Tom Peaco, Ex. Dir. Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce
June 28, 2018 Meeting of West Bay Rotary
Kim Milton presided in the absence of President Mik and incoming president Mary.
George Abendroth is taking orders for "Rotarians at Work" T shirts. Current membership is 76, Dan Bookham resigned and Tim Lawson ahs transferred to a club in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Tom Peaco, Executive Director of the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber, which has an 18-member board, and 11 years ago came to be upon the merger of the Rockland/Thomaston and Camden/Rockport/Lincolnville Chambers, includes 27 municipal areas, and has roughly 825 member businesses and non-profits, and is the 3rd largest chamber behind Portland and Lewiston/Auburn. West Bay is an active member. Our chamber is a combined membership group and a convention/visitor bureau, where most localities have two separate organizations, with a small staff of 4, volunteers and board.
The localities like Lincolnville and Camden had additional business associations that they have recently convened to learn how best to coordinate and collaborate for information sharing and joint projects. He likened joining a chamber to joining a gym: you get out of it what you put into it. Joining is just the beginning. Some of the chamber's offerings include the Business Expo in April at the Samoset, with over 120 exhibitors and over a 1000 visitors in the 5-hour show. Monthly business after hours, 2nd, Wednesdays, and the next one is 5-7p on July 11 at Global Packing and Shipping at 87 Elm Street, to which all are invited. All West Bay members are technically "members" due to the club's memberhsip.
www.camdenrockland.com is the new web address for the chamber, because Penobscot Bay is not necessarily meaningful for many people looking to visit the area. The website gets about 1500 unique visits a day, with link to member websites.
A new feature is "This week's events" and members can upload events they want to advertise to that page. The Friday report is a current informational email every other Friday that one may subscribe to receive as well.
Annually, the chamber publishes the Jewel, a guide to business, on print and on line.
The midcoast chamber council is a tourist association that gets funding from the Maine Office of Tourism, and Pen Bay is one of 8 chambers that work together to find ways to promote the midcoast as a whole, stretching from Brunswick through Lincolnville. www.travelmidcoast.com is their website.
Visitor centers include the one here in Camden at town landing, and the Rockland location co-located with the Maine Lighthouse museum.They work to help people coming through the area on their way to places like Bar Harbor know what is available in this area, too.
Deb Fink shared a video of the club's May activities including Tiki time, Duck Derby ticket sales, duck counting, Special Olympics at CHRHS, Peter Berke awarding his daughter a Paul Harris Fellow, the Penobscot School dinner for the wheelchair project, setting up the Duck Derby course and the Derby itself.
Jim Potter shared that he met with Ron Hall, who is still suffering from back issues. Kim Milton announced that Marti Martens is being recognized for her volunteer efforts at PAWS animal shelter.
Nominations for RYLA (21-35 yo) Rotary Youth Leadership Awards are welcome to submit to the board. The program is offered in September, and awards are in August.
Greg Dugal from the Maine Hospitality industry is next week's speaker.