Chamber Briefs

Bonfires, events coordinators and Butte Bucks

Early season fire!
Crested Butte’s newest celebratory party event is scheduled for the upcoming weekend and it should be hot. Not only hot, but bright and fast and fun.

The Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce Twelfth Night celebration will take place Sunday, January 6 at 5:30 p.m. in the chamber parking lot near Crested Butte’s Four-way Stop. The focus of the event, in traditional Crested Butte fashion, is fire. Burning Christmas trees, in fact, will provide the fun and fury as families sip complimentary hot chocolate as they watch the remains of their holiday symbols incinerate.
Chamber executive director Dan Marshall said people can drop off their Christmas trees Sunday morning starting at 8:30. The fire area will be at the northeast back end of the parking lot.
“The Christmas trees are probably going to be pretty dry so this shouldn’t take very long,” Marshall said. “I know [Crested Butte councilman] Jim Schmidt said his town used to do this and it’s pretty impressive. We are in the learning stage but we know that these things will probably burn fast and bright. We want to do it at about 5:30 p.m. since the sun will start to go down about then and it will be getting cold. We’ll have hot chocolate for people. This could be pretty cool. We expect there to be a good fire.”
Marshall explained that the tie-in to the Twelfth Night comes from an 11th century tradition where January 5 or 6 marks the ending of the traditional 12 days of Christmas. As part of the pageantry in Europe, the greenery used to celebrate Christmas is taken outside and burned. Why not? Let’s not even get into the potential costume aspect involved or the traditional appointment of a “king” to rule over Twelfth Night festivities…

Seeking events coordination
The Chamber of Commerce is seeking proposals from people or organizations that want to take over the coordination of the four main chamber events: Bike Week, Restaurant Week, the Fourth of July celebration and the Fall Beer and Chili festival. A Request for Proposals (RFP) is available online at the chamber website. According to Marshall, the chamber is essentially looking into outsourcing the event coordinator job for the big events.
“The smaller things like sidewalk sales and such will be handled in-house,” he said. “When I came on board we had an events coordinator and a membership director and now those positions have been eliminated. Adam Stichter stepped up and did a great job in the transition but having one person coordinate these events is tough. The timing of Bike Week and the Fourth is on top of one another.
“The idea is that perhaps we attract people with specific interests in the events and they can bring fresh energy to the event and grow them,” Marshall continued. “Take me, for example. I like to ride mountain bikes and road bikes but don’t know how to organize a bike race like the Fat Tire 40. But there are people out there who are passionate about it. We want to tap into their expertise.”
Interested parties can go to cbchamber.com and get further details about the RFP. As part of any proposal, the chamber is looking for how an event could be expanded, what sort of budget is involved and what goals of success can be measured. Marshall said he hopes that whoever is chosen for each event will figure out how to work together and with the chamber to coordinate things like sponsorships. “We’ll see what we receive. The deadline is Friday, January 4.”
Marshall said that depending on what sort of budgets are submitted with the RFPs, the move could end up saving the chamber money. “If not, we can reevaluate what we’re doing. In the end, it has to make sense.”

Other Chamber stuff…
The Chamber Butte Bucks promotion ends Tuesday, January 15. So get out and spend those new coins. Marshall said he is anxious to see what sort of redemption rate the chamber gets with the newly minted coins as opposed to the old fashioned Butte Buck dollar bills. He anticipates that some people will keep the coins as keepsakes and not spend the Crested Butte currency.
And if you would like to join the chamber board of directors, there is opportunity. An election will be held for seats on the board by early February. If you want to throw your hat in the ring, contact Marshall at the chamber.