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The Crookston Visitors Bureau approves of multiple grant requests at first meeting of 2025

The Crookston Visitors Bureau held its annual board meeting on Tuesday, January 21, at 7:00 a.m. at The Irishman’s Shanty. The board quickly got down to business, approved minutes from the November meeting, and heard the Treasurer’s Report. 

The meeting then turned to the numerous grant applications that they have received for 2025.  The first one up for discussion was the 286 Sno Series Grant which had previously been approved by the board. “Everyone knows how the winter has been going. There has been an extreme lack of snowfall and not enough for them to hold their event in Crookston,” says Board Chair Bob Magsam. “It was moved to Fertile, which is good that they had a plan B and they were able to make it work for the kids and their racing.” The board decided that they would table their reimbursement of the event while they reach out to have some discussions and move on this item at a later time.  The feeling was that reimbursing the event in full was not ideal as the event was not able to happen in Crookston.

There were multiple new grant applications today starting with Ox Cart Days Committee.  James Pogatshnik was on hand to present the application.  Ox Cart Days was asking for $5,000 a year for four years for a total of $20,000.  The Board said they are always willing to support Ox Cart Days but that a year at a time is what they can do. “We have always supported Ox Cart Days and we did award them up to a $5,000 Marketing/Advertising Grant for Ox Cart Days,” says Magsam. “That board continues to do great things for the Ox Cart Days Event, which is great for our community, great for our businesses, hotels, etc.”

The CVB read and discussed a grant application from the Pickleball Club for an upcoming tournament. “They are going to host a pickleball tournament in Crookston very early in April,” says Magsam. “That was a pretty cut and dry application in what they wanted to do and pickleball gaining such great support and bringing in outside individuals to participate our board did approve .” The amount of the grant awarded to the Pickleball Club is $2,965.

Next up was a grant application for “With Her Hands”, an art event series coming to UMC in March. “We did partner with UMC on a different grant last year, this is going to be in correlation with Women’s Month, I believe,” says Magsam. “They have a bunch of events planned out there at the university,” Magsam said all the information in the application met the criteria, so the board unanimously approved the $1,000 grant request for Marketing/Advertisement of their event.

The last grant application was from Ice Busters. “The last grant request that came in was for Ice Buster Days,” says Magsam. “Ice Buster Days is coming up; it’s a fishing event coming up on February 8.” The request is for $1,000 for Marketing/Advertisement assistance. The board voted unanimously to approve the grant request to Ice Buster Days for $1,000.

The Crookston Visitors Bureau board got a visit from Fred Parnow with Get Kids Outdoors. Parnow was at the meeting for informational purposes only and was met with a great reception by the board. “It wasn’t a grant application but looking for information on how we can potentially do future grants to assist them with certain Marketing/Advertising of what their organization is and events that they are going to uphold, “ says Magsam. “ We certainly took no action on that at this time but had a great discussion with Fred and will continue discussions and see how we can potentially help him out.”

Finally the board discussed the Community Voice App and how they felt it was working for Crookston residents since it started up. “There was a discussion on the Community Voice App. Many are familiar with what that Community Voice App is,” says Magsam. “ The Crookston Visitors Bureau did fully sponsor that to get the ball rolling for people in Crookston and in the surrounding areas” Magsam explained that the Community Voice App keeps residents up to date on events, what’s going on with different entities, and different businesses. Renewal for the app is coming up in April, so the board was just starting a discussion to decide if they will renew.  Magsam says they are going to take a little time putting together some numbers on how many people are using the app, and renewal will be back on the agenda for the April meeting.

The Board for 2025 had no changes to its Officers.

Chair – Bob Magsam

Vice Chair – Ellie Fee

Treasurer – Dean Adams

Secretary – Jess Bengston

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