LEWISTON — As the rain cleared Thursday night, the crowd under the giant, yellow-and-white tent in Simard/Payne Memorial Park ate and chatted and reconnected.
The group, made up of balloonists and local residents, was participating in Business After Hours, an event put on by the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce. While the chamber hosts such meetings each month, the pre-Balloon Festival Business After Hours has become an annual tradition.
“This is the kickoff to the Balloon Festival,” said Jason Boucher, a balloonist from Derry, N.H., who is back for his seventh year. “It’s always fun to see familiar faces.”
Business After Hours is a social event for networking, said Chip Morrison, president of the Androscoggin Chamber. “There are no speeches, but we do a raffle and have door prizes. It’s a chance for people to get together.”
The pre-festival Business After Hours, however, “is very different,” Morrison said. “The balloonists come to this one. It’s really a chance to celebrate the Balloon Festival.”
More than 200 people turned out for Thursday’s Business After Hours, which was what organizers expected. Morrison said the rainy forecast had made him nervous before the event.
“We have the tent; we have our rain jackets,” Morrison said, motioning to the cloudy sky. “Still, it took about 20 minutes before people started to show up.”
Thursday’s was the 20th annual Business After Hours meeting to be hosted as a warm-up to the Great Falls Balloon Festival.
“It starts the momentum going for the festival,” said Filomena Day of Meredith, N.H. Day, who is the treasurer at the Center for Wisdom’s Women in Lewiston, has been coming to the event since it began. “Business After Hours is more focused on sharing business. This is about sharing summer, sharing the festival,” she said.
“We do this event,” Morrison said, “because 20 years ago the chamber started the Balloon Festival, though now we just support them.”
He added, “We’re all hoping the rain will go away and the wind will die down.”
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- Balloon-meister Mickey Reeder and her assistant, husband John Reeder, look at the sky Thursday at Simard/Payne Memorial Park in Lewiston, the site of the Great Falls Balloon Festival. Mickey Reeder said she expected the weather to be favorable for the 6 a.m. Friday balloon launch.
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- Balloon crew volunteer Hannah Rodrigue, left, of Lewiston checks out her T-shirt for size during the volunteers’ meeting at Simard/Payne Memorial Park in Lewiston on Thursday.
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- Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce President Chip Morrison, left, shares a few laughs with Katherine Raynor, center, and Mona Karole during the Chamber’s Business after Hours social event at the Simard/Payne Memorial Park in Lewiston on Thursday.
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