Letter from the Chamber’s president

The Chamber and collaboration

One of the themes to this year’s Chamber of Commerce is to try and work on ways of collaborating with other organizations that share our vision for Greater Franklin County and for Maine.

A couple of events this past week have helped to start the ball rolling with ways to work together. On Wednesday, Jan. 14, Greg Paterson (Chamber VP and Walmart manager) and myself attended a planning meeting of the Farmington Downtown Association as guests. The meeting was held at the Homestead Kitchen and Bakery.

Association President Sue Jones led the group in brainstorming what events worked well last year and what can be added. As we broke into smaller groups we discussed the events of the past year, like “Woman’s Night out,” the “Santa loop” and Chester Greenwood Day events, among others. Participants discussed the positive influence that these events had on Farmington businesses.

The conversation then turned to what events are already scheduled for the coming year. Chamber events such as the Home and Leisure Show (Saturday, March 21) and upcoming Business After Hours dates were noted along with planned events downtown and along Front Street. A lot of excitement was expressed in coordinating efforts with Front Street businesses, University of Maine at Farmington, as well as the Chamber of Commerce.

As with any brainstorming sessions, you need to do a lot of work to go from ideas to reality. Members of the Downtown Association were assigned as key leaders for each committee. The Chamber will continue to work with the Farmington Downtown Association and invites anyone with creative ideas or a willingness to help on a committee to contact Penny Meservier at the Chamber office 207-778-4215 or email gkapiloff@mtbluersd.org.

The second move to collaboration was on Thursday, Jan. 15, when a group of Chamber members attended the annual meeting of the Jay and Livermore Falls Chamber of Commerce at LeFleur’s Restaurant in Jay. In addition to the presentation of awards, participants were entertained by the “Teacher’s Lounge Mafia.” This improv group was extremely entertaining and provided a lot of laughter for those in attendance. The Teacher’s Lounge Mafia is a Chamber member and if any organization or civic group is interested in hiring them to perform, you can check out their website at http://teachersloungemafiaimprov.com.

It was a fun evening with a Mardi Gras theme and a good time to network. We will continue to work on ways of promoting events from each other’s Chamber of Commerce.