Holiday Dazzle Parade
With the lack of snow and cold weather, this year, it seems really difficult to get into the “holiday spirit”. We’re used to least a foot of snow on the ground and temperatures hovering around zero for weeks straight, at this time of the year.
There’s a chance to inject a little bit of that spirit into our lives, tonight, though. The annual Holiday Dazzle on Main Parade starts at 7:00pm, tonight, Friday, November 25th! The parade will run from South to North on First Ave., ending just before the railroad tracks. Trophies will be given out to floats for Best Dazzle, Most Original Theme, Most Outstanding Amateur Float, Most Outstanding Civic or Non-profit float, and The Mayor’s Choice Award. The trophies will be given out at the After Parade Party at Shady’s inside the Gladstone Inn & Suites.
There will be refreshments and entertainment by the Jamestown Choralaires.
We’ll see you all there!
Does This Make Sense?
So much for creating more efficiency in the postal service. In order to reach a savings of only $11,873 per year, the USPS has decided to get rid of the Jamestown postmark and double the delivery time to the south and west. Mail something to your next door neighbor and it will travel about 200 miles before getting there.
I can understand the need to cut costs. The USPS has been borrowing money to stay afloat, already. Considering that this change will only save less that $12,000 per year, is it really worth it, though?
The story states that there has been a 50% drop in first-class mail in the past 10 years and the volume of mail will continue to drop over the next decade. What the story does not say is how the USPS has been inundated with deliveries that it handles for UPS/FedEx. Through “special deals” with other shipping services, the USPS has essentially become an arm of the other delivery companies.
When more and more people are ordering items online, services like UPS are used more frequently than ever. The UPS deal with the USPS allows them to drop items off at local post offices for “last mile” delivery at a deeply discounted rate. UPS ends up making more money (because they charge more) and they also save a bundle, since they don’t have to do as much driving (especially in rural areas).
This creates more work for USPS workers while they make less money per delivered item. The business model simply does not work. The changes that are coming for Jamestown’s post office in January is a big step backwards, and the savings that it creates is very small
From the Jamestown Sun:
JAMESTOWN, N.D. – Jamestown’s mail-processing operations will be relocated to Fargo by January 2012, the U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday.
“It’s partially cost saving. It’s also part of what we’re doing overall with our network with less volume to bring into our system,” said Pete Nowacki, regional spokesperson for USPS.
The move of processing operations out of Jamestown to Fargo will save USPS $11,873 annually. Jamestown is one of 252 plant consolidation studies nationwide as a way to respond to a decrease in mail volume.
At the Fargo facility, Jamestown mail will be processed with newer and better technology and equipment before it reaches its location, Nowacki said.
The decision comes after a USPS study that began March 18.
Nationally there has been a 20 percent decline in mail volume since 2007. First-class single-piece mail has been reduced by 50 percent over the past 10 years, Nowacki said.
“Mail volumes are going to drop for the next 10 years so we’re changing our network and facilities to reflect that,” he said.
The consolidation could result in some Jamestown employees being relocated in accordance with the USPS employees’ collective bargaining rights. Nowacki was unsure of the number.
“It depends on openings and how the agreement is applied,” he said.
There are currently 15 clerks and two maintenance employees at the Jamestown Post Office.
New with the change will be overnight delivery from Jamestown to northwestern Minnesota and Grand Forks. However, delivery from Jamestown to Bismarck and Aberdeen will take two days.
Mail in town will keep getting overnight delivery, even though that piece of mail travels from Jamestown to Fargo and then back to Jamestown.
There will be no change to delivery or retail sale options locally.
But with the consolidation of mail processing in Jamestown to Fargo the city of Jamestown will lose its postmark, unless senders request it at the post-office window.
With local mail traveling so far before it makes it to its location in Jamestown, weather concerns USPS. But Nowacki said it’s nothing that USPS isn’t comfortable with and that mail is delivered in winter conditions all the time.
“We understand that we’re going to have weather difficulties and does it shut us down sometimes, yes, it can,” Nowacki said.
More Hotel Rooms Would Be A Good Thing
It’s definitely been a busy summer, and it shows, by the amount of stuff that I’ve written, here. In the previous post, I talked about a travel conference that was held in Fargo, in April. Since then, a lot has happened… especially the travelling.
For the past three months, all of the hotels in Jamestown have been completely full almost every night. There have been a few “slow” nights, but I would guess that 95% of the time, they have all been full. Some of the reason is due to events happening in town, but most of the reason is because everything to the west of Jamestown has been full, as well.
It seems like every night, there are a large amount of people that had expected to stop in Dickinson or Bismarck but had to keep moving east because there was nothing available over there.
This is great for the hotels in town, but very bad for the people that are traveling. More rooms in town might mean a slight drop for individual hotels (that may not completely fill), but would be a great thing for the many people that end up sleeping in their cars, or worse, continue driving when completely tired.
2011 ND Travel Conference
I recently went over to Fargo to attend the annual ND Travel Conference. Many different people from many different businesses and attractions in North Dakota were there. Obviously, much of the focus of the three day conference was about how we can attract visitors to the state. There were a lot of great ideas flying around, the whole time. Many of them involved the use of social media… Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
There was also a lot of invited speakers and other people at the conference talking about teamwork. Not only teamwork within our various companies and organizations, but teamwork with other people in our communities and around the state. The idea of “teamwork” was actually transformed into a need for “networking” with people in North Dakota who understand the things that are so great, here in our state.
What I learned at the conference, I will be using to connect with people in Jamestown. Rather than seeing different businesses as competing with each other, I will view them as partners in the same goal. That goal is to focus on all of the good things about our town (and our state) and help get the word out to others, so they can come see for themselves.
The truth is, no matter where you work, it is in your best interest to highlight all of the positive things about our community. This is where we live. This is where we want people to come visit. And, yes… this is where we want people to spend their money. The more people that are here… either visiting or moving in… the better place it will become for everybody.
Acknowledge the negatives, but highlight the positives. There are definitely more positives than negatives, anyway.
If you would like to connect with me, you can follow me on Twitter @JTownCentral.
Register For The Run
Without knowing how many people are planning to register for the Runnin’ O’ The Green, I’m going to predict that the 33rd annual will not be any sort of record-breaker. I know that a lot of people look forward to this fantastic charitable event, but my feeling isn’t too good about this one. I hope I’m wrong.
I’m sure that there will be plenty of people to keep businesses in town busy, and there will be lots of fun to be had. I just have a feeling that the number of people participating will be lower than the past couple of years.
Businesses in Jamestown might not see as big of a bump as they’ve seen in previous years, because of this. Even though North Dakota has one of the best economies in the nation, people are still feeling some of the pinch from things beyond our control. Rising gas and food prices will have an effect on how much people spend, elsewhere.
Even if people drink just one less drink to save a little cash, I hope that they do register at Shady’s on Friday night or at the beginning of the run on Saturday. Last year, just over half of the people that took part in the run were registered. If you’re going to participate, please register. After all, the main reason for the Runnin’ O’ The Green is to raise money for cancer patients and Camp Grassik.
I hope my prediction is wrong about this year not being a record-breaker. We’ll see.
Tom Simpson