By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

PARIS – The Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce has been expanding its scope to recruit members outside traditional town boundaries since a new executive took the helm earlier this year.

“A big part of my initial efforts was to find out how to make this organization more relevant,” Rich Livingston, president and chief executive officer, said Friday in a phone interview.

Livingston, a former strategic planning consultant, became head of the chamber last May. Under his leadership, membership has grown and now includes businesses from Buckfield, Hartford, Sumner, Poland and Gray, towns that lie outside of the eight communities that traditionally comprise the Oxford Hills region.

Those eight communities are Oxford, Paris, Norway, Hebron, Harrison, Waterford, Otisfield and West Paris, which also comprise SAD 17. “I think it was kind of coincidental that the business community was defined by the parameters of the school district. There’s no direct correlation,” Livingston said. “The connection we have with businesses and organizations isn’t constrained by town lines, necessarily.”

Livingston and the chamber’s board of directors developed a strategic plan that broadens the chamber’s purview and focuses the chamber more sharply on its members’ needs.

The effort appears to be paying off. Chamber membership has grown by just under 10 percent in the last six months. There are currently about 350 members in more than a dozen categories including manufacturing, social services, health care, retail, hospitality, education and others.

Livingston said Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner were not being accommodated by any chamber of commerce, and those communities were interested in affiliation with the Oxford Hills. “Those communities are as much a part of the Oxford Hills as the traditional communities,” he said.

In the last six months, several businesses in the three towns have joined the chamber and the town of Buckfield also joined.

Reconstruction of Route 117 across Streaked Mountain was completed recently, improving travel between Paris and Buckfield, adding to the logic that towns on both sides of the mountain be joined with the Oxford Hills, Livingston said.

“The opportunities to exchange goods and services between towns are enhanced,” he said. “It makes sense for those communities to be aligned with us.”

Livingston said the chamber also will continue efforts to recruit businesses and organizations located along the Route 26 corridor in towns including Mechanic Falls, Poland and Gray.

The Poland Spring Preservation Park in Poland and the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray recently became chamber members and Livingston is hopeful there will be more in those areas. “There is a flow of commerce back and forth,” he said. “There is a quality-of-life connection to the Oxford Hills.”

The chamber also plans to develop more programming for its membership categories. The chamber already produces the annual Manufactured Housing Show held in April.

“We want to develop specific programming in each category that is comparable in scope and impact,” Livingston said.