This week, I have two separate pieces I want to get into. I want to share some the things we’ve been working on at the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber that we haven’t told the world about yet, and also, I want to acknowledge some trends I have been seeing that are definitely shifts in how business has been done in the past. Let’s start with the latter.

Summer in Maine is a very interesting time for our businesses, as it seems to either be a time when activity begins to soar for businesses or it’s a bit of a respite. There seems to be no in-between, either, as very few businesses report that June, July and August are just the same as any other three-month period of the year.

One trend that has jumped out to me is the number of businesses and associations who are shortening their work weeks from Memorial Day to Labor Day. An organization I work with went to half-day Fridays for their staff this year, while several chambers of commerce in Maine have either discussed or are doing Fridays off for their staff in the summer. Across the board, the staff of these organizations are thrilled with this and have enjoyed their work-life balance a lot more.

To be fair, this doesn’t work for all industries and organizations. This seems to work well for project-based organizations who don’t have as many weekly or daily deadlines they need to hit, unlike say, a manufacturer would. Still though, being from a generation that thought dressing down on a Friday was a special privilege, this is quite the change.

Many of the organization leaders who have done this have said they don’t see fewer results as one may expect. It’s actually gotten their staffs to cut out unnecessary fluff in their schedules (for example: meetings that could have been emails) to ensure they are getting their work done for the week so they can take time off on Fridays. As this trend grows, it does beg the question about how this will start to seep into other industries. Some imaginative owners in industries that we currently think would be unable to accommodate this possibly could try it, and if it is successful, we may begin to see a larger cultural shift.

Another trend that I’ve noticed is that there are a few businesses that are closing for a week to give their entire teams a recoup week. Sometimes you will see this around Independence Day, depending on what day of the week it falls on, but you’re seeing it at other points in the summer. The first time I recall being shocked by it was during the pandemic when Cook’s Lobster & Ale House did it right in the heart of their August busy season, and they never regretted it — Nick and Jen said it helped the whole team.

The BBRC office is following suit. The last week of August, we have zero regular meetings scheduled for the chamber and no events, so we’re shutting it down for a week and giving myself and the staff a week to decompress and do some summer with our families. We’re all pretty excited for it.

The last trend I want to hit on is people taking a week’s vacation from mid-week to mid-week. Instead of taking Monday through Friday off bordered by two weekends, I’ve noticed a dozen or more busy colleagues opting for the Wednesday to Tuesday or Thursday to Wednesday week off. This way, they don’t miss the entirety of either week, plus, many say it almost feels like two weeks off. I have nothing profound to say other than those who have chosen this have done so repeatedly, so they must like it.

Now onto the chamber’s big updates, which wouldn’t be possible without the work of the BBRC staff. Anthony Jamison, the BBRC assistant director, has been a dynamo in the office, helping with both projects featured below and was honestly the architect of a lot of the pieces of these. Anthony and I having the time to pursue these big changes is also made possible by Brittany Hyde, our marketing support specialist, who does such an outstanding job with our social media and newsletters (and also creates them unbelievably quickly). My team is incredible and I’m very lucky.

The first big change is the BBRC office has moved from Brunswick Landing all the way over to Brunswick Landing. Okay, so it wasn’t the longest move in the world, but it is significant (and moving last week was obnoxiously hot). For eight years or so, we have resided as tenants inside the Maine Technology Institute building at 8 Venture Ave. on Brunswick Landing (near the Landing Y and the new MARC development). Since the pandemic, the MTI crew has gone largely remote, and they just didn’t need such a large space. They’ve moved operations to a co-working space in Portland, and since they were our landlords, we needed a home. Jake from the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority was happy to help keep us on Brunswick Landing, and we have moved over to Hangar 6 at 2 Pegasus Drive. Do NOT stop by unless you like seeing totes and boxes, but in September, we will likely have a small gathering to show off the space.

Finally, our biggest update that matters to you is after several years of planning, we have a brand-new website to promote our businesses and our area! Anthony did so much work on this, and it has been running now for a few weeks at our same address of midcoastmaine.com. I was hesitant to announce it as Anthony still has pieces he wants to add to it, but it looks so great it needs to be shown off. Plus, if you have ideas for things you’d like on the site, let us know at cory@midcoastmaine.com.

Cory King is executive director of the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber of Commerce.