Meg Wickes, center, was honored by Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area. She poses with her escorts, Susan McMorrow, left, complementary care coordinator and former executive director of Hospice, and Dale Marie Clark, current executive director of Hospice, at the post-ceremony reception.

By Gregor Smith

On Saturday, November 3, the REM Partners came together at the Waterville Opera House to honor their most outstanding volunteers. Including performers, honorees, their escorts, and audience members, around 130 people were present for the 90-minute ceremony.

The REM Partners are a coalition of 54 nonprofit organizations that work together to identify community problems and develop programs to address them. Any nonprofit entity that is active in the Waterville area — a school, hospital, church, governmental agency, or other nonprofit organization — can become a REM Partner. Eleven of the Partners chose to honor volunteers this year.

Besides the actual presentation of the awards, each REM Awards Ceremony offers a showcase of local talent. This year was no exception, with dancers, fiddlers, and a singer-songwriter. Maureen Morison, director of the Young Americans Dance Center, was again our talent coordinator. This year, toddlers and teens from her school gave a total of three performances, interspersed throughout the ceremony.

After opening remarks from returning master of ceremonies Eric Leimbach, a former radio host who has since gone into teaching, Ellen Gawler brought out her Pineland Fiddlers for their first appearance at a REM Awards ceremony. The twelve young artists, ages 7 to 15, are mostly middle schoolers and hail from towns throughout Central Maine. All are students of Gawler, a Belgrade string teacher. The Fiddlers play traditional tunes from Maine, Quebec, and the Maritimes. They opened with a lively two-step and continued with a Quebecois medley and a Cape Breton reel. They were even joined by twelve cloggers from Miss Maureen’s school on one number.

Besides the Awards crystal itself, each honoree received a framed certificate.

Also, new this year, Raffi Der Simonian sang two of his own acoustic folk rock compositions, accompanying himself on guitar. Der Simonian has released two albums, Movin’ On (1999) and Mind the Gap (2003), and has lately been writing some new songs. He has played all over New England and even abroad in London, in “old England.”

As we did last year, we debuted a video with short interviews with several of the honorees, speaking about the organizations that were honoring them, the work that they do within those organizations, and their reasons for volunteering. Made by Madison videographer Pete Sirois, the half-hour video featured Eric Chamberlain (Inland Hospital), David Livingstone (Rape Crisis Assistance and Prevention), Meg Wickes (Hospice Volunteers), Susan Spaulding (Waterville Public Library), Jacque Graf (Kennebec Valley Community College), and Gregor Smith (Kotlas Connection and REM).

The ceremony also marked the release of the 2008 edition of the REM Partners Directory. The directory contains descriptions of and contact information for all 54 REM Partners, as well as a Directory of Community Conscious Businesses.

The ceremony concluded with the actual presentation of the awards. Then surprise guest David Deas, a Winslow singer and guitarist, led the honorees and the audience in “When the Saints Go Marching In,” as the honorees and their escorts recessed out of the auditorium. Afterwards, honorees and escorts, performers and audience members continued the celebration at a reception in the REM Forum on the first floor of The Center.

All the honorees and their escorts stand on stage to receive the audience’s applause near the close of the ceremony. Click on the photo to enlarge it. Photo by Louise Smith.