“Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
The Home of Paul Revere
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.”
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We were excited to attend and participate in the first New England regional PAII trade show and conference earlier this month in Nashua New Hampshire.
The Three Musketeers of InsideOut Solutions in Boston Commons
Flying into Boston on a Sunday evening, Jeff Logan, Pat McCauley, Katie Pate and Steven Dunston took some time on Monday to learn about the history of American Revolution activities that took place in Boston and the surrounding area. We saw Paul Revere’s home in Boston, now surrounding by a bustling Italian neighborhood, and the Old North Church. Outside the city, we explored the “Battle Road”, the infamous trek that Revere made to warn the future American citizens that “the Redcoats are coming!” We took a small detour to see the famous Waldon Pond from Throeau’s “On Waldon Pond” and also saw the home where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women.
Katie & Pat at Waldon Pond
We arrived in Nashua Monday afternoon and began setting up our trade show and getting ready to see innkeepers. Fortunately for us, we were across the aisle from some very talented coffee roasters from Vermont. It was great to have Mocha Joe’s fresh coffee and aromatic presence throughout the trade show!
About 10 minutes before the opening reception in the trade show, the internet went out. And it didn’t come back until Tuesday afternoon. Wow! This was a big surprise for us, but we had planned ahead. Handing out reports for all the attending innkeepers with their search engine ranking ended up being a great conversation starter, and we were able to make due without the web.
The show was a huge success, we met with over 50 innkeepers, including some of our current clients like Pat & Vince Toreno from the Ashley Manor, Frank Wilson from Ten Acres Lodge, and Judi & Johanna Hauer from the Maine Stay Inn. We are so far away from these clients on a day to day basis, seeing them at the show was a real privilege.
Jeannine of On Cranberry Pond Bed & Breakfast won our iPod touch giveaway
On Tuesday morning Katie, Jeff and Steven presented panel-style on “Blogging 2.0: Finding Great New England Content”. As you can imagine, it was a little more difficult than we expected to talk about finding content on the web without and web access! Again, the InsideOut team was prepared with many screen shots and windows that had been left open from early morning internet sessions at Starbucks and Panera Bread (by the way, in case you were wondering, ’cause we were, “Panera” means “Bread Box” in Spanish). The presentation was great; there were about 70 attending innkeepers, and their questions were informative, well-targeted and engaging.
We hope that PAII will continue the New England Show; it was a fun time and also a great experience for us from the West Coast. We loved learning about our American History, and seeing the charming and lovely New England countryside.
