Potholes & Politics: Local Maine Issues from A to Z
Potholes & Politics: Local Maine Issues from A to Z
MMA’s 89th Annual Convention – From Partnership to Progress
On October 8-9, 2025, Maine’s municipal leaders will gather at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor for MMA’s Annual Convention. This year’s theme, From Partnership to Progress, highlights how collaboration can lead to the implementation of successful and sustainable solutions. This week, Rebecca Lambert and Amanda Campbell are joined by Peter Osborne, MMA Education Services Director to discuss the planning that goes behind the convention. They are also joined by Shiloh LaFreniere, Jay Town Manager and MMA Executive Committee member, who discusses how the Planning for Tomorrow Together session dovetails with the convention theme. Municipal officials looking to reconnect with peers, engage with vendors, and explore a wide range of topics that impact the delivery of municipal services, are encouraged to visit MMA’s website here.
Welcome everyone to Potholes and Politics, Local Maine Issues from A to Z. I am your co-host, Rebecca Lambert. And with me as always is my amazing colleague, Amanda Campbell.
Hello, Rebecca. Welcome to all of our listeners.
Welcome everyone. So last week we had a great discussion about AI and how municipalities can harness its use to streamline workflows and create efficiencies throughout their whole workday. The episode featured MMA’s Director of IT, Brian McDonald, and three other guests. We've received a lot of positive feedback on that episode, so if you missed that conversation, go on back and give it a listen. And while you're at it, you can like and subscribe to our podcast on whatever platform you listen to us on. That way you'll be notified when a new episode drops, ensuring you will never miss one of these compelling and always entertaining episodes.
We are certainly entertaining, Rebecca. Yeah, and this week we're welcoming MMA's, Director of Educational Services, Peter Osborne, who's going to be discussing this year's annual convention and Shiloh LaFrenier, Town Manager of Jay and a member of MMA’s Executive Committee who will be participating as a panelist in a planning session during the second day of convention. Welcome Peter and Shiloh, and thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Good to be here.
So, Peter, we're gonna kick it off with you. Tell us a little about the theme of this year's convention and what's the process that you and your team use to choose the theme each year?
Absolutely Rebecca. So, just as a little background, this year we are celebrating MMA'S 89th Annual Convention in Bangor at the Cross Insurance Center. We'll be there on Wednesday and Thursday, October 8th and 9th. MMA's convention is our flagship annual event, comprised of two days of training and an exhibit hall, lots of vendors, exhibitors, and sponsors ready to meet our members and talk about goods and services.
So, our theme for this year's convention is “From Partnership to Progress.” We're really focused on how municipalities can collaborate internally, but also externally with other municipalities, counties, state government, business, nonprofits, et cetera, to tackle big problems that we're all facing. Think things like housing workforce, storm resilience, other challenges that we're facing as a state and that are really bigger than any one municipality to solve.
So, the process of reaching a theme usually starts about a year in advance of every convention. So, I'll typically sit down with MMA’s incoming president for the following year to have a conversation with them about ideas that they have for the coming year and what they're thinking about for the upcoming convention.
We'll talk about big, big ideas that they're thinking about that are on their mind. You know, and to be fair, we also talk about, are there particular bands they might wanna see perform, but that doesn't contribute to the theme discussion. Uh, so after that conversation, I take those broad ideas, and I started shopping around for potential speakers, potential sessions that would fit into that.
And from there, we'll identify a keynote, some featured speakers, different plenary sessions that we want, and really, we begin honing in on the final theme in late winter and early spring. And as those of you on the call know, I lean heavily on my colleagues here at MMA with a big shout out to Kate Dufour, our intrepid communications director, to workshop various themes, discuss our different options and make decisions about what our final theme will be.
And then we're off to the races.
That's great. Thanks Peter. So, Shiloh, you'll be joining convention this year as a speaker on Thursday morning in a session that's titled Planning for Tomorrow, Together. How does that session fit into the theme of partnership to progress?
Sure. So, very excited to be part of the panel for this. Brian Ambrette with the, the new Director of Maine State Resilience Office; Linda Nelson, who's the Economic and Community Development Director for the Town of Stonington; Deborah Elwood, who is the president of the Maine Community Foundation; and myself are going to be on that panel. And I had the pleasure of serving with each of them on the Governor's Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience Commission over the last year. So, it should be a great session. We're going to bring perspectives from our own experiences as well as from serving on the commission.
The devastating storms that we had in our state in 23 and 24 were really the catalyst for the commission and put the spotlight on the need for our state and our communities to collaborate on planning and implementation efforts to put us in a better position going forward as we face extreme weather events.
So, we spent the last year visiting different communities, talking with community leaders, industry professionals, business partners, education, the academic world, just trying to figure out where we need to go, recognizing that none of us really can do it alone. And I think that one of the common themes we found when we were visiting and talking with different groups was that none of us have the capacity, and that if we're going to make this all work for finding resiliency for the future, that we're all going to have to do it together. So ultimately the commission came out with the plan that, if people haven't looked at it yet, before the session, the Maine Infrastructure Resilience Plan, it's a good thing to flip through. I'd encourage you to take a look at it ahead of the session just to kind of get a feel for it.
The plan was set up, there's three pillars. And then there's supporting strategies and actions underneath each of them that really drive us towards how we can work together, the spirit of collaboration and what it's going to take to get us where we need to go. And it really ties well into this year's convention in broader, like we were focusing on the extreme weather events, but as Peter said, you know, the idea of housing, employment, all of the challenges that we're all facing, how do we do it better together?
I had the opportunity to listen to the presentation of the infrastructure resilience and recovery plan report when you all did that webinar through the state and it was fabulous and it was really exciting to see how many municipal officials were on that call listening also hopefully they'll, recognize that from hearing you guys and see it in the show program and come and check out your session. So, thank you.
Back to you, Peter. When is registration open for our members and where can they find the convention information?
The registration is open right now. So, we typically put out several “save the dates” earlier in the year, and then we officially open registration in July of every year.
So, registration is open right now on the MMA website. So, if you navigate to the MMA website, memun.org, click on the training tab and then go down to MMA convention. You can view the whole agenda, all of the session details, different speakers, things like that, and also register directly from that place on our website.
So, I'd really encourage people to go and take a look at the agenda and register if they haven't already. We'd be really happy to have everyone there.
That's great, and we'll also link to the registration information in our show notes.
And, Shiloh, I was hoping maybe you could tell our listeners, especially ones who may never have been to convention, how it plays a role for you and your employees at the town office. What about it is important and what's one of the takeaways for you after convention?
Sure. So usually there's multiple takeaways after convention. You can usually can get at least something from every session you visit. But I think the biggest thing for me is that it's like a one stop shop. So, as Peter mentioned, you get all of your sessions, but you also get your networking. You get your vendor contacts.
So the sessions themselves, there's always a wide variety and any member of your municipal team will find something that they could benefit from and/or your select board members, budget committee, whomever you're bringing, there's something for everybody. So I, I really appreciate that MMA really works hard to make sure that all the sessions represent the different jobs that we have in a municipality, whether you're the town clerk or the public works guy, you know, there's something for everybody. So that piece is really important.
And then the networking piece, just visiting with your peers, learning what they're going through, what they've faced in the past year, what their challenges are, how they've overcome them. You know, you, you hear something that may not have an impact today, but six months down the road you might be dealing with the same thing and find, oh wait, I remember at convention someone mentioned that. Being able to reach out and, and make that connection and get that information, that networking piece I think is huge.
And then Peter mentioned the vendors that are set up at the convention. Again, it could be a vendor that you've never dealt with that you think you're never going to need, and then six months down the road, oh, I have a need for that. And I saw, I actually have a card from them that I picked up at convention, you know, or a product that you didn't know was out there that will meet a need that you had. So just walking through the main area at convention and visiting with the different vendors. You learn things that you didn't know you needed to know, and then you can also seek out things that you're looking for, for information.
Then lastly, I would say meeting with the MMA staff, like putting faces to everybody behind the scenes at MMA that you're always calling, that's giving you information that you're, you know, talking with, but don't always get to see.
So being able to see everybody there I think is really beneficial. It makes those connections.
It's really exciting for us too, to see everyone at convention and to put faces with names. That is a great part of convention.
So, Peter, your team manages all the educational opportunities for our members, not just at convention. Knowing that MMA is continually trying to improve our services, are there any program changes or new initiatives that members should be aware of or look at throughout the fall and into 2026?
That is a great question. The, the short answer is yes, but let me give you the longer answer.
So, over the last year or so, I would say across MMA, there's been quite an emphasis on member engagement. And what we mean by that is really giving opportunities for members to get to know one another, to interact with one another, but also, like Shiloh said, to put faces to names. And help members understand what types of services do we offer and who is kind of behind the scenes providing those services.
So outside of convention, we have rolled out two new programs that are really emphasizing member engagement. So, the first being our “MMA For a Day” program, which is really where we take the show on the road. We take the people and the services of MMA to different corners of the state, to meet our members where they're at.
So far this year we've been in Auburn, we've been in Greenville and will be in Biddeford later this year. Another new program that we've rolled out is our “MMA Lunch and Learn” series. So that is, every other month over a lunch hour. It's free, it's over Zoom, and we're just offering many educational sessions, facilitated by each of our departments.
So this year we've had a session on legislative advocacy, a session on preparing for town meeting, mental health resources, cybersecurity, and we have a couple more through the end of this year.
When we look at convention we're also building in some additional opportunities for member engagement, too. We hear all the time from members who go to convention that networking with other members is one of the most important aspects of their convention experience. So, we've actually built this year, on day two, a member networking luncheon into our program. And so, we're going to create kind of a low-stake chance for members to meet new people, to engage in tabletop discussions of common interest or deepen the connections that they may already have with other municipal officials.
You know, we're really aiming to give members more chances to connect with one another too. Kind of build their network, their community and also to better engage with MMA staff who can support them in all of their various needs and responsibilities. So that's been an emphasis for the whole year. And we're also building that into convention this year too.
That's great. So, I think that's gonna wrap up our convention episode. Thank you both for joining us today and being guests on our podcast.
Thank you.
Hopefully we'll see lots of listeners attending convention in October. We look forward to seeing you all in Bangor.
Please stop by our booth and say hi. Maybe we can even record a little snippet of you for a future podcast episode.
SHOW NOTES – Thanks for listening!
