Opportunities for work on Selling Hartsville

One person who is a life-long resident of Hartsville said she would like to be part of the Selling Hartsville project that is now ongoing. Earlier today I sent her an email about three of the task forces that are now at work. I thought it might be interesting for others to see this and to have an opportunity to assess if they would like to participate at this stage. So, the following is from that email -- not great prose but fairly specific:
OPPORTUNITIES:
There are two task forces that have begun meeting as a result of the initial Selling Hartsville Report.
LEGACY ENTRANCES:
The first meeting of the Legacy Entrance Task Force is Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. at the Byerly Foundation. This task force is looking at the way in which entrances to the city might become legacy themese. The first report noted that the south entrance to the city by the old Butler property and the old Wal Mart was not very pretty. The report also noted that this could be a fantastic place to highlight the African American legacy that is a major part of Hartsville's history. The Butler Heritage Foundation already is working to build a community center on the old Butler property and there may be ways in both the short term and long term to find ways of highlighting this legacy.
IDEA IS BEING DEVELOPED:
Jim Dawson thought about that and came up with the idea that all of the entrances to Hartsville might be able to be featured from a legacy perspective. For example, at the South East we already have the Coker Seed Agricultural museum and the agriculture legacy could easily be featured there; at the West we have Kalmia Gardens and that gives the beauty, gardening legacy; at the North end you can't miss the Sonoco plant on the right and that brings to mind the industrial and entrepreneurial legacy and then on the East we have the new vista area and the educational connection of Coker the GSSM property and what they have called in the report a "Walk of Scholars". The first task force committee meeting on this topic is Monday at 4 at the The Foundation on the corner of Second Street and East Carolina.
MARKETING TASK FORCE --
A marketing task force will have its second meeting on Wednesday at 4 p.m. at the Foundation. They are also looking for additional participation and Johnna Shirley of Mutual Savings is chairing this task force. It is to come up with a marketing concept of the selling hartsville ideas.The third task force has not yet set a meeting date.
RECRUITING TASK FORCE
It is called the Recruiting Task Force and is going to be meeting with those who have reasons to recruit people to the Hartsville area with the first goal of deciding what they need to help sell Hartsville better and the second goal of putting a plan into place to come up with a message framework that can be shared in these major recruiting situations. The primary focus of the Selling Hartsville report is that a large number of people are looking for the "Lifestyle" that is offered in Hartsville, which they call an understated sophistication not expected of a small town. Finding the "facts" to back up the feeling will be another direction for this task force, I assume. Roger Schrum of Sonoco is going to be pulling that task force together.
Do you have an interest?
If you would be interested in any of these, let me know: rapuffer@byerlyfoundation.org This is an interesting project and one we need to make work in our town.