Posted on

Department Leadership Meeting June 2017

Department Leadership Meeting

June 28, 2017

Dave’s Opening Remarks

  • City Hall will remain at its current campus location. Dave was pleased that definitive direction had been provided by City Council. City Hall will not move to Town Center.
  • Dave discussed a number of aspects of our growing City of Virginia Beach
    • Aging population and infrastructure
    • Balance of funding safety, education and recreation
    • Tourism
    • Place to live
    • Importance of City staff leaders being good cheerleaders for the City of Virginia Beach
    • Everyone is encouraged to look at the glass as half full
    • Kempsville Recreation Center reopens this week
    • July 4th – be prepared for traffic and the closure of the Interstate leading into the resort
    • Lesner Bridge gantry was successfully moved across the new structure and aligned for placement over the second set of lanes. Construction Camera shows the new placement of the gantry on the south side of the bridge
    • 19th Street Entertainment District – Financial plans are in place to develop the Dome site and other projects. Recalling days of famous entertainers at the Dome, who will be the next Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix to play Virginia Beach? Political will is now needed to make the projects happen.
  • Enterprise Resource Planning – a phrase that describes replacing several citywide computer applications that manage our financial and human resource programs.
    • The same data would be used for Finance, Management Services and Human Resources
    • Comprehensive application that would be used for budget, payroll, procurement, accounts payable, accounts receivable, human resources and more.
    • Phased project starting in Fall 2017 with completion anticipated over five years
    • Benefits: better controls, streamline processes, real time information.
    • Government Finance Officers Association has been hired to consult with improving our processes
    • Business mapping is currently underway to document our processes
    • Project managers are looking for PIT Crew, or team members to assist with implementation
    • To minimize delays, departments will be expected to change their processes rather than customizing the application
    • Dave has committed considerable resources to implement new technologies
    • Follow this Beachnet link for presentation
  • Library Presentation – Dave’s initiative to share what departments do with DLM – Eva Poole, Director
    • Friday night teen events at Central Library
    • Free publications and periodicals are available including TV shows, movies, audio books, even Roku sticks
    • com – Learning portal for technology
    • Online genealogy and local history
    • 3D printing
    • 10 locations – City employees who are not residents are eligible for free Library Card
  • 19th Street Public Meeting scheduled for June 28 at VBCC – Staff is encouraged to attend these public meetings and have a voice.
  • Monthly Combined Utility Bill will start in July

 

 

Posted on

VB Listed in Men’sHealth Poll of America’s Most Adventurous Cities

Virginia Beach has been listed as one of “America’s Most Adventurous Cities” in Men’s Health. The most populous cities in the nation were analyzed to see which places carry a sense of adventure. Rankings were then determined by Men’s Health‘s in-house criteria, with VB taking seventh place!

The article ran in both print and online. PDF attached. Men’s Health has a circulation of 1,852,715 and receives 10,841,220 unique monthly visitors. The publication has a combined social media following of 13,989,619.

http://www.menshealth.com/guy-wisdom/most-adventurous-cities/slide/4

Posted on

No Summer Vacation at the VBCC

The past few weeks have seen a lot of finales at the VBCC.  The VBCC hosted the City of Virginia Beach School’s graduation ceremonies with approx. 5,000 students from all high schools as well as South University’s commencement ceremony. Then the following week saw the Virginia Beach Schools Retirement Banquet honoring retirees from the school system.  But with these endings comes other beginnings!  Access College held a scholarship luncheon awarding almost $1 million in scholarship money to 184 students from local schools across the Hampton Roads area.  Each of the students was awarded $5,000 toward their college education. Congratulations to all the graduates, retirees and scholarship recipients!

vbcps grad Access vbcps retirement south

Posted on

VBCC Tests Their Electricity Load Shedding Abilities!

Last week, the Convention Center’s participated in the CPower Emergency Demand Response program (i.e. – the Electricity Load Shedding Event).  The event began at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday tested the facility’s ability to reduce electricity demand in the event of a power shortage.  CPower is working with the electricity conglomerate PJM to manage the electricity grid in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.  PJM operates a competitive wholesale electricity market and manages the high-voltage electricity grid to ensure reliability for more than 65 million people.

Check it out!

2017-06-22_LoadSheddingTest

fdghdfg

fghhdfgh dfghdf

Posted on

VB Presence Grows in Chinese Social Media Platform, Weibo

The Virginia Beach tourism Weibo social media account recently secured 557,618 followers thanks to more than 1,100 posts promoting the “Live the Life” vacation brand. The Pacific Asia Travel Association, which analyzes international travel and tourism trends in the Asia-Pacific region, forecasts that nearly five million Chinese travelers will visit the U.S. each year by 2020 with an annual growth rate of about 13 percent during the next five years. By 2020, China will be the largest international source market for the U.S. excluding Canada and Mexico. This will cause a pivotal shift in the visitor pie chart that has been dominated by Japan and the U.K. for decades. In 2016, the Chinese traveler market was the number one market for the Capital Region USA with more than 300,000 Chinese arrivals. It is important for Virginia Beach to have this rapidly growing market as a focus in its International marketing strategy. China currently ranks in the top five markets visiting our region. Showcasing unique experiences, here is a sampling of the CVB’s recent social media efforts in China to raise awareness of Virginia Beach as a fun, world-class leisure vacation destination.

Posted on

CVB Familiarization Tour

The Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Meetings and Conventions sales team recently hosted 10 meeting planners from across the United States for a familiarization tour of Virginia Beach. These tours incentivize planners to consider Virginia Beach as a destination for their upcoming meetings & conventions. On the final day of their tour, they were introduced to the ViBE Creative District where they had a chance to meet and speak with local ViBE representatives, learn about our emerging creative arts and cultural district. As their day winded down, they excitedly joined in an activity designed to allow them to leave a creative mark on our city. Here they are seen in front of their work: a unique geometric mural which now hangs in the ViBE district parklette.

Posted on

VB SPORTS MARKETING HAS BUSY WEEKEND ON TAP

VB Sports Marketing will be hosting three events this weekend in the Princess Anne Commons area  of Virginia Beach including the US Field Hockey Club Qualifier, featuring  an estimated 480 athletes/810 spectators at US Field Hockey Training Center, the 8th Annual Beach Bash Lacrosse Tournament at the Princess Anne Athletic Complex with 1,000 athletes/1,000 spectators and 400 athletes/700 spectators at the Princess Anne Athletic Complex for Baseball Youth Majors.

In FY17 VB Sports Marketing hosted 55 events in the Princess Anne Commons area which had an estimated total attendance of 117,714 and 29,749 hotel room nights. Thank you to our partners at the Princess Anne Athletic Complex/Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation Department, the Hampton Roads Soccer Complex, Virginia Beach Fieldhouse, YMCA/TIDE Swimming, Virginia Beach SportsPlex and the US Field Hockey Regional Training Center for recognizing the value of sports tourism and assisting with providing award-winning customer service.

If you or someone you know attends a championship sports event somewhere else in the US that you think would be a great fit for one of the awesome venues in the Princess Anne Commons Area, please reach out to the VB Sports Marketing team at 757-385-6673.  Help is bring more great events to the City! For more information about VB Sports Marketing, please log on to www.vbsports.com.