By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

SOUTH PARIS – The annual Oxford Hills Business Showcase, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, is a sellout, said Rich Livingston, president and CEO of the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce, on Monday.

This year marks the first year the chamber has organized the event. The showcase had been run by the Growth Council of Oxford Hills for many years, but it was relinquished to the chamber after the 2003 showcase.

Livingston said approximately 125 businesses are involved this year as exhibitors, most of them from the Oxford Hills area. Some will be providing information and be there primarily to meet people, while other exhibitors will have goods or services for sale.

“All available booth space has been rented,” Livingston said. “Most are, in fact, Oxford Hills businesses but some are not. There are some who do business in the Oxford Hills area but do not have a physical presence here.”

The showcase will be held at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School. Friday is Business-to-Business Day, when exhibitors will be able to meet and network with one another. Saturday is Consumer Day when the showcase is open to the public from 9 to 3.

There will be events for children on Saturday, including a Halloween costume contest and face painting, bead stringing, and lunch bag stamping. All adults who attend will be eligible for some $1,000 worth of door prizes.

Livingston said he expects several thousand people to attend on Saturday.

Barb Olson, the Growth Council’s vice president, said the chamber is better equipped to organize the annual showcase because the event, although important, was detracting from other programs that the Growth Council considers part of its core mission.

“We have very limited staff resources. (The showcase) is a very staff-intensive event, and we had to stop everything else for three months,” said Olson. “It is a great fit with the chamber of commerce.”

There was no showcase last year. “The chamber was undergoing changes of its own and wasn’t in a position to take over,” said Livingston.

Livingston joined the chamber last May after working in private practice as a strategic planning consultant. Since his arrival, Livingston said he has been having discussions with many of the chamber’s members to obtain information and data that are helping him develop a new strategic plan for the chamber.

This year’s showcase is structured around the same model the Growth Council had been using for years. Livingston said he attended the annual meeting of the Maine Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives last week, where a number of chamber representatives from around the state gave presentations. He said the Oxford Hills showcase appears to be more robust than other business showcases in the state, which he attributes to the work of the Growth Council.

“I’m very grateful to them,” he said. “We seem to be doing more things well. Our show is much farther along. … I attribute that entirely to the Growth Council.”