The Maine Fishermen’s Forum, preparing for its 28th season, boasts a new website, created by Mike Young, husband of Chilloa Young, who has served as Forum Coordinator for the past five years. Mike Young, Phippsburg Town Administrator since 1995, has extensive webmaster experience with a website which he set up for the town two years ago. The new Fisherman’s Forum website address is www.mainefishermensforum.org.
Previously, the Forum website was located at maineseafood.org, but the new arrangement makes it possible for Chilloa Young to continuously update the numerous changes in schedule that inevitably occur as the Forum weekend approaches – even during the weekend itself. “Last year, we had a lot of changes,” she explains. “Before the program was printed at least one workshop had been dropped, three moved and after that, there were still cancellations and movement. This way, people can go to the website and get the latest schedule.”
So far, the website features the tentative schedule for the three days of the forum with descriptions of each seminar, information for exhibitors and a list of their names and phone numbers, information regarding accommodations and activities for adults and children at the Samoset Inn and other local accommodations. It also has a photo gallery from the 2002 Forum, information about scholarships, and a listing of area events of interest to the fishing industry. It includes the Forum’s Board of Directors and the organizations they represent and offers links to organizations, government officials and agencies important to the industry; weather, time and tide information; tuna permit requirements, the Adopt-a-Boat program and local newspapers.
This year’s tentative forum schedule includes a seminar on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Fisheries Management in the Gulf of Maine, with presentations from scientists, regulators and industry members, including representatives from areas in other parts of the world where MPAs are in place.
The Friday and Saturday schedules include seminars on meeting Coast Guard safety requirements, marine insurance, Trapping Live Fish, Keeping Your Assets Now and Into Retirement, Sea Scallop Enhancement Round-table, GOM Collaborative Research, Loss of Working Waterfront and Current Use Taxation, Community Involvement in Fisheries Management and several others on various aspects of fisheries research and management.
After the Forum, the Youngs plan to summarize information from some of the seminars and post it on the site. “In the long term, we’re hoping to make the site a place people can go to on a regular basis for information,” Chilloa Young says. “We haven’t decided exactly what we’ll include, but everything will in some way be related to the goals of the Forum, which are to further education, communication and neutrality among all facets of the industry.”