The Express Track The Galesburg Area Chamber of Commerce advocates for area business and member interests, while providing quality resources, services and leadership to its current and future members.

GALESBURG AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE NEWSLETTER

November 2014- Vol 2014, Issue 11

Key Note Speaker - Owen Muelder 2014 Thomas B. Herring Award will be presented

Sat. 1 Nov, 2014Claire Ashley Exhibition (Fri. 17 Oct, 2014 6:00 pm - Sat. 15 Nov, 2014 6:00 pm)

An exhibition of inflatable artwork by Claire Ashley of Chicago, IL. The works will be displayed in both the Joanne R. Goudie and Blick Galleries at the Galesburg Civic Art Center. An opening reception is planned for Friday October 17th from 6-8pm.

Galesburg Civic Art Center’s Fall Gala (Sat. 1 Nov, 2014 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm)

This annual fundraising event features food, drink, music and auction items. Details will be available in early fall.

Sat. 15 Nov, 2014Knox-Galesburg Symphony Concert 7:30PM (Sat. 15 Nov, 2014 1:30 pm)

The award-winning Knox-Galesburg Symphony (KGS) will feature thirteen-year old violinist, Masha Lakisova, and her mother, pianist Lyudmila Lakisova at its November 15th subscription concert. The concert, sponsored, in part, by G&M Distributors, will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Orpheum Theatre, in Galesburg, IL. The KGS, under the direction of artistic director/conductor Bruce Polay, will perform Mozart’s Symphony Nr. 37 in G Major , Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture, and Michaels’ “Danzetta” for String Orchestra, a work from the KGS International Call for Scores. Masha and Lyudmila Lakisova will perform in Mendelssohn’s Concerto in D minor for Violin and Piano. Masha Lakisova is a regular guest of many prestigious concert series and has achieved highest awards in the Illinois Music Association Competition, the Midwest Young

Artists (MYA) National Walgreens Competition, the National Discover Chamber Music Competition, and the National Granquist Geneva Days Music Competition, among others. She has performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory, and Chicago Cultural Center. In addition to her solo performances, Masha is concertmaster of the MYA Youth Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared on NPR’s “From the Top” and featured live on WFMT’s “Introductions.” Upon graduating from the Belorusian State Conservatory’s School of Music for Gifted Children, Masha’s mother, Lyudmila Lakisova, performed with the Belorussian State Symphony. She has toured England, Africa, Asia, and has been a featured soloist and ensemble performer with many orchestras in the Chicago area. Additionally, Lakisova has performed in many well-known venues, including Carnegie Hall.

Fri. 21 Nov, 2014Jared Lacy & B. Thomas Lytle Exhibition (Fri. 21 Nov, 2014 10:00 pm - Wed. 31 Dec, 2014 10:00 pm)

An exhibtion of mixed media work by Jared Lacy and sculpture by B. Thomas Lytle both of Knoxville, IL. The exhibition will be on display November 21 - December 31, 2014. An opening reception is planned for November 21 from 6-8pm.

Sat. 22 Nov, 2014Jared Lacy & B. Thomas Lytle Exhibition (Fri. 21 Nov, 2014 10:00 pm - Wed. 31 Dec, 2014 10:00 pm)

An exhibtion of mixed media work by Jared Lacy and sculpture by B. Thomas Lytle both of Knoxville, IL. The exhibition will be on display November 21 - December 31, 2014. An opening reception is planned for November 21 from 6-8pm.

NOVEMBER

Community

Events

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Bailey Moving & Storage Inc.Marc Bailey

923 Pennsylvania Ave.297-4195

Radio ShackMichael Marchant

503 Knox Square Dr.344-2444

Ride & RunDrew Kleine

235 E. Main St.351-7674

River Crossing Rehab, LLCMichelle Young1145 Frank St.

342-2103

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WELCOME NEW MEMBERS

Thank you to the following businesses who renewed their

membership We value your support and participation!

BSure Home Inspection Environmental LLC

Cottage Rehabilitation &Sports Medicine

Four Seasons

Lindstrom’s

Tri States Public Radio

Unique Personnel Consultants Inc.

Woodridge Supportive Living Residence

Airbnb, Lyft and the Sharing Economy

We are all familiar with the traditional way to book rooms and rent automobiles on a trip. We can call, click or download apps that will find us rates and availability for everything we need from the hotel and travel industry. There is an unconventional wave of options that some are calling revolutionary and others are calling illegal.

Through the cultural phenomenon of a Sharing Economy we can find overnight accommodations and a “lyft” to anywhere we want. For many this is part of a new trust based cultural shift in the world. According to an article by Jason Tanz, Executive Editor of WIRED a San Francisco based magazine with up to date info on the digital world and social trends; “the sharing economy has come on so quickly and powerfully that regulators and economists are still grappling to understand its impact.”

To break this down, if I want to find an affordable overnight accommodation in New York, Paris, Rome, Peoria and even Galesburg, I can navigate to airbnb.com. I can rent “unique places to stay by local hosts in 190 countries.” There are mansions, houses, apartments, bedrooms, duplexes and other places to stay when traveling. These unconventional locations require a little bit of adventure or a certain comfort zone to book. However, this trend seems to be catching on with Millennials. They are young consumers who were born in the nineties or later.

In fact, this method of booking a room often goes without any “bed tax.” This makes it somewhat controversial in the lodging industry, to say the least. It has also drawn criticism from rent stabilized New York City residents who are seeing their buildings lose long-term residents in favor of “illegal” short term rentals at a substantial profit to landlords.

The legality of Airbnb rentals in New York City have been under fire for a while now, and the city just fired another volley: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has released a report titled “Airbnb in the city,” and it’s not particularly favorable. The report claims that 72-percent of all private short-term rentals are illegal -- specifically because they were rentals for an “entire/home apartment” for terms of less than a month. The report explains that these kinds of rentals probably should be paying hotel occupancy taxes, and estimates that the city has lost $33 million in tax revenue as a result of the illegal Airbnb rentals. Worse, the report says, small contingents of hosts seem to be using Airbnb to run illegal hotels.

In San Francisco, Airbnb navigated its way to legality. “The peer-to-peer accommodation service had been running afoul of the city’s ban on residential rentals of less than 30 days, a law intended to keep landlords from turning apartments into hotels. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors lifted that ban for people renting out their permanent homes, defined as the

space they inhabited at least 275 days the previous year. In other words: Airbnb hosts.” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek) Once again, it seems a small percentage of hosts are outside the bounds of legality.

Today many people earn extra money by temporarily renting out their entire home (or a room in their house or apartment) through rental services such as Airbnb, HomeAway, or VRBO. If you do this, you may have to pay federal and state income tax on your rental income. Rental services like Airbnb ordinarily report to the IRS the rental payments they send to their hosts each year by filing IRS Form 1099-MISC. So the IRS will know you have such rental income and expect it to appear on your tax return.Unfortunately, the tax rules involved can be complex. But it’s up to you to understand and follow them because room and home rental services won’t do it for you.

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Bill MorrisExecutive Director,Galesburg Area

Convention & Visitors Bureaubmorris@visitgalesburg.com

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Tax-Free Rental Income for Short-Term (Less Than 14 Days Annually) Rentals is allowed.

• You can rent out all or part of your home or apartment for up to 14 days per year and all the rental income you receive is tax-free, no matter how much you earn. In fact you don't even have to report the income to the IRS. Your rental income is tax free if, during the year:

• you rent out your home for 14 days or less), and

• the home is used personally for more than 14 days, or more than 10% of the total days it is rented to others at a fair rental price. (IRC Sec. 280A(g).) See the Nolo article Rent Your Vacation Home Tax-Free for details. Nolo: Law for All is a source for free legal information.

According to Wikipedia, Lyft is a privately held, San Francisco–based American transportation network company. The company's mobile-phone app. facilitates peer-to-peer ridesharing by connecting passengers who need a ride to drivers who have a car. Lyft currently operates in 65+ U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City, with plans to expand both domestically and internationally. As of August 2014, Lyft had raised $332.5 million from Coatue, Alibaba, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Mayfield Fund, K9 Ventures, Floodgate, and more.

Lyft and Uber are competing companies that provide “ridersharing.” In Salt Lake City,

Utah, hefty fines, as much as $6.500, have been handed out to “unlicensed” taxi services such as Lyft & Uber. However, they are the only city currently coming down on ridersharing. Each service has varied rates in the 65+ U.S. cities where Lyft & Uber are currently operating.

The Sharing Economy (Mesh) is an economic model predicated on the sharing or meshing of talents, goods and services. This model, also known as collaborative consumption, is enabled by technology that makes connections between people, goods and services more efficient, resulting in new communities, organizations and business models for the public and private sector. These people-to-people or peer-to-peer models create a new opportunity for individuals, communities, governments and corporations to transact and collaborate. The Mesh economy was first articulated by Lisa Gansky in The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing.

In 2011, collaborative consumption was named one of TIME Magazine's 10 ideas that will change the world. The financial crisis of 2007–2010 and subsequent housing bubbles have prompted consumers to reconnect through peer-to-peer marketplaces that turn underutilized assets and resources into new jobs, income streams and community networks. Napster pioneered peer-to-peer file sharing and subsequent platforms have emerged to facilitate the sharing of content, cars, bikes, tools and random household appliances.

It seems this new model for the 21st century is most attractive to Millennials. Capturing their interest (or tourism dollars) may depend on the availability of unconventional overnight accommodations and services. These Sharing services are here in Galesburg and Western Illinois. In the future, we will see more and more people participating in this unconventional sharing of services.

At the Galesburg Area CVB we welcome unconventional Airbnb rentals. Our municipality and our business community must adapt and address the Sharing Economy as it relates to travel. As more Airbnb hosts take advantage of this growing trend, they need to keep tax laws in mind when collecting short term rent. If they follow the laws in place, they will avoid unpleasant revelations in the form of audits or letters of noncompliance.

For more information about the Sharing Economy visit Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharing_economy.For more information about Airbnb visit their website: http://airbnb.com.For more information about Lyft visit their website: http://lyft.com. You can download their app at the Play Store or the Apple App Store.

Bard OpticalCongratulations to Bard Optical for providing 15 years of vision care excellence in Galesburg. Bard Optical held a designer eyewear show and ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the occasion with a portion of the proceeds from the day’s sales being donated to LaGrace Hall of Hope.

Bard Optical Vice-President Mick Hall (holding scissors), District Manager Eric St. Clair and Marketing Director Jane Scott were joined by the staff, Dr. Jackson, LaGrace Hall of Hope Representatives Sandra Miller & Barb Cox and Chamber of Commerce representatives.

Acapulco Restaurant

Animal Medical Center

Azer Medical Supply, Inc.

Bailey Moving & Storage Inc.

Bard Optical bardoptical.com

Best Western Prairie Inn

Breslin's Floor Coverings

Brighter Life Bookshoppe, Ltd.

Burgland Drug

Carpetland USA

Cellular Plus

Delino's

Discount Tobacco Ware House Eichhorn Jewelers

Chez Willy's

Frame Works

Galesburg Animal Hospital, PC

Galesburg Broadcasting Co.

Galesburg Civic Art Center

Galesburg Electric/ Industrial Supply

Galesburg Sign & Lighting, Inc.

Galesburg Toyota Scion

Glass Specialty WLC, Inc.

Four Seasons

Hansen Lumber

Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream

Inner Wisdom

Innkeepers Fresh Roasted Coffee

Jerseys Sports Bar

Kensington

Knox College

Landmark Cafe & Creperie

Lindstrom's TV & Appliance

Martin Sullivan

Midstate Manufacturing Corp.

Nichols Diesel

Old Peking Chinese Restaurant

Owen Family Dentistry

Packinghouse

Peoples Do It Center

Pizza House

Register-Mail

Lance Renfroe, DDS

Rheinschmidt's Carpets

Ride & Run

Kandy Sayrs, DDS

Simpson LTD

Soderstrom Dermatology

Sully's Pub

Thrushwood Farms Quality Meats

Water Works Car Washes

Webber Rental & Supply

Western IL Oral/Maxillofacial Surgery

Xanadu Women's Fashions

Yemm Chevrolet-Buick-GMC

Shop Small Business SaturdayNovember 29, 2014

Check the map for all the shop small businessesbelow is a list of participating Chamber Members

make sure you stop by and shop

Whether you’ve organized a street fair, shopping activity, or community celebration for Nov 29, it’s time to share your event on Eventbrite and help rally your neighborhood on the day.

Invite your community to support local businesses on Small Business Saturday®. Here are a few ways you can encourage your neighborhood to Shop Small®:

• Spread the word about your event on social media using #ShopSmall. Create an invitation for your event and share it with your network.

• Download Shop Small postcards by clicking here. Bring one or both to your local printer and have them printed double-sided, so you can share with your community or local small businesses. You can also hang the banner, share the stickers, and distribute the other merchandise from the Event Kit.

• Share event details with local media to get them involved and get the word out.

Don’t forget to promote your event on Eventbrite and rally your neighborhood to get people excited about the event!

SHARE YOUR PLANS FOR NOV 29Small Business Saturday is less than a month away and American Express would love to hear how your event planning is going. Sharenow.

GET HELP FROM OUR PARTNERSMake the most of Small Business Saturday with help from Premier Partners like FedEx Office, Yelp, and Microsoft Bing. They’re here to help make the day a success. Get started.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION #SHOPSMALL

WTVP Documentary Looks at Central Illinois Tornado Recovery One Year Later

--Locally-produced documentary to premiere on the one-year anniversary of the tornadoes that devastated Washington, Pekin and East Peoria in November 2013--

PEORIA, IL – Chaos struck Central Illinois on Nov. 17, 2013, as more than a dozen twisters descended from the sky. Tazewell County was hit hardest statewide, as a half-mile vortex with 190-mile-per-hour winds ripped through the city of Washington. Entire neighborhoods in Washington were leveled, with some homes swept clean from their foundations. Overall, more than a 1,000 homes and businesses were flattened or severely damaged. Loss of life was limited to three tornado-related deaths, but the physical and psychological scars are just now starting to heal. To celebrate one year of rebuilding, WTVP-Public Media for Central Illinois will premiere a new special that follows recovery efforts throughout the past year. This WTVP Original documentary looks at the lessons learned in the aftermath of the storm, good and bad, and reveals the struggles and triumphs of a community trying to rebuild. November 17th: Finding Strength After the Storm will air Monday, Nov. 17 at 9 p.m. on WTVP 47.1, the first anniversary of the storm.

Viewer discretion is advised as the program features video and audio of the storm. Major support for the broadcast and event comes in part from Caterpillar Inc., CEFCU, Country Financial, Homefield Energy, a Dynegy Company, and Steger’s Furniture. Additional support provided by Otto Baum Company, Inc. and Menold Construction and Restoration.

PUBLIC PREVIEW: The public is invited to a free preview of the documentary on Sunday, Nov. 16 at 4 p.m. at Five Points Washington, 360 N. Wilmor Road in Washington. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required as seating is limited. Tickets are available online at www.wtvp.org. For more information on the public preview, call (309) 677-4747.

Toot Your Own Horn!

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Works by seventeen KCCDD Artists were installed on October 25th at OSF St. Mary Medical Center, and most pieces are for sale. This is a continuation of the quarterly

exhibitions created through the KCCDD Art Program and hosted by OSF St. Mary Medical Center.

The artwork is on public display in the hallway outside the cafeteria, lower level, at the hospital, and the public is invited to view the art

when they visit OSF at 3333 N. Seminary St. in Galesburg.

For purchase, please contact Lisa Boone at KCCDD: 309-344-1700or Christina Durante at KCCDD: 309-344-2600

Dr. Lori Sundberg, CSC President, announces and recognizes Follett Bookstore Management, the new owners of the newly remodeled college bookstore. Dr. Sundberg, Follett Regional Manager Beth Lucero and Patti Behymer, bookstore manager, were joined by Chamber Ambassadors Chris Ryner Doug Gibb and Lance Oetting in the celebratory ribbon cutting.

The college also signed a new contract for food services with the local company Lieber’s Boxcar Express. Dr. Sundberg was very pleased the board chose a local company and the students seem to be very pleased with the offerings provided. Dr. Lori Sundberg, Boxcar Express manager Terry Harding, along with staff, and Chamber Ambassadors, cut a ribbon for the welcoming recognition.

Carl Sandburg College: Follett Bookstore and Lieber’s Boxcar Express

Introducing... Vervocity Interactive

Eric Thomas, President of ETC ComputerLand, is excited to announce that their web design and programming team has been transformed into its own business, Vervocity Interactive. Formerly known as the “ETC Web and Programming Team,” Vervocity Interactive will now be able to take their level of passion and inspiration of website development, custom programming, mobile app development, search engine optimization (SEO), database administration, and interactive services to a whole new level as its own business. This allows the Vervocity team to focus on these growing interactive services and the ability to distinctly brand themselves.

ETC ComputerLand will continue to serve the Tri-State area in network support and IT services out of the Kochs Lane facility while Vervocity Interactive has opened their new office at 133 North 33rd Street in Quincy. Both companies are owned and operated by Eric Thomas.

Vervocity Interactive will continue its commitment as the area’s largest provider of programming and website development with a new name and fresh look. Cody Hageman is manager of Vervocity Interactive and will continue to lead the team of five certified programmers along with designers, SEO technicians, and administrators. We encourage all of our loyal customers to visit our new office and see what Vervocity Interactive is all about.

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“This really permits both businesses to form their own identity and allows a more concentrated approach to their unique talents.” said Eric Thomas. “We are still one big family, but as separate businesses.”

Name(s): ___________________________________________________________________

Business: __________________________________________________________________

Address: ___________________________________________________________________

City, State, Zip: ______________________________________________________________

Phone: ______________________________ Payment Enclosed: $ _______________

Payment is due at time of registration. Must pre-register to attend the event. Registration due by Wednes-day, November 12th. Mail the completed form to Dr. Rita Wilcox at 251 E. Main St., Galesburg, IL 61401 or email DrRita@ThePathGalesburg.com. Checks made payable to Galesburg BNI.

for a

GALESBURG

Join us for a relaxing night out at the Civic Art Center$20 for snacks and an ART PROJECT

Space is limited!call aheadto reserveyour spot

342-7415

114 E. Main

Galesburg

www.galesburgarts.org

e-mail:

info@galesburgarts.org

BYOB 21 and over, please

cups, ice, openers, etc. on hand

? ? ?Do you miss going to Art Class?

Do you want to work more Creativity into your life?

Do you want to hang out with other Creative people?

Thursday, October 2, 7:00 - 9:00 pm

Tie-Dye Silk Scarves with Julie Swanson-Davis

Thursday, November 6, 7:00 - 9:00 pm Monoprint Mania with Nikkie Ponce

Thursday, December 4, 7:00 - 9:00 pmGlass Fusionwith Judi Minor