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New Logo, Sign, Website & Brochures in Manchester’s Future

The Manchester Downtown Development Authority (DDA) has been busy in 2014, working on several projects aimed at actively promoting tourism in Manchester. A special presentation on these activities will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 9 at the Manchester District Library.

The first project involved developing a visually appealing and unique logo for Manchester. A DDA committee worked with local graphic artist Brenda Queen to develop this logo, which will be used on tourism-related literature and campaigns.

The second project is to work with M-Live Media Group to develop a website dedicated to Manchester tourism, which will allow for a central posting of all community activities, attractions and other tourism related information. The website will be mobile-friendly, and show activities grouped by season. The website will use the www.manchestermi.org address currently used by the Chamber of Commerce, and the www.48158.com website will now be dedicated to Chamber news, activities and other matters of interest to Chamber members. This tourism website will launch soon.

A significant part of the groups’s effort was to develop better way signage for persons coming into our downtown. The third project will be to install a three-sided sign during the spring of 2015 at the northwest corner of M-52 and Main Street, near the seating area. Approximately 16,000 vehicles come into our town through this intersection each day. The sign will include a map with key points identified and a container for take-way handouts, an historical description of Manchester, and a display for current event flyers.

The fourth project is to develop promotional activities and materials for the agricultural heritage around the Manchester area. This included developing and conducting the first Manchester Black Sheep Festival, held in August at the Farmers Market, which included sheep shearing demonstrations, wool spinning, wool-related products, and lamb offerings at local restaurants. A large crowd attended this event.

The committee also developed and printed tourism brochures entitled “Tour de Barn Quilts” and “Tour de Birds” to promote these driving/biking activities, and to highlight Manchester’s downtown and other attractions to be seen on the tours. This effort will be followed up in 2015 with additional tourism brochures related to Manchester’s history, agriculture, German heritage and unusual things to be seen around the community.

These projects are being funded by a $10,000 grant from the Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau under a program entitled “Community Tourism Action Plan” or “CTAP.” The Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau awarded these grants to each community in Washtenaw County to help develop additional tourism incentives and awareness of what the community has to offer to visitors.

The CTAP grant was matched by $2,000 from the Village of Manchester. Two initial community workshops earlier this year helped identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of our current appeal to visitors, and also identified a variety of potential projects which address the findings of this analysis. From this work, the DDA developed these four projects for 2014. Additional funding is expected later in 2015, that will help the community to pursue additional projects.

Manchester’s  2014 CTAP program results were presented to the Board of the Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau on Nov. 20. The tourism promotion efforts completed under CTAP are also being integrated into the “The Big 400” regional tourism marketing program being conducted in the Washtenaw, Jackson and Livingston Counties area under the Gateway Communities Initiative, in which Manchester has participated since 2010.

by Ray Berg