VAA Annual Report 2020

VAASPHALT.ORG 13 VAA Annual Meeting & Webinar Series The VAA 69 th Annual Meeting was sched- uled to be held at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg. Initially, the meeting was planned to be hosted in April and then was rescheduled to June. Due to the ongoing pandemic, VAA canceled the in person event. To share the information that was to be provided in the annual meeting sessions, VAA hosted a series of webinars for members. These webinars covered topics from the 2019 General Assembly Session and a VDOT Town Hall. Discussion with the Department One of the major VDOT-VAA meetings during the year is the Discussion with the Department. This meeting was initiated in 2017, bringing together VDOT Senior Leadership, FHWA, VAA Board of Direc- tors, and other VAA members. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss future funding, plans, and initiatives by VDOT and FHWA with VAA members. All entities are encouraged to share concerns so that they made be addressed. Fortunately, by October, Virginia’s COVID-19 cases had declined, and larger groups were allowed to meet. This meeting was held in a hybrid format where nearly 50 people attended in person and over 60 participated remotely. Media Communication of our mission to members, customers, and the public is why VAA exists. Staying abreast of current trends in information and evolving with Discussion with the Department Jacob Dodson and Scot Shorb Recorded an Interview About Their 2019 Main Street Town of Culpeper Paving Project changes in generations is an ongoing process. With the launch of a reformatted website in 2018, visits have increased dramatically. During the 2020 calendar, vaasphalt.org had over 176,000 page views by 50,000 users. Along with the website, VAA increased activity on Facebook and Linkedin. Initial efforts on social media focused on ways the industry was perform- ing work safely. Later, VAA posted position openings for members. By the end of the year, VAA was spotlighting winners of the 2020 Paving Awards ceremony. By boosting posts, VAA reached thousands of new people not historically contacted by the asphalt industry. VAA’s monthly e-newsletters (Asphalt News) was circulated in 2020, along with a semi-annual magazine (Virginia Asphalt). Digital formats of both publications are distributed to over 1,400 individuals in the asphalt industry. The print version of the magazine is distributed to over 800. VAA promotes advertising on several media platforms and has used this as part of its revenue stream diversification. Charitable Outings With the initiation of the Richard J. Schreck Scholarship Program in 2016, VAA has used golf and other outings to aid the scholarship program’s funding. Three scholarship tournaments were held in August, October, and November of 2020. The first tournament planned for April was moved to November due to gathering restrictions and safety concerns. The 2020 tournaments had the largest turnout ever and raised over $60,000. This, along with other donations during 2020, will fund more than 16 scholarships. While no official count was made, clearly, VAA connected well over 100,000 people through conferences, meetings, media, and charitable outings. MAKING A DIFFERENCE: CONNECT