Sigh. The end of summer is near. In Freeport, that means increased sales actions in the stores, a Fall Festival at the South Freeport Church near the end of October, and preparing for a rousing chili and chowder cook-off.

For me, it means an increased focus on Maine Senior Guide, a resource-rich website I'm producing with a partner,  Lynn Peel, that aggregates all the products and services for Maine seniors and their caregivers into one easy-access website. Lynn and I have been working on it for months, and it launches in a few weeks. 

I'm putting Postcards from Freeport to bed for the winter, while I spend my writing time maintaining the blog, Facebook, Twitter, LInked-In and website associated with Maine Senior Guide. Come visit us there (www.maineseniorguide.com) and tell us what you think!

Have a great fall and winter!
 
Best,
Deborah

The triplets. They're not really triplets, since you can see that there are two Buff Orpingtons and one Giant Black.

I am mostly appalled at the recent salmonella outbreak, and actually annoyed at the recent headlines that indicated egg prices would rise. What do you think happens when you crowd living things into factories? And when there's only one or two factories serving a vast populace, well....supply and demand. The price rises when the supply gets recalled. Imagine my surprise (having grown up in Oxford County) to hear that Jack DeCoster's farms are involved.

Let's hope at least the demand for local eggs is the Phoenix rising out of this particular conflagration. It would be great if the several local farms in Freeport (and your community too) all of a sudden got calls for their eggs.

My particular backyard flock is happily digging around in the pulled-up parts of my garden, laying low from the heat under the magnolia and dodging a fox that appeared in the yard at noon every three weeks all spring. They don't know from salmonella. The six baby chicks are now young adults, and still (as far as I can tell) all pullets. They'll start laying December 1 as long as I remember to keep the light on the timer.

It's a wacky world when a disease outbreak at a single farm complex interrupts the food supply for an entire country. And really, eggs and chickens are so easy to raise that there's no need of the concentration. It's just a matter of convenience for us, and time. And price. Cheap eggs. Unsafe eggs. No eggs. More expensive eggs. Not exactly the circle of life. 

 

Will Miranda really marry Ferdinand? Will Ariel ever be free? And what’s up with Prospero’s strange powers? You can get the answers to all these questions Tuesday, Aug. 3 – Friday, Aug. 6, at the free evening performances of The Tempest.

  

Freeport Shakespeare Festival  is performing The Tempest in LL Bean’s Discovery Park. Shakespeare in the park for free? You can’t beat that. Throw is some strolling musicians (6:30 p.m.) and a concert by the excellent Greater Freeport Community Chorus (7:10 p.m.) and you’ll have a good time even before the “curtain” rises 7:30 p.m. The Tempest is classified as either a comedy or a romance, and is considered the last play Shakespeare wrote by himself.  It tells the story of the deposed Duke of Milan, Prospero, and his beautiful daughter, 15 year old Miranda. They’ve been banished to an island for 12 years, accompanied by the sprite Ariel and the half-human Calliban. Prospero magics a violent storm (the tempest) that puts his betrayers within reach, and the story progresses from there, with all the usual Shakespeare devices of mistaken identity, romance, plotting and drunkenness, and redemption. This is a great chance to see the play in a setting very similar to how it was first performed, by professional actors and with limited scenery.

 

If you’d like to get an introduction to the characters and the play before you attend a performance, try this website , which puts the play next to an “easy English” version and has a nice outline of the characters.

Freeport Players  just finished a run of “I Hate Hamlet” this past weekend. In it, a character calls Shakespeare “algebra on stage” and the comment gets a laugh of recognition. The real issue, as I see it, is that it takes a long time to process Shakespeare because his lines are so beautifully crafted that you need to think about each one, and so you lose your place in the play. And of course, there’s our lack of exposure to Elizabethean English, and our need to familiarize ourselves with some words, and even with some concepts.

We’re all the products of our times, active thumbs and 140 character limits and all.  Shakespeare has turned into “hard work.” OK, you need picks and shovels, but it’s not the hard work of a road crew. It’s more the hard work of a miner, where caverns of jewels open up and become brilliantly beautiful when exposed to the light and shared.

I'm pretty excited about the prospect of having a new movie theater in Freeport, even though I'm a little distrustful of the TIF (tax incremental financing) request. The Freeport Village Station group has already received a sizeable TIF, which is essentially a give-back on any tax increase that occurrs because the property is improved and increases in value. The theater folks say they can't afford to build with out the TIF. The business owners in town who haven't received TIFs (almost all of us, honestly) are vocally displaying their annoyance, even though they understand that a theater will bring increased sales to the shops and restaurants around the area. I personally wonder about that a bit. I agree that local restaurants might see increases before or after show times. But I wonder about the stores. I go to the theater at Cook's Corner and Falmouth, and manage to get in without visiting WalMart or Sears.

I think if I was a store manager, I'd keep exceedingly careful counts of store traffic during the hour preceeding a show, and the hour following, starting a couple of months before the theater opened. That's the only way you'll be able to justify increased staffing or extended hours if you see a theater-related increase. And I suppose you may have to increase hours and staffing for an experimental period just to be sure, since it will take movie-goers a little while to register that they can also shop. I'd definately alert my social media about new hours if i was trying to take advantage of movie traffic.

What fun! Lots of movie tie-ins, and opportunity to sponsor shows to benefit causes, or give tickets as prizes. And all those kids 'n dads who get dragged along...yahoo, something for them to do that's cooler and cheaper! (Not to mention those rainy days in summer.)

Anyway, since it's a digital theater, I'm looking forward to renting it someday to show the national dog show or Kentucky Derby, or host a  viewing of all the LOTR movies, or a Potter Marathon.

What about you? Is Freeport entertaining enough as it is, or would you like to see a six-screen moview theater in the bottom of the Village Station parking garage?

Too much fun! When Cole and I spent an evening working on the set of "I Hate Hamlet" all I could think of was what an amazing amount of work was going into this production. When we attended opening night, my impression was tripled! The set is great, the effects are great, the theater is cool (literally)--but mostly, the acting is terrific. It's a funny show that allows actors like Pat Mew (the very funny and dramatic ghost of legendary John Barrymore) to really shine.

Tickets are $10 on line or at Freeport Community Services, and $15 at the door. 7:30 shows Friday, July 23 and July 30; 7:30 Saturday shows July 24 andJuly 31. 2 p.m. matinees Sunday, July 31 and August 1. Read more about the show at the FCP site .

Because July 4th falls on a Sunday this year, the annual Freeport July 4th Parade will not occur in the morning, but start at 4 p.m. For information the Parade or other questions, please contact the Freeport July 4th Parade Committee Chairman, Erik Anderson, at erikgand@suscom-maine.net or (207) 865-1665.

 

Other July 4 activities include:

 

• 7-10 am Blueberry Pancake & Sausage Breakfast at St. Jude Hall, corner of Main and School Streets. FMI: 846-5584
• 7:30 am 10K Road Race, L.L.Bean, Inc.
• 9:15 am Fun Run, L.L.Bean, Inc.
• 12:00 – 3 pm – Maine Clammers Association Fundraiser clambake at the Freeport Fire Station, go online for tickets and information
• 4:00 pm Parade, Main Street, from Kendall Lane south to Holbrook Street
• 7:30 pm Concert in the Park, L.L.Bean's Discovery Park - Johnny Hiland Band
• 9:00 pm Fireworks at Freeport Athletic Field

This is a guest blog I wrote for Carole Mahoney at Mahoney Internet Marketing. Since I spend lots of my time writing in various social medias, I thought I'd share this.

 

5 time Tips for Social Media

Yeah, we’ve all heard it before: you can’t save time. You have all there is, and each person is allotted the same number of minutes in every day.

Then why is it that I lose an hour every time I open Facebook?

 

If you’re struggling with time and social media, you’re probably wrestling two ways. 1) You spend too much time Twittering, reading blogs or catching up with your Facebook friends or 2.) you’re dreading finding the time to use social media effectively in your marketing.

 

Lucky for you, the answers are the same for both issues! Here are five tips that will make your use of social media as a tool for marketing or staying in touch more effective and enjoyable.

 

1.       Be intentional, and reduce the guilt factor. You’ll feel guilty if you “waste time” on Facebook, or guilty if you don’t post your weekly blog. Be intentional about the time you’re spending on social media. To do that, you need to plan. What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to share your day, build a community, or discover a solution?

 

2.       Make a plan, and then an appointment. Set aside time several times a day to check Facebook, log on to Twitter, or read your blogs. If you set aside 45 minutes a day, in three 15 minute increments, and actually put them on your daily planner, you’ll begin to control the time spent. If your marketing plan calls for you to comment on one industry Tweet a day, and one blog, make sure you’ve scheduled a reasonable, appropriate amount of time to do that.  Recognizing new media as an important part of your marketing plan, and designing action steps, can help you control and use your time efficiently. If you’re supposed to be posting a blog every week, set aside the time to develop a six month editorial calendar, and then schedule your blogging time every week. If it’s an important part of your marketing plan, be intentional, and then follow through.

 

3.       Use tools, both old and new.  I use the timer on my microwave, and sometimes I bring my kitchen timer into my office. When I’m writing a blog, I tell myself I need to stay focused and write for just 20 minutes, and I use 20 minutes increments until it’s done. When I’m on Facebook, I limit myself to 10 minutes. I use Tweetdeck to manage my Twitter feeds, and I use my igoogle page to corral my RSS feeds.  I get lost moving from one interesting blog post or article to the next, so I often print out articles I want to read and put them in a basket by my comfortable reading chair. Later, I can sit back with a cup of coffee, skim through and read selected articles, and avoid the trap of spending several hours on the computer following each link.

 

4.       Shut off notifications. Don’t keep your accounts open so that you hear every ping! Intentionally log on when it’s time to check an account, remind yourself of what you’re trying to accomplish, spend your time there and then log off. You are in charge!

 

5.       Be selective. Add a blog to your feeder, read it for a bit, and then dump it if it doesn’t bring value. Use your Facebook settings to “see less” of people you friended last year, and now you don’t care how much they win Mafia Wars. No one is holding a gun to your head and demanding that you overwhelm yourself with interesting -but essentially useless – content.

 

And a bonus tip:

 

6.       Keep at it. Set it as a personal challenge to create a simple system and use it for a week. If you’re not more productive, revamp your system. Plan, do and review.

 

If you’re spending hours on –line when you should be working or building your home relationships (!), that’s a serious issue that is more about your psychological needs than it is about discipline or efficient use of time. But most of us just need to get a grip, decide how we want to prioritize social media in our personal or professional lives, and then act accordingly.

Thursday, June 17 is going to be a big day in Freeport, when 3,140 moose permits are drawn for the annual fall hunt. Last year, 82% of the hunters were successful in bagging their moose. The permit drawing will be in a tent on the L.L.Bean campus, near the Hunting and Fishing Store, starting at 6 p.m.

LL Bean is planning moose education programs, an indoor archery moose hunt and a five-stand public shoot. According to Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Commissioner Roland “Danny” Martin, the lottery drawing has evolved into a spectacle where hunters gather to swap tips, improve skills and share hunting stories.   Also a great opportunity for local organizations or churches to offer “Hunters Lunch” to feed all those folks!

 

 

I'm excited to visit the new Freeport Historical Society exhibition, History of Play, opening Wednesday, May 26, 4:30-6:30, with remarks by the FHS collections manager, Ned Allen.   According to FHS, we don’t often think of play as history, but what people regard as “fun” can tell us much about the society in which they live.  Play reflects what is going on in the society, particularly for children, and also affects what that society will become. 

The exhibit features very early toys and games, a Bean Brothers baseball uniform, signed photos and other items from Ted Williams and Babe Ruth, items from Casco Castle and other Freeport attractions. Footage from early home movies will bring some of Freeport’s recreational activities of the 1930s and ‘40s to life, providing rare glimpses of picnics, swimming, skating, and even the arrival of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus unloading from the train!

In a rural society, as Freeport was, "play" might just have been any time off from doing the endless chores of maintaining a farm. Around 1850 toys and games made specifically for children became less expensive and readily available. Girls got "store" dolls and little versions of housewares, while boys got little tools. How many generations did it take for girls to get doctor kits and boys to get chef outfits?

I wonder, a hundred years from now, what our historic toys will say about our current society and how we encouraged our children to play. Game Boys? All the Disney Princesses? I hope somewhere in the mix, historians will also find skateboards and someone's made-up snitch and broom!