Coos Conversations

Coos County needs to learn from our neighbor to the west

Link: NPR: Vermont Calls Residents to Come Home.

The way towns and property owners SHOULD work together

Most of you know that I am originally from Durham, NH  which has it's own version of an 800 pound gorilla in the middle of town called the University of NH. The dynamics between NAD and Berlin  aren't all that different from the dynamics between the University and Durham. WHich is why I've been following the development of the downtown Mill Plaza with such interest. This article in The New Hampshire is a great example of how things can work if we think differently and take new approaches.

Entrepreneurs Alert! WREN is coming to Berlin

WREN the wonderfully effective women's entrepreneurial network in Bethlehem is bringing its energy, brains and expertise to Coos County. The first 8 week workshop will be held at the St. Barnabas Church from March 31st to May 19th. Details are on the poster.

Entrepreneurs Alert! WREN is coming to Berlin

WREN the wonderfully effective women's entrepreneurial network in Bethlehem is bringing its energy, brains and expertise to Coos County. The first 8 week workshop will be held at the St. Barnabas Church from March 31st to May 19th. Stay tuned for details.

Who says there's nothing to do in Berlin?

Berlin's  Mainstreet Program has released its 2008 schedule and all we can say is WOW! Tell your friends, and I'll see you there..for more info call 603.752.6246 or  email at berlinmsp@verizon.net.

• 2nd Brewtopia, Ale Tasting Event,Thursday April 24th, 7pm-12 midnight White

  Mt. Chalet

On Thursday April 24th, from 7pm-12 midnight, the Berlin Main Street Program in collaboration with the White Mt. Chalet and White Mt. Distributors will be hosting Berlin’s 2nd Brewtopia, Ale Tasting Event at the White Mt. Chalet in Berlin, NH

Come taste great ales, learn about brewing including home brewing, bid on the great items in the Sports Memorabilia Silent Auction from 7-9pm and then kick it in high gear as the music fills the dance floor. Limited amount of tickets, they go on sale in early March

 

• Drive in 50’s Thursday, June 5th, 5-8 Downtown Berlin

Gorgeous classic cars will line the streets and music will be heard throughout downtown
Berlin, Thursday, June 5th, 5 to 8pm, Rain or Shine. Everyone is invited to join the downtown festivities which will include great local food, incredible music, and of course, awe inspiring classic cars from all over New England. Rev those engines and cruise down to Main Street Berlin for the famous ‘Drive in the 50’s’ event sponsored by Pat’s Auto Sales!

• SidewalkSale Wednesday, July 9th through Friday, July 11th Downtown

Enjoy sweet treats at every business this week while taking advantage of huge savings during downtown

Berlin’s Annual Sidewalk Sale, Wednesday, July 9th thru Friday, July 11th! Get a jump start on holiday shopping and save big on a range of unique items from participating stores that you won’t find anywhere else. We are inviting area businesses/organizations to join in the fun, if you are interested in setting up a booth in the downtown during the sidewalk sale, please contact the Berlin Main Street Program at 603.752.6246

• Thunder in the Mountains,Saturday, July 19th  10am-8pm Northern Forest Heritage Park   

Great music, delicious food, and the roar of motorcycle engines is all you need for a great time in downtown Berlin

,

NH

! Main Street and Pleasant Street will be opened to motorcycles only and will be lined with bikes of all kinds, Harley’s, Choppers, Honda’s, foreign bikes, rare bikes, and more for the ‘Thunder in the Mountains’ Saturday, July 19th from 10am-8pm, a Poker Run from 9am -2pm, and a concert at the Northern Forest Heritage Park from 9pm-11pm. At dusk there will be a fireworks display for all those who passed doing what they love at theHeritage Park. Take a ride through the beautiful North Country and visit this event! Stay tuned for more details to come.

• Scarecrow Contest, October 27th through October 31st  Citywide

Come downtown this week and celebrate harvest season! Many Berlin businesses and organizations will have scarecrows on display starting this Monday, October 27th through Friday, October 31st. They will be on display in the downtown area from NCIA to Kaiboo’s Gift Shop. The Scarecrow Contest will be judged in two different categories; traditional or contemporary. The composition and utilization are limited only by one’s own imagination. First place in each category will receive a $200 Business Improvement Grant.

• Trick or Treating Downtown Friday, October 31st, 3-4:30 PM 

 The downtown Berlin businesses will once again open their doors to ghosts, ghouls and all of the children in costume that participate in their annual “Trick or Treat” throughout the downtown retail district. This event which is organized by the Berlin Main Street Program will be held on Friday, October 31st from 3-4:30pm. Children up to the age of 12 years old can trick or treat at all the participating businesses that display the orange pumpkin posted on their door.

• “Parade of Lights Friday, November 28, 2008, 7pm Downtown,

 The holiday Parade of Lights kicks off the most wonderful time of the year! The Parade of Lights Committee, along with their sponsor, Guardian Angel Credit Union, hopes to weave a tapestry of sight and sound for attendees to cherish. For float builders, entertainers, artist and musicians interested in entering the parade, contact the Berlin Main Street Program. All floats must incorporate the official parade theme and must be adorned with lights. Sorry, there is only one Santa Claus allowed and he is flying in first class from the North Pole, so no substitutions, please. The awards for the Parade of Lights participants shall be a 2008 trophy plaque for the “Guardian Angel’s; Best Overall Float” and subsequent plaques for “Best Use of Theme” and “Best Lights Display”. Immediately following the parade there will be a fireworks display guaranteed to lift spirits. Stay tuned for this year’s theme and get ready for some real holiday fun in  Berlin .

• Open House w. Live Mannequin  Thursday, December 4th, 2008 

Downtown is the place to be Thursday, December 4th, 5:30-7:30 pm, shoppers and passersby can see the downtown windows full of holiday decorations including ten windows with live holiday performances by Theatre North. It is a part of the downtown Holiday Open House at the participating downtown Berlin stores. There’ll be carolers and a visit from Santa downtown along with food and refreshments. Save time, save gas, and save money this holiday season by shopping locally. There is nothing like shopping with friends, buying from friends and all the while making new friends.

 

 

For further information or volunteer opportunities for any of the Berlin Main Street Program’s 2008 events please contact Stacia Roberge, Executive Director, at 603.752.6246 or by email at berlinmsp@verizon.net.

Berlin -- birthplace of extreme sports

BERLIN: THE EXTREME SPORTS VIEW

    The city of Berlin was the home of the very first extreme sport on this continent’s shores -- sailing off a manmade cliff on a pair of boards and landing safely (much of the time) on an outrun steep enough to make the nose bleed. Where Berlin sits today, without the massive Burgess sulfite mill atop the once thunderous Berlin Falls, the terrain screams extreme sports. 
    How loud is that scream? Here are a few shouts:
    Hikers on the Appalachian Trail agree that the section of trail in the Mahoosuc Range to the east of town is the toughest stretch of that Maine to Florida pathway. In the midst of the range there is an ice gulch so tight that  you have to take a pack off to get through it, and all around the gorge are cliffs that would be an ice climbers dream if they were easier to access in winter. And there are other cliffs and frozen waterfalls aplenty to clamor on in the area, if you count that little upstart Presidential Range nearby, Mt. Jasper in the backyard, Devil’s Slide in Stark, Rogers Ledge in the Kilkenny, Diamond Ledge on Long Mountain, and more.
Backcountry extreme snowboarders would like a crack at a few of them, I would imagine.
    Winter hiking and camping in the Whites, particularly on the north slope above Route 2, has mushroomed up into a sizable business in less than a generation , and Berlin, now that the mill is gone,  has a chance to lure some of that cold mountain foot traffic a few miles further north.
    Berlin Falls, if restored, could be a kayaker’s fantasy or nightmare.
There is already a thriving whitewater paddling business to the north, from Errol down to the Androscoggin. But put a hell-raising falls in the mix right in town, and Berlin could get its share of paddle people who just have to make the trip to try it out.
    Mountain biking is mammoth sport out west and not without its own big northeastern organization in Nemba, the New England Mountain Bike Association. While local entrepreneurs and state officials concentrate on motorized ATV trail development, no one has scratched the surface of the potential to create a truly extensive biking system in Coos with a central spoke in a logical full-service community like Berlin. But there is one individual who already has a working model in place to light the way forward for folks on skinny wheels, or on foot or boards, for that matter.
    Among the trees of Millsfield, Dixville and Errol, Bill Altenburg of Conway is cleaning up old skidways and erecting yurts in the backcountry to attract XC-skiers, snowshoers, sled dog mushers and summer recreation buffs who want a succinct system of trails and nicely spaced, rustic accommodations tied together into a cohesive whole. He is pointing the way toward a new vision in nonmotorized recreation for Coos County. His model worked for five years in Phillips Brook before International Paper terminated his lease in the forests there. Undaunted, he pushed north and east and duplicated what he’d done. He told me in passing once he had 5,000 visitors to the original Phillips Brook complex one year. I would imagine some of them had a few dollars in their pockets.
    No need to belabor this, but there are a whole array of new activities evolving that might need a watering hole, a good meal, and a warm bed in the future, things like winter survivalism, geo-caching , orienteering over vast distances, and knee sledding. There are those who have climbed all the 4,000-footers in New England and who are now out there tackling all the 3,000-footers. There are 100 of them right outside your Coos door, by god. 
    A whole solar system of non-motorized sport is revolving around out there without a big sunny center to hold it all together. Berlin could be at the center of that universe some day. Someday soon, hopefully.

Submitted by Kim Robert Nilsen
Wilshy@worldpath.net

Calling all entrepreneurs

Link: Entrepreneurial Exchange 2008: Connecting Tools, Techniques and Talents.

Great story about the joys of the Androscoggin

Even though he got a few of his facts wrong (R.J there hasn't been a pulp mill in Berlin for two years, there's still a paper mill in Gorham, however, but if you visited you would find that Berlin now smells as sweet as the great outdoors) nonetheless this story in Seacoast online about the Androscoggin is a great read. 

An interesting viewpoint on the alternative energy "Bubble"

The Wall Street Journal seems to think that "Green Energy" is the next bubble -- bound to burst

More on the wood pellet opportunities

WOOD PELLET INDUSTRY CATCHES FIRE

    As the crow flies 40 miles from the New Hampshire-Maine-Quebec boundary monument on the flank of Mt. D’Urban, there stands a big sawdust and chip pile near the Quebec lake community of Lac Megantic. Beneath that pile of ground wood is a small manufacturing plant owned by Energex corporation that spits out tiny compressed nubs of product called wood pellets, the bio-fuel that loads into hoppers on increasingly popular pellet stoves and burns at 85 percent efficiency to provide heating for homes and businesses.
    Just a week or two before Christmas there was a ribbon cutting at Cornith, Maine, and within a few days the big new wood pellet plant there was up and running, targeting a maximum output capacity of 300,000 tons of product, enough to heat nearly 100,000 homes during a northern New England winter and cut the U.S. crude oil budget by 12 million gallons. Right now, early in the game, they have 18 workers on the payroll and contract with an estimated 70 others who supply wood raw material and ship finished pellets.
The company brass figures they’ll pump $10 million into the local economy when the operation is in full swing.
    And in Schuyler, New York, a stone’s throw from the weary former mill and brewery city of Utica, there is a new plant out on the shoulder of  I-90 that’s busy packing wood pellets into bags, enough to heat 33,000 homes a year. This business is the latest enterprise put into play by New England Wood Pellet Corporation, whose home is in Jaffrey, NH where a similar facility ships finished wood pellets to distributors and retailers who sell by the 40-pound bag or by the ton (50 bags to the ton) to people like me sitting across the room from a quietly humming pellet stove.
    And there’s more. A pellet plant called Catamount Pellet Fuel Corp. is up and running in Adams, Mass. There’s a pellet palace at Palmer, Mass., and yet another at East Providence, RI. And if you drive four or five hours from New Hampshire’s granite uplands you can motor right up to four or five other pellet plants in New York state and three more in Quebec.
    A pellet manufacturing plant in Groveton or Berlin would be just the thing to warm the economic heart of the grand old million-acre dame. $10 million dollars of payroll and contracted services pouring on the streets of a Colebrook or a Lancaster or a Milan would be adrenaline in the veins, let me tell you. The best thing about a wood pellet manufacturing business is that Coos citizens could get reacquainted with their vast local resource that just so happens to grow free in the sun, in profusion on those million acres. Now that paper has gone to its grave, who is making anything tangible from wood between the riverbanks of the Connecticut and the Androscoggin?
    Coos should make wood pellets. Yes, sir. Make lots of them! And it may do just that, according to Pamela LaFlamme at Berlin City Hall. There is an effort to land a wood pellet plant in the city's industrial park just north of town. Now that's a bit of welcome news that gives off a cheery, warm glow.

Submitted by Kim Robert Nilsen
The Cohos Trail Association
wilshy@worldpath.net