Do It Downtown Wilmington Initiative Form

On Tuesday January 26th the first meeting of the grassroots Do It Downtown Wilmington group held a wildly successful Do It Downtown Wilmington Initiative Forum (let's just call it DIDWIF).

Held in Ray Baca's and B J McArten's new River Room venue on S. Water Street, the crowd, looking sparse below, grew quickly to 150+ with standing room only. (Calling The River Room "new" is a little misleading, since this very cool space is in a building with heart of the pine posts that are 90 feet long and driven straight down to solid rock - this factoid according to walking downtown historian Bob Jenkins.)

An assemblage of downtown constituency respresentatives including theater, galleries, shops, restaurants, and venues made up the panel, with Star News Reporter/Columnist/Musician/All-roundGood Guy Si Cantwell as the roving moderator. After each panelist spoke for a couple of minutes, most of the meeting consisted of questions and suggestions from attendees.


Si Cantwell at the mic.

Ray Back with a mongo camera.

Singer/musician Susan Savia.


Sabina Newman of SCN Insight.

Roby Powell of Nsalo Salon.

Mother and daughter owners of Two Sisters Bookery, Brooks Preik and her daughter, Angela Napier.



Mike Loch of Crescent Moon Gallery and one of the ownera of Port City Pottery & Fine Crafts.
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Max Deutsch of Sea-Comm Media - promoters who helped get the word out about the meeting.






Roby Powell talking with panelists Ray Worrell of Slice.

Star News Social Media reporter Shannan Bowen and Randy Shackleford, Wilmington's Self-Proclaimed Mayor After Dark.

Brooks Preik and Marge Brown.

Brian and TinaMarie McArten.

Shannan and Ray.


What a turnout! Good job to Joan Loch especially to also to all the other folks who want everyone to Do It Downtown.

Crescent Moon Hosts a Marvelous New Year's Day Brunch

What a great start to the New Year! Marge and I were up and out fairly early this morning to two different fun events hosted and organized by friends.

The first was the Crescent Moon brunch at The River Room in downtown Wilmington. Crescent Moon is a fabulous art glass store located in the Cotton Exchange in Wilmington. All the glass artwork in the store is handcrafted, most, if not all by local glass craftspeople. The store is owned by Joan and Mike Loch, proprietors since 2007. I also learned today that the Loch's moved to a house in Wilmington last year after living on a 45-foot boat on the Cape Fear River for five years! That's pretty cool.

What isn't cool is that with all the photos I took while we were at the brunch today I neglected to get a shot of Joan and Mike - who were our exceedingly warm and gracious hostess and host.

The event was held in Ray Baca's great venue (which also opened in 2009) The River Room at 18 S. Water Street.


Gayle Tabor and Jenn Beddoe of Glynne Soaps were also at the event with a small display of their soaps. Marge and I had fun talking with Gayle and Jenn about the New Year and words or phrases we each were setting as our watchwords for 2010. The mood was definitely upbeat at the whole event, which is definitely a great way to start a new year.


There are two tables in The River Room that showcase event planners. The one below is for A Tent Event, Jeff Holmes' company.


This second exhibit table is by Wendy Wright, whose company is appropriately called, A Beautiful Event.

At one of the many tables with food at the brunch was a display by Jody Carmichael, the owner and cake artist of Hot Pink Cake Stand.

Adjacent was a table with some beautiful pieces from Crescent Moon, including some jewelry handcrafted by Joan's sister Anne Bartlett.


We talked for a while with Susan and Clark Hipp. Susan is an educator, a promoter, and a mainstay at some of the shops in The Cotton Exchange and Clark is an architect, Realtor, real estate developer, and, maybe as of this year, a published author (he has an idea for a very useful book for entrepreneur retailers and professionals - an idea I won't divulge because it's his, but it is pretty cool and an awesome concept). Below are Susan, Clark, and Marge.

We also spoke for a bit with Cynthia and Jake Hunt. Jake owns and runs the Wilmington Junior Golf Academy, which on his Facebook page he describes well as a "child development program that uses golf as a vehicle to teach life skills and core values to mostly less than privileged and at risk children."

We also met Hilary Piper, an event coordinator for The River Room.

In the photo below are Anne Bartlett, a glass artisan and Joan Loch's sister, and Wilmington Councilman Kevin O'Grady and his wife Diane.

We unfortunately had to leave early before the band showed up (literally, I saw Tweets and Facebook updates from people who were there who had a blast. Marge and I also had a commitment to get up to Topsail Island for the Dolphin Dip at noon. Before we left I took one last shot of the room and the gathering crowd.

To Joan, Mike and all the others who put on the event this morning, thank you very much, it was fun, relaxing, and the food was great. What a nice way to start the new year.

Check out The River Room

Last month our buddy photographer Ray Baca and his business partner disk jockety and videographer Brian McArtan opened The River Room, an incomparable new river front meeting and event venue directly on the Cape Fear River in downtown Wilmington, NC at 18 S. Water Street.

Marge and I were out of town for the grand opening of The River Room so we went downtown to check it out and meet with Ray to discuss his vision for the space and to see the view of the river.



We also arranged to meet our friend and uber-promoter Jackie Willsie at The River Room to chat about some upcoming events. Jackie is the founder and president of the highly successful Wilmington Young Professionals group and also the owner and candlemaster of Port City Candles, which specializes in soy-based candles.

Here's Jackie entering The River Room.

To the left of The River Room entrance is a waiting/sitting area. Can you tell the proprietors of the space work in photography, video, and music? You can also catch a clue from this shot that wedding and wedding-related services and activities are central to Ray and Brian's work as well as the target market for bachelor and bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners and luncheons, and full wedding receptions. As Wilmington's already strong reputation as a wedding destination grows The River Room is in a prime location.

The back of The River Room is a wide open space with high ceilings and plenty of riverview windows. Here Ray (on the left) is talking with Kent Milholland of NeoNexus Corporation about using The River Room for a company party.

With seating right now for up to 80 people dining with a dance floor and party capacity of 140 people, this space is a comfortable size. Note that you can also rent the space by the hour for business meetings, with rates that can easily accommodate even two or three person meetings for people without a downtown location.

One of Port City Candle's favor-style candles was in the center of the table at which we met.


For more information, be sure to go to The River Room website, http://www.TheRiverRoomEvents.com or call 910-251-8902.

And if you were to arrive by boat in Wilmington and dock at the riverwalk, here's what you'd see if you tied up near The River Room (photo taken after from the Jubilee Snooze and Cruise, a bed and breakfast on a 45-foot yacht.