Town completes transfer to new Facebook page

The “Windham, Maine” Facebook page did not survive 2013.

On Dec. 31, Windham town officials took down the page, which had been originally used to stake out the town’s presence on the popular social networking site.

But “Windham, Maine” was a “friend” page, designed for use by individuals, not organizations. About three years ago, town officials created an “organization” page, called “Town of Windham, Maine,” intending to use it as the town’s primary interface on Facebook.

After town officials set up the new organization page, they found it difficult to persuade the Facebook friends of the “Windham, Maine” page to like the “Town of Windham, Maine” page, said Town Manager Tony Plante.

“We’ve been trying to steer people in the direction of the Town of Windham, Maine page,” Plante said. “We tried to get people to move a couple times before, and they really didn’t.”

After the town finally shut down the page on Dec. 31, some of the holdouts appeared to migrate to the new page, Plante said. The like count for the “Town of Windham, Maine” page increased by about 100 in the following week, to 2,153 likes as of Jan. 7.

“It’s part of our evolving presence in social media,” Plante said. “These are the official channels. We’ve got the website, we’ve got email alerts, we’ve got text alerts, and we have the town’s Facebook page and Twitter feed. We haven’t gotten into Snapchat, or Instagram or goodness knows what else there is.”

–Ezra Silk

‘Ithacappella’ concert Jan. 11

On Saturday, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m., Ithacappella will perform a concert at the North Windham Union Church. Ithacappella, from Ithaca College in New York, is one of the premier male collegiate a cappella groups in the country, singing everything from traditional barbershop tunes to current radio hits. This is the second year that the group will perform in Windham as part of their winter tour. Special guests for this concert will be the Windham Chamber Singers.

Tickets are $5 for all and will be sold at the door. The box office opens at 6:15 p.m. and the doors will open at 6:30. The North Windham Union Church is located at 723 Roosevelt Trail in Windham. For more information call 892-7149 or email MWAMconcerts@gmail.com.

Naples Winter Carnival canceled

NAPLES – There will be no Naples Winter Carnival this year.

According to Bernie Flood, the president of the Muddy River Sno Seekers, carnival operations typically demand 30 volunteers during the course of the weekend’s festivities. This year, few people have stepped forward to help the Sno Seekers put on the annual event.

“It was just getting harder and harder, and the volunteer numbers were dwindling every year, so we made a decision that we weren’t going to do it this year,” Flood said. “We didn’t even get to the planning stage.”

“We did absolutely not one iota of planning this year,” Flood said.

Last year’s carnival included a snowmobile torch light parade, a family skate night, an ice fishing derby, broomball, a poker rally, radar runs, a bonfire, a raffle, and fireworks.

In lieu of a carnival this year, the Sno Seekers are teaming up with the Crooked River Snowmobile Club of Casco to put on two poker rallies.

“That will be an opportunity for people to get out on their snowmobiles and go to various stops on the trail system for the poker games,” Flood said.

The rallies will take place on Jan 18 and Feb. 22, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Entry fees will cost $10, and organizers are expecting about 30 riders to participate.

“It’s a smaller scale,” Flood said. “When we were talking this year about what we’re going to do, we said to ourselves, ‘Let’s get back to basics. Snowmobiling. That’s what the snowmobile club is all about.’”

For more information about the poker rallies, contact Scott Richard (Naples) at 576-6349 or Gary Drew (Casco) at 415-0358.

– Ezra Silk