“We knew when we first planned our Forum that there was a chance we’d need to adapt to changing circumstances.” As she prepares for passivhausMAINE’s upcoming, ninth Fall Forum, executive director Naomi Beal is relying on contingency plans. Beal is one of many organizers adapting to the volatility caused by Covid-19, whose impact and effects are constantly changing, even in Maine.
“We were already planning a hybrid event,” says Beal, “with three days of online and in-person workshops and evening dinner and vendor expo, tours and seminars.” After a digital event in 2020, the current forum is planned to be a two-day mixture of the digital and physical. “With the current surge, we felt like it would be unsafe to have our big group gatherings, which were planned for September 16,” says Beal.
Instead, the organizers will focus on the online seminars and two site tours, taking place on September 17 and 18, and will work to expand digital streams. “This format is hearkening back to our simpler forums in years past, but we are really looking forward to celebrating in-person one day, maybe next year at our tenth forum,” says Beal.
“It’s easy to take part in our seminars, happening on the seventeenth, online. With the workshops, where things are more hands-on and the groups are bigger, it just felt like that was harder to move to the digital space,” says Beal.
The group is still excited about the upcoming event and hope that, as in 2020, the increased focus on digital will open up the conference to a larger audience, perhaps outside Maine.
“Maine Won’t Wait,” Governor Janet Mills’s four-year climate action plan, “is a mandate that the state needs to follow. The building industry is a critical component of achieving that mandate. We hope that the conversations inspired by these presentations will have an impact from individual thinking to policy,” according to Beal.
Online seminars will take place Friday, September 17, between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., covering the themes of financing projects and examining retrofit case studies. On Saturday, September 18, passive house owners will host two building tours to showcase their projects, one on Mount Desert Island and the other at The Ecology School in Saco.
The cost to participate in Friday’s seminars is $100 per person. To join one of Saturday’s building tours costs $35 per person. Students are always free. Registration is open now for both days. To register, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/passivhausmaine-fall-forum-2021-tickets-165024706339.
For more information on the Fall Forum, please visit https://phmeforum.org/.
WHAT: passivhausMAINE’s annual Fall Forum
WHERE: online and in person
WHEN: September 17 and 18
WHO: passivhausMAINE (www.passivhausmaine.org)
REGISTER: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/passivhausmaine-fall-forum-2021-tickets-165024706339