight for the Vinton Unlimited annual meeting. We really do appreciate you taking the time out of your Friday to get together and celebrate our Champions and the work that has been taking place over the past year. We are all excited to work with you in the year ahead to continue the work of improving the lives of the residents & businesses of Vinton, Iowa.

As Jon alluded, you don't have to be a world renowned violinist, Gold Medal Olympian, or famous movie star to be considered a Champion in what you do. Vinton is full of Champions who go to work each day with the goal of showing the highest integrity & giving the best customer service you can find anywhere. You go out of your way to provide unmatched service and quality products to those in need.

Some of you work "behind the scenes" and never get the credit due to you (while SOMEONE ELSE gets the credit due to you). Well, tonight, we want to honor you and make sure you know that what you do...matters. It matters to your business, it matters to your family, and it matters to your community.

This IS YOUR COMMUNITY after all!

There have been a lot of great things that have taken place in Vinton over the past year and it has been very fun to be a part of some of these. With your help, Vinton Unlimited continued several projects, events, & activities and came up with a few new ones along the way.

Vinton Unlimited hosted the 1st Annual Wine Walk throughout town. It was a great success for the first year with over 100 people registering for the fun. It went so well because several Champions from our business community stepped up and helped make sure this new event was successful. We plan to host our 2nd Annual Wine Walk this year on May 10th, so you'll have an opportunity to invite your family for a fun Mother's Day weekend activity. Plans are in the works, so make sure you stay connected for details. If anyone wants to help with this particular event (or any of the events coming up), please see me after the meeting or contact me so I can make sure you get plugged in.

Several community members were involved in what is soon to be an official "BIG DEAL" for Vinton. Vinton Unlimited, the Benton County Historical Society, and the Elwick family have been Champions for our community while working with the Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area over the past couple of years. This year, the Vinton Depot will be put on the map...literally. Each year, S&S comes out with a new Visitor's Guide. There are many little "dots" all over this map of eastern Iowa which indicate Designated "Partner" Sites. This brochure is distributed throughout travel centers and beyond so people can visit & experience the rich, deep history our region has in Agriculture & Industry. The Vinton Train depot will be added to this map as a Partner with S&S. Anyone who sees this map will see Vinton proudly listed as a historic location where they can learn about Agriculture, Hawk-Bilt, & the importance of the railroad to Vinton, Iowa and the world. We dedicated the signs last fall, received the official designation a couple of weeks ago, and will have a public recognition in April at the Golden Silo Awards.

You may have seen several articles in the papers and on Vinton Today lately about Vinton's Tourism industry. People don't think about this being "Real" in Vinton yet, but just wait. Great things are happening in Vinton through our Destination Vinton committee and partners throughout the community. Vinton Unlimited belongs to several statewide tourism organizations and we're partnering with them to "sell" our community and all of the great things we have to do here to bus tour directors around the state and beyond. In fact, we have three bus tours scheduled to come to Vinton in May & June. Some are staying for just a couple of hours while others are spending the night. This is so exciting for Vinton as we have an opportunity to Show Off our community to over 30 people at a time! If you are interested in helping promote Vinton, please let me know and again....we'll get you plugged in!

We had another great turnout for Boom-Fest this year. Over 60 vendors joined us on the streets of Vinton and hundreds of people came out to check out our community before the fireworks that evening. Boom-Fest will take place on August 30th this year and we are looking for help planning and especially, attracting vendors & entertainment. We want to show our visitors a good time and give the entire family some fun things to do while in Vinton. This is still a growing event and we look forward to hosting this in Vinton again in 2014.

Economic Development is always a hard thing to measure & predict. That being said, we did have 3 large companies looking at Vinton for expansion and start-up opportunities. As always, we worked with our local resources to put some great information together to attract these businesses to town. We had and continue to have several retail business prospects. Our Business Opportunity Group has set a goal of working toward making Vinton a more accommodating community when it comes to housing. There are several areas of the community where we could utilize "in-fill," however, our current zoning ordinances don't allow for much of that with the small lot sizes. BOG hopes to work with the City Council, the City Coordinator, and other members in the community to create a plan to create a more favorable housing environment. We could use your thoughts and ideas!

Looking ahead to this year and beyond, I have a couple of goals that I would like your input and help accomplishing. First of all, I would like to update the Vinton Unlimited website. I would love your suggestions as to what you would like to see on our website and how we could more effectively utilize this resource and integrate it into the lives of our membership and community.

I would also like to work with our membership to create more awareness about our organization throughout the community and beyond. My marketing background tells me this is called "Branding" and VU is off to a good start...but we need to be better than good. We need to be Great when it comes to promoting the organization and more importantly, our Community! We need to share what we have and we need everyone to help with this task. There is a lot I know about this community, but as one of my board members always says, "You don't know what you don't know." So, I guarantee there are hidden gems in Vinton that I have no idea about. Please tell me if you know of one and better yet...write a short article about it and I'll MAKE SURE it gets published and the word gets out! If you're not good at writing, I'm sure I can help with that as well...but I need your knowledge, wisdom, & expertise to get this done.

There is so much going on in the Vinton Community, but there is always room for improvement. Many people fear that if they come to meetings like this or other committee meetings, they will be roped into doing something they don't have time for. Well, don't fret, we won't "Rope" you into anything. We ask for help and we encourage our membership to step in and be a Champion for their community. We want to create "Task Forces" rather than "Committees." There CAN be an end date to the work or project you take on....in fact, there should be. We want your HELP not your entire life!

Champions aren't made by themselves. It takes the work of many to create the success of One. Think, for a moment, about an Olympic Champion. Who helped make them successful? Trainers, sparing counterparts, equipment specialist, the family behind them encouraging them along the way to success, and so many more. We can't create Champions in Vinton on our own, but we can encourage an atmosphere of working together to create them one by one.

Plumbers, Retailers, Machinists, Medical Professionals, Bankers, Construction Workers, City Employees, Volunteers, Media, Business Professionals, and so many more. We're all Champions in our own right.

The Vinton Unlimited Board appreciates your help. I APPRECIATE YOUR HELP! We've all heard, "Many hands make light work," well, I'm here to thank you for your hand and ask you to continue working toward making Vinton, Iowa, a Community full of Champions!

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce the 2014 Vinton Unlimited Board of Directors:

Jon Clingman, President

Kristi Storey, Vice President

Kathy Tranel, Secretary

Dan Engledow

Jeff Horne

Don Eells

Bethany Clemenson

Sue Travis

Bob Koenigsfeld

Debbie Corkery

Dan LaGrange

[VIDEO]