Trustees organize logistics, budget and fundraising for annual largest clam contest

Trustees spent a substantial portion of the June 8 meeting planning the town’s annual largest-clam contest. Trustee Patrice proposed a project-management-office (PMO) approach to manage workstreams including communications, site planning, the clam contest itself, food, tickets/pricing and fundraising.

"There's certain major deliverables: the contest, the food, getting the site prepared, getting the people in the door," Patrice said, offering to lead communications and site planning with administrative staff acting as the PMO. Trustees discussed assigning individual trustees and volunteers to lead discrete workstreams and emphasized that whoever signs up to run a stream should manage its tasks and expenses within an agreed budget tracked by the PMO.

Discussion turned to fundraising and scholarships. Trustees proposed a 50/50-style cash raffle and debated whether all proceeds should go to scholarships or be split to offset event costs. The board referenced a prior commitment of $1,500 from the scholarship fund and discussed supplementing that amount from general funds for the current year’s awards. Trustees also discussed seeking donated prizes from local businesses as in prior years to reduce cash expenditures.

Trustees agreed to further planning meetings, asked volunteers to identify which workstreams they will lead, and set follow-up steps for budgeting and prize solicitation. The chair asked members to provide input by Friday on specific tasks. No final event budget or gate fee was adopted at the June 8 meeting.