Communities in Bloom seeks pride of place in city marketing materials
By Kyra Hoggan
Castlegar Communities in Bloom (CiB) is riding the incredible success of an entire decade, and is now asking the city to include their efforts in municipal marketing undertakings such as entrance signage and the city website.
At its regular meeting Monday night, council heard from a CiB delegation headed by B.C. CiB chair Darlene Kalawsky, who is well known for her tireless work on behalf of the organization.
“We have a small budget for street banners at the entrances to the city,” Kalawsky said, adding places like Blueberry, Highway 3 entrances (coming from Salmo and Grand Forks), the airport highway entrance and the Robson entrance could all use some sprucing up, and they’d like to see that sprucing include reference to CiB and its undertakings.
“When you come into the community, there’s very little signage – you don’t even know where Millennium Park is,” she said, adding additions like the CiB logo and the CiB designations Castlegar has won (including being a Five Bloom community) would make attractive additions where the city promotes itself.
She also pointed out that CiB information on the city website is out of date and requires editing, and asked that there be some sort of banner or audio/visual feed at the West Kootenay Regional Airport, that speaks to the city support of CIB program.
Finally, she pointed out that, while there is mention of CiB on the second floor of City Hall, the ground floor, with its main entrance and public area, holds nothing of the kind – Kalawsky asked that there be some sort of pamphlets or banners or posters (or any combination thereof) to mark the significance of the organization.
Councillor DebMcIntosh said that CiB, “certainly brings that ‘wow’ factor to the community,” while mayor Lawrence Chernoff said the city values the organization’s efforts and will consider the requests as the city proceeds with its branding process.
“It’s time, now, to move on to the next step of branding, which is when we’ll invite Communities in Bloom, the Chamber of Commerce, and everyone, to discuss exactly how we want to move forward,” he said.
A list of CiB accomplishments to date is as follows:
· Castlegar Communities in Bloom Committee Accomplishments from 2005 – Ten Years
· 2007 Provincial Landscape Award
· 2008 Provincial Award Winner 5 Blooms
· Hosted Provincial Conference
· 2012 National Award Category Winner
· 2014 International Challenge Category Winner
· 2014 Nominated for 3 Outstanding Achievement Awards
· 2015 Class of Champions 5 Blooms (2nd place finish)
· 2015 Outstanding Achievement Award for Tidiness (Presented by Natura)
· 2015 Nominated for Outstanding Achievement for Community Involvement
