The Chamber Beat

Photo:

John Williams

I wanted to take a moment to thank the businesses that help sponsor all of our Holiday events each year. Without their support we couldn’t provide the communities of the Oxford Hills with the Christmas Parade, Maine’s largest Christmas parade, or the still new, Festival of Trees.

Our Christmas Parade sponsors include our Signature sponsor, Dunkin Donuts and associate sponsors, Oxford Networks and the Oxford Casino. And our Signature Sponsor for the second annual Festival of Trees at Four Seasons Function Center is the Oxford Casino.

By the way, the Chamber wants to make sure that those in need are taken care of this time of the year. We are ready to kick off our campaign for the Christmas Express and we’ll be accepting donations for Christmas for Kids and Teens here at the office right up until a week before Christmas.

Reach into your pockets and your hearts to help a child or a teenager have a joyful Christmas. We support the programs of Rightstart and we’ll also be taking donations of toys and gifts appropriate for teens at the Festival of Trees Thanksgiving weekend from Friday, November 23 through Sunday the 25th!

You can still register a float for the parade and you can still decorate and donate a tree for the Festival of Trees. It’s not too late. Call Jen at the Chamber or go online at www.oxfordhillsmaine.com for a registration form for either event.

And hey, even if you don’t register your float for judging, just come to the parade lineup on Cottage street in Norway near the New Balance Factory Warehouse Parking lot and be a part of it all starting at 9 a.m., on Saturday, November 24. The parade kicks off at 11 a.m. at the head of Main Street right next to Ari's Pizza and the Advertiser Democrat.

Now back to the business of doing business. My hope as a Chamber director is that the new legislature in Augusta will put partisanship issues aside and work for “business” here in Maine.

We cannot afford to return to the days in which Maine had been singled out as a state that is anti-business, which before Governor Lepage’s election was widely acknowledged as so.

The new majority must take a “new” attitude about building up our economy. Here at the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce we are anxious and willing to work with our own elected representatives at the state level to make that happen.