One year ago, we had a very special August. After months of lockdowns, August became the time when many people decided that outdoor gatherings with friends and families would be safe enough. Many restaurants and businesses had their outdoor dining and social distancing programs running smoothly, and without school in session, people enjoyed time outdoors with loved ones. You could almost feel the pressure that we had been living under release a little bit. I hope we can re-kindle some of that pressure release this August.
For our tourism-related businesses, August is full speed ahead, making hay while the sun shines, but the remainder of our businesses and school employees tend to take some time off in August. It’s so prevalent that for years our chamber hasn’t held our regular business events in August as we don’t think we would have a good turnout with so many business leaders either busy at work, or deservedly unwinding. Therefore, our chamber uses August as a planning month for the fall.
That’s not to say we aren’t busy. We are promoting the dozens of weekly events and activities all of our member businesses and partner organizations are running in August (like the concerts, outdoor arts events and more that we will be highlighting all month in this column). However, without events of our own, it does give us time to plan, and this August is busier from a planning sense because of new programs we will be adding to what we already do. This week I want to highlight some of those for you.
Re-Branding The Chamber
This is a follow-up to our column last week when we asked for your input on this major overhaul the chamber is working on. We’re hoping to change our name, logo and color scheme to better represent our region of the state. We went in-depth on this last week, but I had one silly oversight on getting us your suggestions. I had said to e-mail me and I could send the online re-branding survey link, when a better way is to post the survey link for you. We’ve posted it on our Southern Midcoast Maine Chamber Facebook page June 26 (where it still lives) and now you can go on to our homepage at www.midcoastmaine.com and scroll down to find it as our first item there, too.
This re-branding is very important because it will set the tone for how we will be known for the next decade or more. This new brand will be splashed across everything we do, including the programs listed below. With our increasing exposure around the state, we need to be sure we get this correct. Any input you would like to give would be great. By mid-August we will be reviewing the survey results to gather suggestions for an initial work session by the month’s end, so try and take the survey in the next two weeks or so. The re-branding will be featured at our Annual Awards Night in March of 2022.
Workforce Focused Programs
The biggest programming we’ll be doing, is introducing a chamber-led collaborative workforce needs and solutions program which we believe will become a primary focus of our work over the next five to ten years. Regular readers of this column know how I feel about workforce- it’s a passion of mine and I’ve been sounding the alarm on workforce needs since before I got to this chamber five years ago. This began for me in 2015 when I looked at the demographics of the state and saw the employment cliff we were heading towards with being the oldest and least diverse state. The need for employees only got more exacerbated by the pandemic.
Phase one is a 15-month program where an advisory council and the chamber select 2-4 workforce programs to initiate from Fall 2021- Winter 2022. The programs will revolve around two core themes: Pathways & Partnerships as well as Barrier Solutions. Think of the former as connecting schools and businesses while the latter is looking at the social barriers preventing employees finding good employers and employers finding good employees.
Over the last six years I’ve met with leaders around the state to learn about their programs and I’ve created several myself, to give the advisory council a dozen or so potential programs to choose from. Once we select the initial programs, we will develop work teams for each program which is where our collaborators will be vital. We’ll announce the programs this Fall, recruit appropriate people for the work teams and begin the work soon thereafter. This month of planning gives our chamber a great opportunity to prepare all of the potential programs for advisory council review in September. More news on this later this fall.
Midcoast Tree Festival, Chamber Networking Programs, Women’s Leadership Events & More
Then of course there is the return to so many of the programs and projects we have thrived with over the past five years.
The Midcoast Tree Festival will be back and better than ever this November at St. John’s Community Center in Brunswick with dozens of trees and holiday fun. Planning for that event begins this August with some big changes you will love, including a brand-new website and more. We’ll begin accepting tree registrations in September.
Fall brings the return of our monthly chamber networking events. 12 @ 12 (the monthly networking lunch for 12 business leaders to break bread together and share their stories) and Chamber After Hours, our open house showcase of a member business are both resuming in person. Also, we expect up to a dozen ribbon cuttings at new businesses.
Finally, our WILL Power (Women In Local Leadership team), and our Young Professionals group (Midcoast Edge) will be having regular events for their groups.
With all that, rest up and enjoy your vacation month of August because this fall, we will be asking you to engage with us.
Cory King is the executive director of the Southern Midcoast Maine Chamber.
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