Subversion - local repository + staying in touch with maintainer svn

I am currently modifying a project that I svn checked out from the maintainers repository. To help in development process, I created a local repository, so I can do commits as necessary. However, I would also like to stay in touch with the maintainers svn. What would be the correct way to solve this? I thought of having a working copy from local repository, so I can do branches, commits, etc. but also to somehow have the ability to update the same working copy using maintainers svn and then commit those changes to the local repository.