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DDA Organization Committee Helping Ellijay Boom

The Ellijay Downtown Development Authority (DDA) organization committee met on Thursday, June 7th to help further support the city’s DDA.The organization committee is a new committee formed by the DDA that is responsible for fundraising and getting people involved with the DDA, and helping the DDA make decisions. Attending the meeting on Thursday, were committee members Ellen Grant, Betsy Shepherd, Kerry Gilbert, Lynette Nelson, and Linda Wingate.

Since it was only the commitee’s second meeting, the agenda addressed such issues as Fundraising, starting a Volunteer List, building a Website/Social Media connection, and accessing an Accounting Software for the DDA to use.

At the beginning of the meeting, Ellen Grant of accounting firm RL Jennings announced that she would be conducting the meeting as temporary organization committee Chairperson while regular committee Chairperson Melinda Hadden, also Vice-Chairperson of the city’s main DDA Board, was gone for a training session. Last week, Hadden attended a two-day training session for the program BoomTown 2.0, a pilot program involving six towns in the state that helps the Department of Community Affairs determine how they should provide resources to cities and small towns in the state.

Through the federal government, BoomTown 2.0. provides loans to small businesses, possible street or facade grants, and/or grants for city planning. BoomTown 2.0 will also help explain the program to people, help people work with those programs, and help find money for cities and towns.

Once the meeting started, Grant, having accounting experience, recommended the committee using the accounting software Quickbooks for the DDA’s financial records, saying that the committee could use the software at her accounting firm free of charge for the time being. After the recommendation, the committee then discussed later using an updated version of Quickbooks Online, a version the committee could use anywhere, and then to a more professional version of the Quickbooks program called Quickbooks Pro. An Intuit version of Quickbooks Online Essentials would cost the committee around $30.00 a month for a subscription and a version of an Intuit Quickbooks Pro would cost the committee around $230.00 to buy. The committee said it could update to Quickbooks Online first and then maybe buy Quickbooks Pro in the future.

Following the discussion on accounting software, the committee then discussed starting a local volunteer list. The committee would use the volunteer list to help carry out projects in the community sponsored by the DDA. The committee mentioned that anybody in the community could be a volunteer and discussed how they will contact volunteers once they know more about future projects.

Also in the meeting, the committee talked about how they will build a DDA website so people will know what is going on with the DDA. The committee discussed the ideas of possible domain website names for the website and how the DDA website could offer interactive maps for shoppers that show the businesses in the downtown area. The website would also offer advertising for any businesses interested. Along with the website, the committee suggested using Social Media as a means of communication. The committee went into discussion in the meeting about a new website they could use called Constant Contact, a website combining social media with email. Through Constant Contact, a person has the ability to post messages on their Twitter, Facebook, and Linked-In accounts all at once. This would allow for the DDA to reach many people interested in community projects at the same time, but until then the committee plans on using primarily Facebook as a means of communication.

The DDA has yet to determine a schedule for upcoming events. However, the group will continue past projects, such as the Christmas Ornament project. Currently sponsored by the Better Home Town Committee and initiated in 1996, The Christmas Ornament project is an opportunity for people to buy the year’s Ellijay Christmas Ornament displayed in all of Ellijay’s stores. Also, temporary Chair Ellen Grant said that more projects would probably be in store once regular Chair Melinda Hadden returned from her training session about the BoomTown 2.0 program.

Although, no permanent decisions can be made by the DDA organization committee, just the DDA Board, the DDA organization committee will be a strong arm of the DDA, helping the DDA make decisions and recommending these decisions to the DDA after each meeting.

After the meeting, FYN had the opportunity to speak with temporary Chairperson Grant, of RL Jennings about the committee’s choice for an Accounting Software. Grant said that in the long run she expected the program would be used to keep up with all the finances of the DDA.