New president for Penticton Hospitality Association

PENTICTON – As the new President of the Penticton Hospitality Association Barb Haynes is excited to help move the organization forward.

The hospitality association reflected on last year’s successes, including the court case with the City of Penticton over allegations of financial mismanagement, which the association won, and planned for a busy 2015 at its annual general meeting Monday, March 30, at the Penticton Lakeside Resort.

“We spent some time summarizing the court case in order that everyone understood all the facts surrounding the decision,” Haynes said, noting the group was focused on moving in a forward direction in 2015.

Also present at the meeting was Penticton Mayor Andrew Jakubeit, who expressed his congratulations to the association for their work. He also presented the city’s vision for sports tourism.

“There’s lots of work to do — we’re excited. We just introduced a brand new website called Explore Penticton. We want to build on that theme,” she said.

The association also wish to work collaboratively with Tourism Penticton, Haynes said, adding they had a 'great discussion' with the city in that regard.

“After all, it’s all about attracting people to come to Penticton,” she noted.

Stacey Tonita is the association's new vice president, while Barb Schneiderat takes on the secretary-treasurer’s role. Rob Appleman is past president and Tim Hodgekinson will serve as administration-director. Trinka Pontes, Bing Wu, Paul Buttar and Christine Galloway will serve as directors.

Haynes comes to the president’s position with a background as a festival and events planner. She has also worked in tourism and served for nearly six years as Executive Director of the Downtown Penticton Association. She has also served as general manager with Challenge Penticton and operations manager with last year’s Boonstock Arts and Music Festival. Haynes currently also serves as chair of the Downtown Penticton Revitalization Committee.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.