We’re pleased to announce the three finalists of our Preservation Month Photo Contest and need your help picking the winner!
To vote, click on each photo below to view it, select your favorite, and click vote.
Voting will continue through Friday, June 30. We’ll announce the winner of the 2013 Preservation Month Photo Contest on Monday, July 1.
With Ohio photographic fame and a Revitalize Ohio cover image on the line, the stakes are high! Good luck to our finalists! Update June 28: Voting has almost closed. If you haven’t voted yet, make sure you vote for your favorite! We’ll announce the winner here on Monday! Update July 1: Congratulations to Kirstin Krumsee, the winner of Heritage Ohio’s Preservation Month 2013 Photo Contest! The interior of the Victoria Opera House struck a nerve with our voters. Touted as the last remaining opera house in Fairfield County, the Victoria has very concerned citizens on its side, as it faces an uncertain future.
The Victoria Opera House, our winning entry
Thanks to everyone who voted for our three finalists. We’ll feature Kirstin’s winning image on a future cover of Revitalize Ohio.
Heritage Ohio staff and about 40 Ohioans, including Main Street Managers, and downtown revitalization advocates attended the conference, hosted this year in New Orleans. Having just completed 5 days of inspirational and educational sessions, I thought I would share my top ten things learned, in no particular order:
1. The JOBS Act of 2012 allows for locavesting and crowd funding, providing more options for financing businesses to create jobs. There are many more platforms than I realized, and they are all slightly different, so finding the right match is important.
2. The Entrepreneur – the term is thrown around so much we’ve begun to lose sight of who we mean. It can be anyone: a car mechanic, a gardener, a knitter, a computer geek. Think small, not so big. Make your downtown welcoming to anyone with a business idea; create an environment of support where business can thrive.
3. Sponsorship – believe in the value of your program and its activities. Develop relationships with your sponsors with as much thought to the follow-up as to the ask.
4. Streetscape projects can be challenging for downtown businesses. Effective communication, frequent progress meetings and a creative attitude will get the community through the process.
5. Business Enhancement Committees can create a Recruitment Manual to give them structure month after month to make the best use of your market analysis data and help you find the new businesses that belong in your community. Court your new business candidates.
6. Fundraising isn’t so hard when everyone is able to share the story of your downtown. Use your revitalization statistics. Tailor your story to the listener’s style.
7. What is trending in 2013? Diversity, young talent, young women, deliberate spending, shortened commutes, health and wellness, main stream technology.
8. Transportation – Reduce our car-centric decisions. Walkable communities are the future. Healthy and hip, they attract the young people, your town’s future.
9. Millennials (under 30 yrs.) – get them on your board and committees, or you may go the way of the dinosaurs.
10. New Orleans is a party city.
Thousands of communities across the country are doing creative work in revitalizing their downtowns and neighborhood commercial centers. You too can be part of this amazing process, it’s all about the can-do attitude.
