The Caribou Area Chamber of Commerce was graced with two new memberships this past week. Gene’s Electronics, Inc. and Healing Hearts LLC are the newest members and we are thrilled to have them. Those additions bring us to a total of 28 new members since the end of November, a 22 percent increase in membership. Thank you!
We also provided a ribbon-cutting service at Healing Heart’s grand opening last Friday at their 7 Prospect Street address. Check out the pictures and story on our Facebook page! Marla, Carolyn and Gail are all wonderful people and will do wonderful things to help our citizens.
Building membership and supporting those that are members are my two biggest goals and more important than anything else I do. To increase my ability to do so, I am going to close the office here at the Nylander for one afternoon a week. Wednesday seems to be the most logical day. I go to Rotary at noon and will just make my rounds after that the rest of the day. If you have any negative feelings about the office closing an afternoon a week or would like to volunteer reception duty to keep office open, please speak to me.
Oh, and do not forget my standing offer to hairdressers/barbers as I have a special $50 rate for you. Be the first of such a business to be included on the Chamber’s website!
I was sort of bummed when we had to cancel Thursdays on Sweden this past week. But it was the right call as the weather was unstable and potentially dangerous. There is only one thing really bad about that happening … we now will have Thursdays on Sweden for two Thursdays in a row! Yay! (Doing a Steve Martin dance!)
And do not forget our last Thursdays on Sweden event for the season on Sept. 26, which is also the first day of the huge celebration we are calling the O.P. Pierson Days here in Caribou from Sept. 26–28. Pretty soon, you will be inundated with details on just how much fun that weekend will be.
I would be remiss if I did not once again express my amazement and appreciation for how the different departments of the city made all this happen. It started with the idea and inspiration from Austin Bleess to committee meetings and each week has been a blur of activity with unbelievable contributions from the Parks and Recreation Department and the time they have put in to make this happen. Public Works with the bandstand, the barricades, the waste barrels, and making sure the traffic flowed correctly. The Police Department not only worked with the Fire & Ambulance and CERT teams cooking a fantastic barbecue, but also patrolled the street keeping us all safe. Chiefs Gahagan and Susi have shown great teamwork, motivation and follow through for all of it.
As for the Chamber, we played a small role (other than eating my share of fried dough). All of the vendors’ calls and forms went through this office. We took care of a lot of the public relations for the events and did everything we could to promote how exciting and fun these times have been. We also photo-documented the events. It has been a blast! And of course, where would it all be without all the great vendors and musical acts and others that came and made these nights special? Three more to go, so don’t miss any of them!
Kevin McCartney of UMPI and the Old Iron Inn was the guest speaker at Rotary last week and gave a great presentation on how the Solar System Model is expanding this year to help celebrate 2014’s Acadian World Congress. His talk got me to thinking that the model, which most of us have seen as we have driven up from Houlton, has become a very large draw for tourists, some who come from thousands of miles to us here in Aroostook to see these displays.
His talk also inspired me to feature the Solar System Model on the Chamber’s website because of that tourism element. I will work on making it so over the next week.
The museum gets a lot of visitors this time of year. There are upwards of 10 stops each week. I enjoy when folks stop by to see Mr. Nylander’s collections.
There was a lot of activity on the Facebook page this week. One report of a scam happening in the area received 7,860 views. And we flew past the 4,800 “Like” mark.
This is the time of year when the Caribou Fall Arts & Crafts Festival starts to get into high gear with activity. I fielded a lot of calls on the topic and received lots of applications. We are down to one open space in the gym and just a few in the cafeteria. The dates for the event are Oct. 26 and 27.
Executive Director William Tasker may be reached in the CACC office at 498-6156 or e-mail him at cacc@cariboumaine.net.
