Several hundred Medievalists belonging to a group called Society for Creative Anachronisms are frolicking about Ocean Shores, tonight enjoying a low-key dance at the Convention Center. They’ll be wearing Middle Ages dress all weekend, and many of them will be frequenting local restaurants. This is a friendly group, and only joust if provoked.

sca long web

At a Lodging Tax Advisory Committee meeting this morning, Ken Mercer and Art Wuerth said hotel/motel tax revenue will be $75,000 to $125,000 less than the 2009 budget projection of $823,661. “We’re in the hole,” said Mercer, the Convention Center director. “Yeah,” confirmed Wuerth, the finance director, “I think we’re in the hole.” More on this in next week’s paper.

From the Ocean Shores Convention Center:

ALERT – Saturday Lunch Rush – ALERT 

 This coming weekend we are hosting the Northwest Women’s Conference.  

As of Wednesday there are 600 (yes, six-hundred) women registered & a staff of 30.  

There are 250 box lunches pre-paid and the rest of the group, (close to 400 people) are ON THEIR OWN for all other meals.  We anticipate a lunch rush between 11:30AM and 2:00PM this Saturday.

Looking good, osgov.com

Great photos by Richard Cherry rotating on the how page. Much better organized, easier to find things.

And, yes, the Webcam of the ocean is back . . .

There was some bad news, some really bad news, and some not-so-bad-at-all news last night, at the Ocean Shores Chamber of Commerce annual meeting.

After a buffet dinner (catered by Galway Bay), Dennis Long of the Bank of the Pacific gave a Powerpoint presentation that was part horror show, part “light at the end of the tunnel.” Slides on Treasury Yield Curves, First Time Jobless Claims and other national trends brought forth pained grimaces from the audiences.

Then, the good stuff: job growth in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties — “The people that come here and spend money. ”Sometimes I feel we look at things as worse than they really are,” Long noted.

Also on the panel were Bill Wolfenbarger of Jodesha Broadcasting (“Sunny 102.1″) and Chris Rush of The Daily World (and North Coast News publisher), both urging businesses not to cut back on advertising in tough times. 

Barb Smith of Grays Harbor Tourism said her agency will continue to push “stay-cations,” or local vacations to places like the North Beach.

And Dianne Hansen, president of the Chamber and owner of the Dusty Trunk, encouraged an informal slogan for this area: “Just beachy.”