Mim Bird

MCC Board Chairman

Mim was raised by a choral singing mother and a guitar-playing father. So, naturally, she learned to sing in parts when she was a little girl and to play the guitar mostly to accompany herself. She sang in choruses all through school and college. Then, when she reluctantly graduated out of academia, she drifted choruses until, in 2005, she heard about a non-auditioned chorus being formed in Camden, Maine. She figured it would be a few choristers getting together to sing some old favorites for fun. Imagine Mim’s surprise to find herself a member of a 130-voice chorus rehearsing Paul Winter’s Missa Gaia for a benefit concert that would raise $10,000 for Camp Tanglewood. She sang her heart out and never looked back.

While Mim was drifting chorusless, she pursued other interests. Homeschooling her son was an all-consuming task until he was 11 and decided to go to school. With her only child safely ensconced at The Riley School, Mim’s days became her own again and in June of 2012 she opened Over The Rainbow Yarn, a full-service retail yarn shop in downtown Rockland, Maine. She is the primary teacher and designer, and has built not only a community of enthusiastic fiber artists, but a national following as a knitting retreat teacher and organizer.

In her business life, Mim has acquired skills in social media marketing and public relations as well as event organization. She has discovered a talent for building community and helping people sustain a creative lifestyle. She has also learned how to help groups of people stay organized while making progress on multiple projects at the same time. Her dynamic personality, collaborative leadership style and commitment to community make her a valuable addition to MCC’s board where she focuses on membership services and social media tracking. She’s delighted to spend her skills on furthering MCC’s mission as a vibrant part of our Midcoast community.

Carole Brand

MCC Board Vice Chair

Carole is retired from Hoffmann-La Roche where she served most recently as Vice President of Human Resources for the U.S. Pharmaceuticals business. In her 35-year career, she has worked in the areas of international management development, organization restructuring, and managing change so that organizations can function more effectively and people can contribute their best. A recipient of the Commissioner’s Special Citation from the Food and Drug Administration, she also has been recognized for her contributions to New Jersey business as a winner of the Tribute to Women in Industry. With a B.A. in English and Psychology from Brooklyn College, she has done graduate work at Harvard Business School and New York University. During her tenure as President of the Board of Bay Chamber Concerts, the organization established the Bay Chamber Community Music School which now serves over 400 students of all ages. She is currently serving as Vice Chair of the Board of Coastal Health Alliance, an affiliation between PenBay Medical Center and Waldo County General Hospital. Carole is also currently President of the Board of Home Counselors, Inc., a nonprofit agency providing an array of child centered, family focused services. She has also been President of the Board of Literacy Volunteers of Midcoast Maine as well as tutoring literacy students. When not running Board meetings, Carole studies piano, devotedly follows the fortunes of the New York Yankees, and competes in crossword puzzle tournaments.

Penny Dunning

MCC Board Member

Penny found a long-lost sense of herself as a singer in singing the Missa Gaia by Paul Winter in the 2004 concert which planted the seed-of-the-idea to create MCC. Since then she is deeply appreciative of the opportunities that MCC had provided to her as a singer, music student, reader of music, and lover of choral music. She enjoyed planning the logistics for MCC to perform the Missa Gaia with the multiple choirs at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and hopes to plan for future choral trips to take MCC’s rich musical experiences to other communities, near and far. She is currently developing the marketing and public relations capacity for MCC to further develop recognition of MCC’s dynamic development as an organization.

Penny’s experience is diverse though principally focused on education and human resource development. She has been involved in several start-up organizations: an alternative public elementary school; an intensive training program for computer systems programmers and analysts to enhance affirmative action professional employment in corporations, education, government and non-profits; and development and implementation of corporate training programs in whole-brain creative thinking and problem solving. Her corporate experience includes systems engineer, sales representative, training, and organization development. She conceived of and implemented an international service trip for 20 local high school students to assist in the building of the first high school in the rainforest of Ecuador. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees for Penobscot Language School in Rockland.

In addition to singing and music listening she loves reading, sailing, puzzles, and games. She moved in 2000 from Massachusetts to live in Maine with her daughter, and now her grandson.

Lucia Elder

MCC Board Member

Music has been part of Lucia’s life ever since she can remember, singing in the family, church choirs, and school and community groups. She is a career RN who has worked in many areas of the field. A widow with two grown daughters, five grandchildren and one great grandchild, Lucia started out in Massachusetts. She has lived in midcoast Maine since 1970 and has been an active member of and served in leadership roles in her church. She has been part of Midcoast Community Chorus since its inception, as part of the "Neighbor to Neighbor" chorus and the group that talked about and fledged what has become the MCC we know now. Lucia looks forward to many more years of growth and development of the organization and a lot more music.

Roy Hitchings

MCC Board Member

Roy retired in 2012 after 38 years of working in not-for-profit healthcare, most recently as CEO of Pen Bay Medical Center. He is active in his church and on the boards of The Strand Theater, Maine Health Access Foundation, Rockland Rotary and the Georges River Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Roy loves to sing, fly fish, travel and spend time with his family (especially his 3 grandchildren).

Beth Wilson

MCC Board Member

With a background in business and finance, Beth has worked over 30 years in various positions at FMC in Rockland. She first started singing in a children's church choir under her mother’s direction and loves to sing harmony. She has a son Andrew and his wife Kira in Boston and daughter Kristen and her partner Jasper in Colorado. Beth loves to spend her spare time working with her hands: knitting, sewing, scrapbooking, gardening and home renovations with Matt. A native ‘Mainer’, 5 of her 6 siblings still live in Western Maine where family gatherings are large and filled with laughter.