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LeaderShape Helps Keep the Beach Clean

by on May 9, 2011 in Clean Beaches, Panama City Beach

LeaderShape 2011 Keep the Beach CleanFor the third year in a row, students from Florida State University and Florida A&M University participated in a beach cleanup as a part of their LeaderShape project in Panama City Beach. Students picked up trash at the city pier, passed out trash bags to sunbathers and educated the public on the importance of keeping the beach clean.

Royal American’s GetAwaytotheGulf.com sponsored the cleanup.

 

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Students Speak to the TDC

by on March 9, 2010 in Clean Beaches, Panama City Beach


Marc and Nick stood before Bay County’s Tourist Development Council to thank them for the hospitality and to encourage better options for cleaner beaches. The students suggested securing the trash barrels, offering bags to tourists and making it easy for all to participate in keeping the beach clean. Great job, students!

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KeepTheBeachClean.com Fireworks Cleanup Day – JULY 5

by on June 28, 2007 in Clean Beaches, National Clean Beaches Week, Panama City Beach

As much as I hate to see federal dollars spent on issues that should be resolved by locals, thanks to our hard working senators, we now have National Clean Beaches Week during July 4th.

Please sign up to join the first annual “KeepTheBeachClean.com Fireworks Cleanup Day.” We’ll do it Thursday, July 5th.
All you have to do is send an email with or without your name and let me know what stretch of beach you will cover that day. I will announce through the site what parts are covered, as well as photos. Send an email to info@KeepTheBeachClean.com. Thank you!
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To Rake, or Not to Rake?

by on June 21, 2007 in Panama City Beach

We currently spend over a half million dollars a year in Bay County to clean our beaches. It is expensive to operate high-tech machinery and tractors to groom the beach. According to this article on beach grooming from the Surfrider Foundation, grooming has its negatives, including:

  • Significantly lower diversity and abundance of wrack-associated animals (wrack is seaweed that washes up on our shores from time to time.)

  • Lower abundance of shorebirds

  • Higher relative numbers of flies

  • Lower numbers of native plants

  • Coarser sand

In another article from Surfrider, it claims that the federal government does not allow grooming on most beaches during sea turtle and shorebird nesting seasons, unless a special annual permit is granted where it is proven that no nesting activity exists. As many crazy hoops as Bay County already has to jump through to protect the turtles, how do we avoid this one?

Last year, the TDC renewed a 5 year contract with a company to continue to use tractors, trailors and Barber Surf Rakes on the beach. By the time that contract is over in 2011, I hope to have the TDC convinced that people, not machines, are what we need to keep the beaches clean.

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Sticker

by on June 20, 2007 in Clean Beaches, Panama City Beach

I’ll get this on any beach window that will take them.
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Glass Half Full

by on June 16, 2007 in Panama City Beach

I really believe I’m a glass-half-full kinda’ guy, so I really don’t find too much pleasure in complaining all the time about trash and PCB’s image. I can look at this photo above, and in a glass-half-full kind of way, see that gorgeous Gulf and rush to get in the water. I can see how kids getting out of the wagon after an eight-hour drive would react to the white sand and green-blue water.
But why, oh why, does that pile of trash have to greet us? Why can’t we make sure we do not have trash? It might be a small issue compared to insurance and property taxes — which are money issues — but I see the trash and image as a money issue too. I’m not a tree-hugger trying to save the earth. I’m a marketer who believes the product of Bay County’s beaches is much, much better than the marketing behind it and the customer reps who take care of it.
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These ARE the World’s Most Beautiful Beaches!

by on June 16, 2007 in Clean Beaches, FL, Panama City Beach

So why would anybody do this?…

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Marketing Atlanta

by on June 14, 2007 in Panama City Beach

Today’s Atlanta Journal Constition home page has a couple interesting features that should grab our attention in Bay County.

First, if there’s any negative news about our town, Atlanta loves to poke at it. Girls Gone Wild and Spring Break stories are always promoted at the front, and it always makes Panama City out to be a trash hole.

Panama City Beach is the closest beach to Atlanta. We’re even just as close as Hilton Head, SC, and closer than Georgia’s own St. Simons Island. It’s arguable that other Georgia beaches are closer, but when comparing that part of the Atlantic to our Gulf… is there really any comparison?

Our image in Atlanta is terrible. When I told this to TDC leader Bob Warren, he snapped back that “21% of our visitors come from Atlanta.”

Really? A whopping 21%? (that’s almost a million visitors.) Don’t you think we should be able to boost that number significantly for a huge city that’s only a short drive away? (and soon to be completely 4 lanes?)

We’re 5 hours away from 5 Million people, and the former TDC group decides to spend money marketing to places like Cincinnati, OH. The biggest problem is that the higher-income Atlantans are heading an extra 40-60 miles west of us, and plopping their money in Walton and Okaloosa.

We should focus on renewing our image in Atlanta before we do anything else. They are our low-hanging fruit, and if we clean up this place, we’ll see loads of dollars coming across the Hathaway bridge.

The other interesting article on the AJC site, appropriately titled “Lessons in Hospitality,” indicates a pet-friendly hotel in midtown is doing well. People love their pets, and most markets carve out at least a little place to attract dog owners. It’s crazy to me how the dogs-on-the-beach issue is more important to most Bay Countians than the trash issue. Would you rather step in dog poop, or glass? Or how about a dirty diaper?
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