WATERVILLE — Tracy O’Clair, who planned for and managed Kringleville and the Parade of Lights during the 2016 holidays, has been appointed interim executive director of Waterville Main Street.
O’Clair, 37, who owns the digital marketing agency TOCmedia, is serving as a subcontractor for Waterville Main Street through June, which is the end of the organization’s fiscal year.
“She’s a great organizer and she knows how to pull people together, including volunteers and our board,” Charlie Giguere, president of Main Street’s Board of Directors, said Tuesday.
O’Clair’s responsibilities include working with the board to help identify funding sources, creating a budget for the rest of the fiscal year, reviewing financial statements, determining next steps and developing committees.
“One of the things that I’m working on is finding key people to be on our committees to help out,” O’Clair said Tuesday. “We really want people who are passionate about downtown Main Street to be on that committee.”
Waterville Main Street, founded in 2001, is a nonprofit that seeks to make the downtown a thriving and energetic destination spot that includes commercial, social, cultural and entertainment activities. The organization operates on an annual budget of about $120,000, funded by the city, institutional investors including the colleges and hospitals, businesses and annual appeals to businesses, and fundraising and promotional activities, according to Giguere. Waterville Main Street organizes other events, including the Waterville Downtown Farmers Market and Harvest Fest.
She and volunteers are working in the organization’s downtown office on the second floor of 44 Main St. For the last week, they have been taking inventory of data and physical items and assessing them and expect to continue that for the next couple of weeks.
CGI Group Inc., which recently purchased Collaborative Consulting, is helping with the data work, O’Clair said. She said she is optimistic about the future of the organization and wants to help it flourish.
“One of my biggest goals is to collaborate with all the different entities including Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce, Waterville Creates!, the city of Waterville, Colby College and CGI,” O’Clair said.
A Waterville native, O’Clair said she lived last winter in Florida and returned to discover that downtown revitalization efforts had begun. She started attending planning meetings, and after learning Main Street office manager June L’Heureux was retiring from her position, she contacted the board to see how she could help. Main Street’s executive director, Jennifer Olsen, had resigned previously and L’Heureux was performing many of the director’s duties.
The board hired O’Clair on a contract basis to organize the Kringleville auction to raise money for both Kringleville itself and the Parade of Lights.
The auction turnout was much higher than it had been the year before, and businesses donated more than 150 items to the event. More than 1,200 children visited Santa Claus at Kringleville.
“We had the largest auction ever. Our fundraiser was tremendous, and a lot of it was because of Tracy’s invigorating nature,” Giguere said. “She was right into it.”
O’Clair’s business, TOCmedia, has virtual offices and does primarily social media marketing; creates content; posts to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; and monitors accounts. it also does email marketing, mostly for small business owners, and is publishing the magazine KV Explorer for the Kennebec Valley Tourism Council.
Until last year, the city had given Main Street $40,000; but last year the City Council decided to reduce the amount $30,000, after having discussed possibly eliminating funding all together. The council asked Main Street to work to improve efficiency, garner more members and report to the council quarterly on its progress.
“I’m excited about it, mostly because Waterville’s my city,” O’Clair said of the interim executive director role. “It’s my home, but also I really enjoy creating community — bringing people together for the same cause. I have a fairly good relationship with most of the downtown business owners, so it seemed like a natural fit for me and the board, after I ran Kringleville.”
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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