MAP President's Letter - Winter 2019

Season’s Greetings to the Maine Planning Community!

How are you feeling about planning in Maine this year?  From what I’m seeing, it appears that planning is in demand and gaining strength.  A strong job market for planners, and a growing recognition that communities need to plan for a changing climate, changing demographics, and changing economies are encouraging signs. 

Opportunities for planning to gain traction are evident in our experience with the Mills administration, and in non-profit-driven conversations around the state.  I hope you have been hearing about opportunities to engage in those conversations in your area of expertise or geography.  Examples like the Climate Council, a BuildMaine conversation about development patterns and systems, and MAP professional development events are just a few of the recent happenings.

Following a successful NNECAPA conference in New Hampshire and the near-completion of our transition to being a section of NNECAPA, we are gearing up to focus on advancing the profession in Maine and professional development opportunities.  If you can, please join the MAP board for a discussion of the future direction of planning in Maine and some holiday cheer on December 17, 4:00-6:00 at The Nature Conservancy offices in Brunswick.  We would love to see you. More information can be found on our Facebook event page.

As you may have seen in previous correspondence, we are adjusting our fiscal year and annual election timing to match the NNECAPA fiscal and election cycles.  In the coming year, we will have a membership meeting in January to discuss legislative matters and hear about other timely topics.  We are aiming for April for the MAP annual professional development day. Next September the NNECAPA meeting will be in Vermont, and then next November we will have the MAP annual meeting, elections and budget approval.  Look for dates as we get closer to each event.

In the meantime I invite you to get in touch with me or other members of the board if you want to talk over an idea or concern, or want to make sure a success makes it into our newsletter and out to the membership.  It is a pleasure working with all of you.

My best regards,

Samantha