Transcription of Old Port Winter Wellness #170
Speaker 1: You’re listening to Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle. Recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market St. Portland, Maine. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician trained in family and preventative medicine, acupuncture and public health. She offers medical care and acupuncture at Brunswick Family Medicine. Read more about her integrated approach to wellness in Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes. See the Love Maine Radio Facebook page or www.LoveMaineRadio.com for details. Now here are a few highlights from this week’s program.
Charlie: What is nice is you do get a lot of people who haven’t bowled in years and they given up on it and they see Bayside Bowl realize that they can pick this hobby back up but in a nice environment with good food and clean place and they come back to the sport.
Kara: I saw Maine and knew this was the place for me. I love the access to the outdoors and I feel honored to be able to connect to the people that live in Portland and people that visit Portland directly with the outdoors.
Lynn: It really is authentic. There are very few places that you can go now that have the culture and the architecture and the working waterfront and not look like a cookie cutter district mall everywhere and Maine offers that.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of the following general sponsors Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary By Design, Michael Page and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, tomorrow Shepherd of Shepherd Financial, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms and Bangor Savings Bank.
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio. Show number 170 airing for the first time on Sunday December 14th, 2014. Today’s theme is Old Port Winter Wellness. What do Portland area citizens and visitors do when the whether turns chilly? Enjoy a broad range of activities both indoors and out. Today we speak with Bayside Bowl co-founder Charlie Mitchell, Kara Wooldrik of Portland Trails and Lynn Tillotson of the Portland Convention and Visitors Bureau. Listen to our discussion for ideas about your next winter wellness outing. Thank you for joining us.
Recently I spent a Saturday afternoon in quite a lovely and fun place known as Bayside Bowl. I’m not really a bowler but I enjoyed the vibe of this place and I really think that people who haven’t spent time there will want to go there after they have … After they listen to this conversation that I have with Charlie Mitchell who’s the co-owner of Bayside Bowl here in Portland. Thank you so much for coming and having a conversation with me.
Charlie: No problem. Thanks for having me.
Lisa: Charlie did you think you were going to own a bowling alley when you were growing up?
Charlie: No. Absolutely not. I bowled once a year on my birthday. I think a lot of people it’s about their limit of their exposure to bowling and I had a career in law and politics going. When I moved back to Maine I was just looking for something to give me through the winter, those concern about coming back to the Maine winter and started a bowling league modeled on Portland long running Ultimate Frisbee League and it’s nice because on a Tuesday or Thursday in the middle of the week people go out with their friends and do something athletic and then hangout.
It keeps you busy, it keeps you seeings your friends and in the winter I was very concern about that disappearing. I started a little bowling league with my sister and after the first year of only 12 teams, the second year we had 26 and the third year we had 32 and there are several hundred people bowling. I wanted to build a place for that community but certainly had zero expectations going into it. It was just something I thought I would make the winters a little more fun and it turned into a lifestyle.
Lisa: That is a big leap between law and politics and Bayside Bowling.
Charlie: Yeah, it is a enormous leap. When I was working in DC, I was at the ACLU Center [inaudible 00:04:25] the Patriot Act in Guantanamo privacy issues. I also started the ACLU softball team and it actually … As much the lobbying work was important the softball team brought the office together in the way that hadn’t been working and I think increase the effectiveness of the organization. What I enjoyed the most about it is created … I did write ups each of the games and made everyone out to be heroes and created softball names for everyone.
A lot of that spilled over into this bowling league. It’s definitely a wild transition but parts of what lead me to do the bowling were existing even when I was in the career.
Lisa: From what I understand if you are a bowler you actually have a handle?
Charlie: Yeah, pretty much. That’s the tradition at Bayside Bowl. If everyone bowls under a bowling name and it sticks with you to the point where when you’re at Bayside Bowl the waitresses know you by that name, everyone knows you by that name and most people are in my phone by their bowling names. It’s hard to remember everybody’s both names but …
Lisa: What is your bowling name?
Charlie: I bowl as Karl Hungus. It’s actually Big Lebowski reference, it’s a small role in the movie.
Lisa: Anybody who wants to understand this better will have to go watch the Big Lebowski?
Charlie: Yeah, I think they’ll find it out and see give the movie another watch.
Lisa: You have an interesting partner Justin Alfond who’s been on the show and who we profiled in Old Port Magazine previously. He is a state senator. He’s also got a background in politics. You met in New Orleans I believe?
Charlie: We didn’t meet in New Orleans, we both just … We lived in New Orleans at the same time. We actually met back in Maine and just had that in common and had discussions about that. We had a number of things in common obviously the political world in New Orleans. He had joined the league and we just had a really good time hanging out and talking about the league. As the idea hatched to build a home for the league Justin was the first person I talked to.
Lisa: What about New Orleans was such an interesting connection for you?
Charlie: I think in Justin’s discussion with you and one of the places that we both went to frequently in New Orleans is a place called Mid City Lanes and it’s famous for … It’s called Rock n’ Bowl and they had great bands there all the time and decent food and bowling. It was just the combination of those things that I think we had seen a place we both admired. When the idea for a home for this league came about I think he and I can both see the same vision.
Lisa: It is interesting because I think in my very limited bowling experience I think I was with the Yarmouth Town Summer Recreation Program. Once the summer we went to just a very straight forward bowling alley with the smelly shoes or maybe not smelly shoes but there wasn’t … I don’t know. Part of the thing about it was I didn’t feel that fun to me because I didn’t love the bowl, I didn’t love the sport. When I went to visit your … When I went to visit Bayside Bowl I noticed immediately it’s very welcoming. You can be a bowler or not a bowler.
When you go off to one side there’s a large open room which I know people have engagement showers. They have … When I was there there was a baby shower, there are people with their blue balloons. There’s a spot for families to eat, some people are watching football games as a bright open bar. Great food, really great food, I was so impressed because I was eating this vegetarian chilly I’m like, “Wow,” place that combined many different elements. Were these things important to you?
Charlie: Absolutely. We were just hosting a wedding rehearsal dinner on Friday. We wanted to open up a place with great food. Part of that just from the fact that league bowlers are in the same place multiple times a week. You got to give them good food and any business in Portland trying to serve food. The standards here are really high and we wanted to be a part of that. Our first year we’re open we won the Phoenix’s New Restaurant Award, we won the Kitchen Cook Off in WMPG a few times in row.
We take the food part of our business incredibly seriously and a lots of times people do just come and have dinner or sit at the bar. The music side of things has been a learning curve figuring out what [nitch 00:09:07] to fill in the Portland music scene. I think we really gotten into a place where we’re comfortable. We do a live music now at least on every Saturday and often times on Fridays. We do have DJs throughout the week on the land which is pretty nice.
As a lot of Portland slows down for the winter that’s when Bayside Bowl ramps up and it’s in all of those areas. Basically all of those are extremely important to us. One thing that differentiates us from any other bowling center in the country is there is a wave or a trend of these boutique bowling alleys and Lucky Strikes and Splitsville’s and Kings as some of the chains that are out there. Even Brooklyn Bowl to an extent which is fantastic center now they have one in Las Vegas and one in London. They have great music and great food.
What we’re doing differently than all of the new boutique bowling alleys is we’re taking our bowling extremely seriously. We’re sanctioned by all of the official bowling governing bodies. We host leagues. The lanes are perfectly conditioned and even this year in March we’re hosting the Professional Bowlers Association which will be a first time that they’ve ever come to Maine. Will have ESPN at the place for a few days. That’s I think what Bayside unique nationally is that we’re doing the food and music as well as we can and ended up standard we think lives up to Portland’s expectations and then also doing the world class bowling.
Lisa: How many different leagues do you have?
Charlie: We have a number of leagues. We have … There’s a Monday night league and a Wednesday night league and it’s renew every 10 weeks. We have a restaurant league on Sunday nights, we have a media league that plays, we have multiple business leagues throughout the season, we have the draft league. The league that built Bayside Bowl is called Bowl Portland and that was the one that we started in 2007 with I guess 12 team, 2008 12 teams and now there’s the home league of Bayside Bowl. If you go in and you look on lane one you’ll see the giant banners for the championships of that leagues and it’s the house league.
Lisa: How many people would you estimate bowl at Bayside Bowl over the course of a year?
Charlie: That will be almost impossible to name. In a given season the league bowlers probably number around 500 but then on any Friday or Saturday you have two to 300 people come through and may only be there once a year. There’s thousands and thousands and thousands of people are bowling and what is nice is you do get a lot of people who haven’t bowled in years and they’ve given up on it. Then they see Bayside Bowl realized that they can take this hobby backup within a nice environment with good food and clean place and they come back to the sport. Then other people are there just to have a drink and bowl and maybe we’ll see them again next year.
Lisa: I like that fact that it’s something that families can do together. It seems as though we’ve entered into this weird parallel play thing where kids have kid sports and then adults have triathlons and never the two shall meet. When you’re at Bayside Bowl it’s really, I don’t know ecumenical, it’s a very … It’s a place where … It doesn’t really … You can all connect because bowling doesn’t necessarily require a certain age or heft.
Charlie: No, it’s true. You see multi generational groups a millions all the time and then if you go to Bayside Bowl from open to close on a Saturday you really see everything. It often start with a seven year old’s birthday party and then you’ve got people in there with their grandkids and then you’ve got the one crowd and you’ve got people coming in at night for a bar. You got every age group and it’s pretty nice, it’s one of the few places I think that exists like that.
Lisa: Why is this is important to you that you provide this place where people can be social? Why was it important when you’re working with the ACLU and created the softball league that fostered this community? What it is about all of these that speaks to you?
Charlie: I think I enjoy it myself and I know that it brings a lot of joy to a lot of people. It’s community building and it’s in an environment that’s open to everyone it’s not tends with a lot of conflict. It’s just bowling but it’s a great community. I just love having that. I built that in DC and I try to do that here. It’s just a wonderful group and now the people I know from bowl Portland know every aspect of my life there. Worked with them professionally and lots of realms and they’re some of my best friends and it’s a great community. To give that group a home is really rewarding. These are people I assume and this is a sport you don’t have to give up. As you age I can be bowling with these guys for the next 30 years.
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Speaker 1: Securities offered through LPL Financial member FINRA SIPC. Investment advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Flagship Harbor Advisors and Shepherd Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial. Love Maine Radio is brought to you by Bangor Savings Bank. For over 150 years Bangor Savings Bank has believed that the innate ability of the people of Maine to achieve their goals and dreams. Whether it’s personal finance, business banking or wealth management assistance you’re looking for at Bangor Savings Bank you matter more. For more information visit www.Bangor.com.
Lisa: You grew up in Maine?
Charlie: Yeah, I grew up in Vassalboro.
Lisa: You’re mother was a state legislator and you chose to come back here and that Vassalboro was not a huge place. You went to DC, you came back. What was the draw?
Charlie: I left Maine … I guess I’ve left three times. I’ve always come back. I lived in Boston, I lived in New Orleans, I lived in DC, I did love New Orleans. I’ve never been anywhere that felt like home other than Maine. I just have always love the people. I love the out doors I’ve grown up in Central Maine being outside and coming to a city like Portland. Which I got to experience a lot when I went to law school I was in Portland with decent amount. During that stretch I fell in love with the city.
Just being able to get to Moosehead Lake in three hours and to be in the woods in an hour in canoeing and it’s just … I’ve loved the outdoors in Maine, I love the people of Portland and I couldn’t wait to get back. I like my job in Washington but as soon as I have the opportunity come home I did.
Lisa: I met, I believe he’s the manager, the other day when I was there, Adam?
Charlie: Adam, yeah.
Lisa: He’s worked there from the beginning from what I understand. He speaks very highly of the place. He also had other experiences came back. For him it seemed like there was a really … There was a sense of price and the sense of ownership in the sense that what he was doing was important. Is this something that is common with the people that work at Bayside Bowl?
Charlie: Yeah, we’re a family there. I think it’s relatively rare within the industry but four of our six servers have been there for all four years. Everyone who works in the bar has been there for all four years. The kitchen manager and mechanic have been there for over three years. The events manager has been there all four years. People love being at Bayside and I think everyone is important part of the community there and part of what Bayside Bowl is its staff. That’s what people come there for not only to see their friend in the lanes but to see their friends at the bar and to see their friends in the kitchen and it’s a great community.
Our has been offered health care since the beginning which I also think is rare in the industry and people have sick time and paid vacation. It’s a good working environment but also just a family and we all work really well together.
Lisa: Did it give you pause to realize that you are building something that didn’t already exist Maine and actually in a location in Portland that maybe wasn’t at that time as up and coming as it has become?
Charlie: The fact that it was new didn’t give me any pause whatsoever that just made it even more exciting because I knew this would be a place that people would enjoy. Going into Bayside it was a … It was just a happy coincidence. We had looked at another location that the agreement that we thought we had didn’t work out and it was in the week after trying to get our heads around the new plan. I was just driving by that location and saw the for lease sign. I have known that building because I gone there and played video games and looked at the pool tables.
Going in there it’s just felt right immediately and Ross was very supportive of our project when he still own the building. I think we just … We’re very fortunate to find that building. The building is really a part of the character of the business in a way that I don’t think any other location would have been.
Lisa: You founded Bayside Bowl four years ago and there’s always the of course the excitement of a new business. Then there’s the out in the future the hopeful on going success but in the meantime there is just some grit and determination and showing up everyday and making the right decisions and being dedicated to your vision. I feel like that maybe where you are right now?
Charlie: When Bayside open I was living upstairs. I had a foldout couch above the business and was working seven days a week as much as I could going to sleep after the shift and getting back up and getting back at it. Certainly takes that in the beginning to get the business running. In terms of thinking about Bayside’s future we have so much to improve everyday and you can always work and making things run better and making a better experience for people. We are really excited as I mentioned about where we’re hosting our first national PBA tournament at the end of year something we’re really looking forward to and building towards.
We hope to eventually be able to expand the location. It’s very frustrating that turn people away and they want to just come in and bowl. We’re looking to do that and at some point in the future anyway we’d like to add to our capabilities and bring in a little more space, a few more lanes.
Lisa: It continues to bring you enough joy and satisfaction that you can’t help but want to keep doing it.
Charlie: I love this job and able to … I feel grateful and lucky everyday. I think I can’t be that.
Lisa: Charlie, how can people find out about Bayside Bowl and all the things that are offered there?
Charlie: Our webpage is www.baysidebowl.com and you can reach us at 791-BOWL on the phone. To make any direct request to us you can email us at [email protected].
Lisa: I encourage people to spend some time thinking about bowling or hosting a baby shower or having some great foods. Stopping in for a great drink. It’s really … It’s a wonderful place and I appreciate the fact that you’re bringing some winter fun, a year round fun to the people of Portland. We’ve been speaking with Charlie Mitchel who is the co-owner of Bayside Bowl. Congratulations on your success thus far and hope for even greater success in the future.
Charlie: Okay. Thank you very much.
Lisa: As a physician and a small business owner I rely on Marci Booth from Booth Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are few thoughts from Merci.
Marci: When was the last time you took a break from what you were doing from the work that was piled up on your desk and just looked up? I know that during the course of my days I often forget to take a moment or two to just breath, look up at the sky and dream. Terrible that I have to remind myself to breath but when I do I feel energized because in those moments I’m able to let go of the daily grind and think more about what I want to accomplish, how I want my business to grow sometimes those are the aha moments.
If we all took a few moments out each day to stop what we were doing and dream a little about our business futures not would we feel a sense of calm but we may come to realize that these dreams can in fact come true. I’m Marci Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need, boothmaine.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of Love Maine Radio was brought to you by the following general Michael Page and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home with RE/MAX Heritage it’s your move. Learn more at ourheritage.com.
Lisa: Many people come to Maine enjoy going out into the wilderness and spending time on the ski trails that are well known in the western mountains or perhaps up on the carriage pass in Bar Harbor. Some people don’t know is that we have trails right here in Portland in the Portland area that we can enjoy year round. Today we have Kara Wooldrik from Portland Trails to speak with us about what’s going on with her organization. Kara Wooldrik is the executive director of Portland Trails, an organization that preserves green space for public access and connects people with places. Thank you so much for coming in.
Kara: Thank you so much for letting me come in.
Lisa: It’s really great to meet you and it’s interesting because I’ve had in my mind set of list, that’s a phantom list of guest that I would like to have. Until we decided to do an article in Old Port Magazine about ski trails in the winter you were still a phantom guest but now you’re here, it’s reality. I’m really, really please with the work that Portland Trail is doing. I’m really impressed.
Kara: Thank you so much. We love our role in the community in Greater Portland.
Lisa: That seems to me that you’ve grown a lot. I believe the first trails that I used to walk along we’re out in the four river preserve and I also get some running in the Evergreen Cemetery. You’ve now … You have trails all over the place, they’re extending into different cities, different towns, they’re being used year round. You’ve just … You map all the stuff out very well, you have a really great website, a really great resource people.
Kara: Thank you. We’re now about 70 miles of trails in Greater Portland and we started with a few trails in beautiful areas that people want to visit. Over the last 20 years we have been able to fill in a network so that people can get from their … The places that they live to places to play very easily by trail and likewise children can get to school by trail, people can get to work by trail. We see them as a real transportation facility for whether they’re biking to work or walking to work or they just want to go out for a nice walk after work. We are now with in half mile of every residence home and try to be as accessible as possible to all community members.
Lisa: This must have require some thoughtfulness in order to actually be within a half mile of every residence home. Because you couldn’t just willing and say, “Just take a trail here on the woods.”
Kara: Certainly. I’d say we are intentional opportunist. We like to take advantage of opportunities that arise in that community. Maybe somebody buys a piece of land and they’d like to make sure there’s a recreation facility on it. At the same time we’re also thinking about, “Can people in this neighborhood get to the library, get to the grocery store, get to school by walking or gank?” If we can help that and make that easy for them then we do.
Lisa: Portland Trails has been doing this for 20 years?
Kara: We’re about 23 years old.
Lisa: 23 years old. How did this all begin? What was the interest?
Kara: There are a few different movements happening at the same time. One was around creating a Land Trust, the Forest City Land Trust, and we are a Land Trust. We hold land and easements which means permission for conservation values but also permission for people to go and recreate. There’s this movement, the Land Trust of Let’s Try to Protect some of Portland’s Land Before it Gets Developed. Then there was also a group interested in recreation and getting people out hiking and mountain biking and skiing and how can we combine those efforts.
Those folks that had that energy and that passion 23 years ago decided to merge and create one organization, Portland Trails. While we are a Land Trust we don’t look and act like many of the wonderful Land Trust in Maine. We certainly do hold land but our folks is really getting as many people as possible on to the land. We don’t buy land and then keep it separate from people. We want people to be out interacting with it.
Lisa: What is your interest in the land and getting people out moving about on it?
Kara: I love to get out and go walking with my dog or trail running or skiing and I know that it helps me to be a healthier person. I know from working with people over the past 20 years that it helps others to get out and be active and healthy. I also know that the way that we can help create a sustainable community both for economics, for people and for the environment is to get people to understand how the environment works. By being out there and connecting with it they will start to learn about it and value it.
For me it’s a thrill to be able to provide a resource close to people’s homes that they can out after a day of work or they can … Kids can wander home from school via the Evergreen Trails and have that connection that maybe people assume as only a rural experience but you can have it right here in Portland. I think also knowing that Portland is recognized for its food and it’s recognized for its art, it’s also recognize for its green spaces and the ability to get out and go walking and hiking right here within the city. I know it’s an important economic driver for the city and the community at large.
Lisa: Did you have some experience yourself as an individual when you’re growing up that convinced you that this was an important thing to do?
Kara: I think I felt most like myself when I was outside climbing trees and crawling around in culverts with friends. I grew up in suburban California and valued the trees I had in my backyard. I was certain that the redwood in my backyard was the largest one in the whole world because I was so little. As I went to grad school in New England and then looked around at the communities and the place where I would want to live I saw Maine and knew this was the place for me. I love the access to the outdoors and I feel honored to be able to connect to the people that live in Portland and people that visit Portland directly with the outdoors.
Lisa: Obviously, trails are available year around. Some of them are used more for skiing than others. What are some of the other trails that can be skied?
Kara: The Stroudwater River trail which connects from Congress, out of Congress Street all the way now to Smiling Hill Farm in Westbrook is a wonderful spot from skiing. We’re excited to have that now linked to Smiling Hill Farm where they have had ski trails for many, many years and the Knight family has welcomed the connection so now you could actually ski from Portland to Westbrook. Much of that is along the power line area and then about half of it is in the woods. You get different terrain, some small fun hills but also relatively pretty flat.
Lisa: If people are wanting to look at the trails and whether you can actually bike them versus walk them versus ski them, this information is available on the Portland trails website?
Kara: Yes, it’s all available at trails.org. People can look for the type of activity they want to do and find trails or they can look at trails and see what activities are available.
Lisa: Riverside is well-known as a golf course during the summer but during the winter it becomes a place that a lot of people ski and when I was on the ski team for one of the local trails we went through Riverside and skied. Some people are aware that that exist but there’s actually new things that are going on with Riverside.
Kara: Yes, Riverside is very well-used in the winter particularly on the weekends. I think people don’t realize that the early mornings when the sun is rising are really gorgeous out there and I’m often alone or there are just one or two other people. New piece that we’re doing is expanding the Riverside trails down river along the Presumpscot River into a wooded area where we hope that we can groom those trails so that people can have a woods skiing experience but they are also groomed so you don’t have to be a back country skier to be comfortable in that area. That would be open to everybody.
Lisa: The nice thing about cross country skiing is that it can be really done at your own phase. If there happens to be a groomed trail that’s great and it doesn’t make it easier but you know if you wanted to go out and you wanted to bushwhack there’s definitely the chance to do that in some of these trails. Even here in the middle of Portland.
Kara: Definitely there are many people that are out before the snow plows get out on to the streets in Portland and they’ll ski from their homes to the eastern prom or in the western prom to either do a little bit of downhill or just to explore new places and skis with lots of snow are much like a pair of hiking boots. You can get around and see lots of new areas. There are also plenty of people that like to go snow showing and when the snow is deep it’s a terrific workout to go snow showing but it’s also very quiet and peaceful time.
Lisa: What are some of your favorite trails whether it’s in the winter or other times of the year? I know it must be hard to choose amongst all of them.
Kara: I’m on a different trail pretty much everyday depending on what type of day it is, what type of activity I want to do. I love some of the tiny connector trails that we have like the Fort Sumner trail, on the east end, the Bayside trail which will soon connect to Deering Oaks is a lovely trail for getting to an older industrial part of Portland. I also love going for a walk in Baxter Woods with my dog and seeing lots of other neighborhood folks and their dogs. That is a community experience, so much of what we do is linking community.
Whether it’s linking one natural community to another natural community or linking a neighbor to another neighbor so there’s the quiet experiences on the trail but there are also the community building experiences on the trail. Both are really invigorating.
Lisa: Portland trails is a non-profit and as such relies on the kindness and generosity of our area citizens and maybe even people who are not from our area. You have a few fund raisers that occur over the course of the year. Can you tell me about these?
Kara: We currently have about a thousand members of Portland trails and we know that the trails are used over a million times each year. We know that there are, we are meeting a community need and that there are many more people that could become members. Many of our members and the public participate in some of our community events. We have the trail to Ale 10K race which is a run and a walk and that is now in it’s 15th year. We have about 1,800 to 2,000 participants each year.
It’s a well-known fall September community event with trails right along the water. It’s attractive to feel from out of town as well as locals. We also have the Bayside 5K race and that is for people and dogs. That’s a very fun low key community event for 200 or so people and about a 100 dogs. We also have a social event that has fluctuated between fall and spring and that’s called GORP. GORP happens at Urban Farm Fermentory and it is time for people to get together and celebrate Portland trails.
This past year’s theme was a throwback to simpler time so it was thinking about what’s the Maine brand and image of camping and hiking and let’s capture that and hold that for an evening. Let’s play some games, let’s have some snacks, let’s just celebrate what Maine is and what has been.
Lisa: There really is an expectation on your part when people participate as to whether they walk a Bayside trail 5K or whether they sprint the 10K trail to Ale. It really is whatever people are interested in doing and that;’s really for themselves and for their own community, their own social benefit. It’s not so much a race as it is a well-being building experience.
Kara: Absolutely. Just about everything we do is about building community and connecting people with each other and what nature … Whether it’s a volunteer trail day or the trail to Ale event we try to make it as open as possible to people to create experience that they want. There certainly are people that zoom through the trail to Ale and at incredible speeds and are really admirable. There are people who walk it and it’s the first time they’ve ever walked that far in their life and those are huge victories as well.
Last year, I did a preview run with folks who were not yet familiar with the raise, they are not familiar with the course and we had so many participate and she and I ran together and she finished and at the end she said, “I’ve never run that far in my life.” That made my day, my week, my month to know that I’d been able to create an opportunity and support somebody to be able to run the farthest they’d ever run in their life. Then, fast forward a month and I saw her at the finish line and we gave each other a big hug and she had run the entire thing without stopping. It’s really such a privilege to be in this role.
Lisa: I have run the Bayside 5K. I ran it with people from here at Maine Magazine and we just really had a lot of fun. We enjoyed, it’s really, it’s very interesting to see Portland not from the street and in your car. To go around the prom and then come into a section of Portland where there are sidewalk but you couldn’t get to unless you’re actually on foot or some other means of personal locomotion. It’s a fascinating thing too, most of the ones life in an area and then see it from our fresh perspective. I think Portland trails and the Bayside 5k actually really offer that.
Kara: We’re constantly encouraging people to get out onto some of the lesser known trails, the little tiny neighborhood connectors where you suddenly see downtown Portland from a completely different perspective. We just purchased some land in Falmouth actually along 295 the Presumpscot River estuary and when I’ve gone out there to do some trail work I can look back at the city skyline and I’ve never seen it from that angle before. I think that’s this place that I call my home and I love and here I am getting a new glimpse of it. It’s almost like a new perspective on an old friend.
Lisa: I am very grateful to you for the work you’re doing with Portland trails and also to Portland trails itself. For individuals who would like to learn more about your organization Kara, where can they go?
Kara: The best resources would probably be our website which is trails.org. We also have an office down in Commercial Street and we always welcome visitors to come in and learn more about the trails. We’re happy to tell you where our little secret commuting routes or our getaways that we go to on the trails.
Lisa: You can also read about some of our adventures through Old Port Magazine or walking or running and for the winter Old Port Magazine our skiing so I encourage you to do that. We’ve been speaking with Kara Wooldrik who is the Executive Director of Portland Trails. Thank you so much for doing this.
Kara: Thank you so much.
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Lisa: Here on Love Maine Radio we really enjoy speaking with people who love Maine and Portland and actually all parts of Maine as much as we do. Today we have Lynn Tillotson of the The Greater Portland Convention & Visitors Bureau with us and that’s why I specifically say Portland although I know Lynn you’re actually from Saco. You love all of Maine, you love Southern Maine, you love Portland, we’re so glad to have you.
Lynn: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Lisa: Lynn, what does The Greater Portland Convention & Visitors Bureau do?
Lynn: We are a destination marketing organization. A lot of people if I say I’m with the Convention & Visitors Bureau they might look at me little blankly and say, “Oh, the Chamber of Commerce.” I’m like, “No, no, the Convention & Visitors Bureau.” The easy difference is that the Convention & Visitors Bureau stimulates the economy through tourism where the Chambers stimulates economy through business. We really focus on marketing the destination for tourist.
Lisa: You spent time in Orlando, fourteen years?
Lynn: Fourteen years.
Lisa: Fourteen years in Orlando. After growing up in Saco and you came back so you know what it’s like and you worked in Marriott. You know what it’s like to market a destination?
Lynn: I do. It’s interesting because I know what people outside of Maine think about Maine. It really helps us with that marketing effort. Most people say, “You’re from Maine,” they think of us way up in the corner. The next thing they say, “I always wanted to go there.” We’re definitely a bucket list destination and we play off of that. We’ve seen a number of changes in the last I don’t know, 10, 20 years that have significantly impacted Portland for the better. I mean, the cruise ships that we have that are docking are enormous and this is something that when you and I are growing up in Southern Maine we just weren’t seeing.
Lisa: No, not at all. Not at all.
Lynn: We started a cruise consortium several years ago about I’d say six or seven years ago. It’s a collaboration between us, the Chamber of Commerce, the City of Portland, Kennebunkport and Free Port so we all pull resources together to work on marketing the destination.
Lisa: What are some of the numbers that we’re seeing as a result of cruise ships and people putting Maine on their bucket list?
Lynn: When we started the cruise ship consortium we had 17 ships coming. Today we have 74 at the season and 82,000 passengers. I think it’s working.
Lisa: I would say so and it sounds like a great job to have to be able to market a place that you feel very passionately about and really let people know what’s going on here.
Lynn: Absolutely. Absolutely, it’s the best part of my job really. It’s to get out on the road in the winter time most of our staff is not in the office, we’re out of state marketing all over the United States, all over the world even. It’s the best part is to sell our state and talk about the amazing place that we all live in.
Lisa: What are some of the things that someone might come to Portland for?
Lynn: For Portland specifically it really is what we all know about, I mean the recognition of the food that we have here. It really is people all over the world are hearing about it. They want to come here, they want to try it, they hear great things about this little city but it’s the largest city in Maine. To see the culture that we have and just experience what we have right outside our doors.
Lisa: We have food and we also have the proximity to other places that you have mentioned like Kennebunk and Free Port. Do people explore when they come off the cruise ship do people take trips to some of these outlying destinations?
Lynn: They do, they do and it is one of the reasons why cruise ships come here. Many merchants might say, “They all leave and they don’t stay in Portland.” That’s actually not quite true. There are less than 20% of the ship that will go to an excursion but cruise executives need those excursions to help promote the destination. It’s financially viable for them as well. It’s a draw for a cruise ship to come here and be able to see this great city but also to be able to go to Kennebunkport which is there draws the home of the two presidents as well with the shopping in L.L. Bean. It offers a reason to come here but most of them really stay here.
Lisa: You also as part of The Greater Portland Convention & Visitors Bureau, you also have events that you put on?
Lynn: We do.
Lisa: Tell me about this.
Lynn: There’s only one event that we put on actually other than of course our internal events like our annual meeting but the one event that we focus on is Harvest on the Harbor which takes place every year in late October. We started that event seven years ago because Portland as just getting on the map for the food season. Bon Appétit Magazine had just named us the foodiest small town in America.
There weren’t a whole lot of food events happening, there’s small ones here and there so we decided that we wanted to embrace the press that Portland was getting and what was happening that we saw we wanted to bring it to a different light and we specifically chose the fourth week in October because for us it’s about getting tourist here. Typically the tourist season ends after Columbus Day. We chose that fourth week to extend the tourism season. It’s successful, it’s very successful. Tourism businesses are now telling us that their season ends after harvest instead of after Columbus Day.
Lisa: What I like about Harvest on the Harbor is it’s location. I mean the food is great obviously, you have a number of wonderful chefs that you bring in but the location is amazing. Having been to food festivals, when you’re right there, you’re right on the water.
Lynn: It is a great location and we like that it benefits the city as well so even after people are enjoying their time at harvest they can just walk right into town and enjoy everything that’s happening here as well.
Lisa: For people who actually live in Portland and either they have come back as you and I have to live in Maine or they are choosing to move here from bigger cities like Boston, New York. What are some of your favorite things to tell people to do on their staycations?
Lynn: I think that first of all as a Convention & Visitors Bureau we often sell Maine first because they need to get the idea in about coming here. We sell Maine and talk about the amazing things that there are to do. Then we narrow it then down into the greater Portland area. It’s the cobblestone streets, the amazing boutiques, the wonderful restaurants. Every time they turn a corner they are going to have something that they could eat.
The galleries and the art that’s here is outstanding and on top of it, all of this amazing stuff is happening steps from a working waterfront and that the working waterfront truly is a draw. It’s that alluring kind of thing where they are going to see a fisherman right there, they are going to see a lobster man pulling up their traps. They love that idea.
Lisa: That’s actually a really good point, I think sometimes having been to a number of different cities it’s easy to get into a great restaurant but that’s the thing. You’re not right down the street from a tug boat. You’re not seeing what’s actually going on. It doesn’t feel as if you’re right in the middle of the action.
Lynn: It’s true, not too long ago a few years ago we rebranded the Convention & Visitors Bureau and we worked really hard trying to find the right tag line that embraces what this place is and we ended up coming up with authentic by nature. It really is authentic. There are very few places that you can go now that have the culture and the architecture and the working waterfront and not look like a cookie cutter district mall everywhere. Maine offers that.
Lisa: There’s also something about because you talk about branding Maine first and bringing people into Maine first. There’s something about driving over the bridge from New Hampshire. There’s something about just something that opens up in you. Space, the ability to breath, the ability to experience things that a busy brain doesn’t normally allow you to experience. It really is and if you come over the bridge and stop at the Kittery Information Center. I don’t know how many people, how many listeners have actually done this especially if you’re local you might not stop at the Kittery Information Center.
The next time you’re coming north stop at the Kittery Information Center and get out of your car and it smells like pine trees. It’s the most, I don’t know, it’s Maine. It’s just Maine. What I’m struck by is the fact that you grew up in Saco, you went to Thornton Academy, you left, you lived in Orlando and worked I Orlando. After 14 years you wanted a place to raise your children and you said, “I want it to be Maine.” There’s something that’s so special about Maine that you came back and now you’re living your life here.
Lynn: It really is and we look back and it was a big change to come back. It was a really big change. At first we’re like, “Oh my gosh, what have we do. It’s so much slower.” It took that time to adjust and I look back and wow just things happen for a reason and it is the best decision we ever made. They have the coast, living in Saco we’re minutes from the beach but to have the coast and to have everything that Maine offers and we hike constantly and the mountains, we’re a bit skier it just … We love to camp, the kids truly have an experience here that they never would have received living south.
Lisa: Also, it’s a full experience I mean people talk about how cold it gets but that’s the experience of being cold. That’s the experience of watching the leaves change and the experience of having to be hot and humid. Everything to watch the seasons change it mean something.
Lynn: We love it when it snows. Of course Maine tourism destination loves it when it snows. We’re a huge snowmobiling state. You have to embrace it, you have to love to ski and snow shoe and get out and make snowman and do everything that Maine offers and we promote that all the time.
Lisa: I’m not sure that everybody understands how important that is to have organizations like The Greater Portland Convention & Visitors Bureau and like people who are out there branding Maine. Because it’s not really I mean sales are important, numbers are important as sustainable economy is important but it’s really more about the story telling and I think that to have somebody who can go out there and tell the story of the city of Portland or the story of the state of Maine I think that’s pretty critical to our long term livelihood and health and well-being as a state.
Lynn: It really is, I mean the state relies really heavily on tourism and yes the Convention & Visitors Bureau we have this saying that says, “We do what most people think just happens.” We really are out there all the time promoting the state, promoting Portland and it’s not just to individual visitors or cruise ships, we also market for the motor coaches that come in to the area for international travelers. For meetings, event and sporting events, for destination weddings, it’s a whole picture and so we’re constantly out there to all those different markets saying, “Come to Maine, come to Maine.”
Whenever there’s a motor coach that is dropping off 50 people and they are going to spend money in this town it’s been a direct impact of what we do. A lot of the tourism industry is it can be finicky if there’s so many destinations in the U.S. let alone the world that if you’re not there at a show promoting your destination it can be out of sight out of mind. It takes a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of effort but you have to do it. If we weren’t there I think it would make a considerable difference in the numbers that come in to the state.
As much as many of us will notice of the ticking traffic or the inconvenience of some of this good luck. I think it’s still really important to recognize that all of us benefit from the dollars that are being brought into the state. It’s really something that our state relies upon to a significant degree.
Lisa: We really do. I just had somebody bring something to my attention which I thought was a really good piece of information. They were like, everything that we have here in Portland, the amazing restaurants and the galleries and everything that’s happening, a little city of 65,000 people would not be able to support all of these restaurants and everything that’s happening. All the hotels without tourism. It really is critical to our area. Lynn, I know people are going to want to learn more about the work that you’re doing so how can people find out about The Greater Portland Convention & Visitors Bureau?
Lynn: Our website is visitportland.com and I put a little disclaimer that we are working on a new website. That’s a non-stop job, isn’t it? It’s a great website, it has some great information but it’s circa 1990s navigation so we’re working on a brand new website which will be really robust and we’re really excited about that. That will probably come out in the spring of 2015. It’s a big project but certainly they can always contact me as well and I’d be happy to meet with people.
Lisa: Very good. I encourage people to do that. We’ve been speaking with Lynn Tillotson, the President of The Greater Portland Convention & Visitors Bureau. Thank you for sharing your enthusiasm for Portland and the state of Maine with us at Love Maine Radio.
Lynn: Thank you.
Lisa: You’ve been listening to Love Maine Radio. Show number 170. Old Port Winter Wellness. Our guest have included Charlie Mitchell, Kara Wooldrik and Lynn Tillotson. For more information on our guest and extended interviews visit lovemaineradio.com or read about them in the winter issue of Old Port Magazine. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week show sign up for our e-news letter and like our Love Maine Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter as Dr. Lisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful one on Instagram.
We love to hear from you so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, I hope that you have enjoyed our Old Port Winter Wellness show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors, Maine Magazine, Marcy Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary By Design, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms and Bangor Savings Bank. Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine, at 75 Market Street Portland Maine. Our executive producers are Susan Grisanti, Kevin Thomas, and Dr. Lisa Belisle.