[Petrella]: Hello everyone and welcome to Method Happenings, a show for and about the city of Medford. I am John Petrella. The purpose of this program is to give Method citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices. Today we have not one, but three very, very special guests. Nell Escobar Coakley, Chris Stevens, and Wendell Waters, founders of Gotta Know Medford. They will be speaking about their new venture and what it's gonna bring to Medford. So let me begin, I'm gonna begin, I'll ask each of you, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background. And we'll start with Nell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. Well, I have been in the field of journalism for more than 30 years. I was the editor of the Medford Transcript for 17 years and was with the paper for 20 years, so pretty well versed in the city of Medford. I know a lot of the folks here and I'm really glad to be back in a news capacity. I've worked in all sorts of different fields. I've been a freelancer. I've done stories about everything under the sun. I was a managing editor. And at my very last sort of position working for a big newspaper company, I was the deputy director of Massachusetts State News.
[Petrella]: Wow. So you've done it all. You got some experience, some great experience. Just a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Just a little bit of experience, yeah. OK, yeah, yeah. Chris, how about yourself?
[SPEAKER_03]: So a few years less than Nell. I've been in the newspaper field for about 25 years, a little over 25 years. So I was at the Lynn item for 15 years where I was a reporter, I was a beat reporter, and I also had a food column for 14 years, which was a lot of fun. Like Nell, I've covered everything from courts to local government to arts and everything, neighborhood disputes, you name it, I've covered it, which is fun. It's the fun part about the job, because you never really know what's going to happen in a day. I was at the Marblehead Reporter for seven years as their editor, and since then, I've been freelancing. So I've done- Pretty good stuff. Yeah, like Mel, I've done a lot. I wasn't deputy director of anything, but I've done a lot of stuff.
[Petrella]: Yeah, but still pretty good stuff. You're way up there. I'm up there. Oh yeah, definitely, definitely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wendell, how about you? Yeah, I was never deputy director of anything. Not even in my house. But I've been involved in publishing in one form or another for about 40 years. I started my career at a magazine called Modern Materials Handling back in the day. And most recently, I've been with, I was with Wicked Local and worked for a number of different papers. And during that time, I mostly was a writer, but I also did you know, videos and photos and I wrote columns and did a podcast, a little of this and a little of that, so.
[Petrella]: Well versed, you're well, you've done it all too, so a lot of experience on this table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we've covered all the bases. That's probably not a story topic that we haven't covered.
[Petrella]: I'm looking forward to see what you're going to do for Method. I really am, I mean that. I'm looking forward to it. All right, so before we get into Got to Know Method, we're going to learn a lot about what's going on. You are all part of local newspapers. Yes. And one of the things I always wonder, I think about is, what happened to local newspapers. We always went to them. I mean, forever. It's heartbreaking. We can go in the same order. What do you think? I mean, what happened? Why did it happen? Who did it? We can tell you why it happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please, please do. Well, you have a lot of huge media companies, and they own everything. And they're very very busy not doing the news. They're very busy responding to their shareholders. So it's more important that the shareholders get their money than residents get their news. So we've seen a lot of cutbacks in the industry over the last at least 10, 20 years, and it seemed like every time you turn around, there were more cutbacks and more cutbacks. And about three or four years ago, our bosses, where we worked, told us that they had come up with focus groups and studies that people were very interested in 15 topics. If you're asking me to remember what they are right now, I'm not going to be able to tell you. But... I can only imagine.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was your basic. It was arts. It was food. It was travel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Development. State house. Government. But the thing was, they wanted to go to a regionalized model. So what they wanted, they wanted topic reporters instead of local reporters. So they started this program where they split everyone up, and then they started closing smaller titles, and they started to incorporate other titles. And it didn't work. It just didn't work. And we told them that it wouldn't work. We did. When they came up with the idea, we were very vocal. We were vocal. Our readers were vocal. Our communities were vocal. We didn't think it would work, and then three months later, they were like, this isn't working, and they laid off about 400 people nationwide. Us among them.
[Petrella]: I personally just think it's terrible, that's all, because... It was heartbreaking. Very heartbreaking.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, our newspapers were huge, as you know. People love their community newspapers. That's right. And that disappeared. And it was heartbreaking for us because that's what we've done for 25 years. We put our heart and soul into those papers. And I am a complete believer of community news. I think it's wildly important. And they just didn't, which was
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's sad. It was more the statistics. This is what the studies say. This is what the stats say.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, what the people are saying is what the studies were saying.
[Petrella]: I'm not going to get into the name. I don't even know the name of the local paper. But every once in a while, I'll go out with a few guys, a cup of coffee, and there's the papers. And, you know, I'll buy a paper occasionally still, because I like reading newspapers. We have one, but it's not Medford. I don't know what it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're still doing the regional model, but they're not doing the regional model with reporters. So you get two or three people writing a story, and then those people get handed off to someone. Somebody edits it. Those people look at it and say, we're putting this in every single one of these papers. And so it doesn't matter whether it has a Medford angle.
[Petrella]: It's another form of ghosting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't see anyone pick the paper up.
[Petrella]: It's there.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're newspapers without reporters attached. So they're ghost papers is what they call them. Zombie papers. Yeah.
[Petrella]: There you go. All right. So, you know, why do you think it's important? I mean, I think you covered some of it with the last answer. But why is it so important? I mean, what was the purpose of starting a digital newspaper? What do you think? I mean, anyone can take it. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I'll start. We feel it's really important that people know what's going on in their community. That's first and foremost. And also, we feel that having a newspaper in a community, you're holding the government accountable, which is a piece that's really fallen by the wayside with all the closing of the local newspapers. So it's both of those things. Right. Across the country, right? So for us, it's about building community. in Medford and getting to know people and letting them know what's happening, what are events, what meetings, anything big happening at City Hall, all that good stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's important. When we formed our company, which is Gotta Know Media, we were looking at different communities. And the interesting thing was I live in an adjoining community and I kept coming here and I kept seeing people I know. And they kept saying to me, oh my gosh, you need to come to Medford. You should come back to Medford. Come back to Medford. So when we were doing some research as to where to go, this seemed like the obvious place, because so many people had said, we are just absolutely in need of something here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Nell had deep roots here. Right. And it's a ripe community, because you're a growing community. You're an ever-changing community. So it was just sort of natural sense to come here.
[Petrella]: And the next question I was going to ask is, what's the value? What value are you bringing to method? I think you hit on that though. I mean, basically.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, the value is being here. It's bringing information. It's building a community, which is what we hope to do around the paper. It's giving people a voice. It's giving people a place to go to and a voice of their own. Because we want to hear from people, too. I mean, as much as we want to put information out there and tell you where to go and how to do things and what's going on in your community, we want to hear from you as well. And we're starting social media, so that'll be another access point.
[Petrella]: That's good. So what contributions are you looking to make? If I, you know, basic answer is, you know, you're going to make a contribution. What do you feel your contribution is going to be?
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to rebuild the community. I mean, everyone feels very divisive. And there's not a lot of respect for what someone's opinions might be. But we want to rebuild that. When I worked in Medford a million years ago, people were respectful. They didn't agree. Never have they agreed. But they were respectful of each other. And people would come to the paper for, oh, my kid did this. Or did you know that this person is doing that? And there was a real sense of community in the paper. And we always gave people their voice to send in columns or send in letters to the editor. And that's what we are looking to rebuild. We're looking to be the forum for people to come and send us their information, let us know that their grandpa had an 80th birthday. You know, we want to be that, I guess, that bridge, that bridge to the community.
[SPEAKER_03]: and you're looking to cover everything sports i mean yeah yeah we just recently hired a sports reporter actually so we have um have started covering sports i do a lot of as much of the art scene as i can so reach out to me please because i love to cover local artists and local um theater groups and whatnot but and definitely city hall is you know is a big part of that But yeah, anything and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're starting to hire a couple of freelancers as well. Oh, nice. I didn't know that. I wasn't aware. We literally just started that. We have somebody covering the Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year Banquet on Tuesday. Nice. And our recent hire for a sports guy is Chris Hurley, who is here for a million years with the transcript.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is very well versed in sports in the city of Medford. Again, which is nice. It gives us some starting roots here.
[Petrella]: So if I ask you what your target audience is?
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody! We want everybody! And that's it. We're a true community newspaper in that sense. That's why I said we want to cover everything. How much of that we get to and how much we do well depends on... We're three people. Yeah, we're three people right now, so keep that in mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Three people with full-time jobs and doing this because we love it. We love what we do.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're hoping that this will become our full-time job before long.
[Petrella]: I hope so, too, because I think you're going to be very successful. I really do. I think you're doing a great job. I subscribe and I get your And I think it's great. I really do. You know, the information you're putting out already, and you've just gotten started.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're trying to be diverse. We're trying to do a little bit of sports, a little bit of arts, a little bit of City Hall, you know, information we think people need.
[SPEAKER_03]: working on getting into the schools, love to cover stuff in the schools, so hopefully we'll be doing that.
[Petrella]: Important stuff, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, just not even just school committee meetings, I mean those are always important, what's going on policy-wise, budget-wise, but also in the classroom. I love to see what kids are doing in the classroom. You know, let's see how those tax dollars are being spent. Let's show the cool and the fun stuff. I mean, you have the vocational school right here. They do amazing, they are doing some amazing things.
[Petrella]: We did a show on them, yeah. It's tremendous.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dave invited me in, so I can't wait to get over there and do something.
[Petrella]: Yeah, it's nice. You're going to have a, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's great to be, for me, it's great to just be reconnecting with people that I've known for a really long time. And it's just so much fun to have them connect and say, hey, we'd like to meet for coffee. And we've got, you know, we've got some ideas. And so we definitely, we've actually gotten a lot of email from people who have said, how can we help? How can we support you? So nice. which is very, very nice. How can we be part? I'm not a writer, but what can I do? What can I do to help you keep growing?
[Petrella]: I think you girls are gonna be very successful. Me personally, this city has been looking for you for a long time. It's nice to meet you in person. I want the whole city to meet you in person. Because it is, it's important. I think, you know, and what you're set out to do is, you know, it's great. And now, you know, I got a tough question, because I always, I always think about it. We ask a lot of tough questions. Like, okay, so, you know, you're doing what you're doing, and you're starting out, and it's, you know, slowly building up. What, who makes, who's making the decisions? What do you decide? How do you decide what gets in the paper, what doesn't go in the paper? Does anyone, I mean... We talk a lot. You do.
[SPEAKER_03]: We text willy-nilly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm always curious like when we started in the beginning We made a pact the three of us made a pact that we would always be honest with each other Even if we didn't want to hear it and that majority rules if we ever come to You know a decision that we can't reach right away. Yeah, um, and that's really I mean we've sort of been working for about two years, so That's really
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's taken us a while to get this up and running. It's not like we just started.
[Petrella]: I know it's a lot of work, and most people don't realize the amount of work that you have to do even before you get on.
[SPEAKER_02]: We talk every day. So it's, hey, I'm going to do this story about that. We have a running list of stories in our budget, so we check that a lot. And like I said, we're texting and calling each other all the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are questions. I mean, we recently had a submission that we are discussing on whether we want to put it in or not, whether this is a good time to run it, or maybe we want to sit on it for a little bit. So, yeah, there are things that, you know, and a lot of that comes with the experience and experience that we've had. We've made those mistakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we do get in a place where we can't really settle it, We drop the gloves and we settle in on the ice.
[Petrella]: There you go, I love it. I love doing business like that. That's beautiful. I love that. I really do.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have yet to drag Nell out on the ice yet.
[Petrella]: I have another great question. Okay, what happens? Have you ever come to this, you know, all three years agree? Does that ever happen? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, frequently, yeah. Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: The reason we make such a good team is that we have a lot of the same sort of sensibilities.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we're pretty much on the same page.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we've worked together for a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've worked together for a long time.
[Petrella]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we've worked together for about a decade, almost a decade.
[Petrella]: Sometimes it's always like, seems like, you know, one person always
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[Petrella]: But this is good. So yeah, no, this is good. Three is always working together. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we used to we used to at one point be a foursome. But yeah, our other person decided she she just couldn't do it. She couldn't. It was a big leap.
[Petrella]: It's a lot of work. I really do understand. Yeah. Well, people don't, but I appreciate it and I think the whole city, I really do. I think you're going to be welcomed. I think once the word gets out there about what you're doing, how you're doing it, why you're doing it, I really do. I just, oh, I want it to take off because we need a newspaper.
[SPEAKER_02]: People have been very welcoming.
[Petrella]: They have been wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've received a lot, like I said, a lot of feedback from people just saying hi. I just wanted to say hello. Like I said, they've been welcoming, very much so.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, we haven't been around long enough to irritate anyone yet either, so there's that. We're ready for that.
[Petrella]: No, I know. Well, that's going to happen too, but you've got to expect that. But we're used to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, measuring success. I mean, how do you measure it? Where are you now and where do you want to go?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's the basics of analytics, of just looking at your analytics. You can see who's reading what, how long they're staying in a story. It's amazing if you pay attention to your analytics, what it can tell you. So there's that. Feedback. Feedback. And like you said, so far the feedback has all been good. It's all been well.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's been a lot of word of mouth. We're so happy to be on your show. We've done a couple of interviews with some local papers, but we haven't really done publicity.
[SPEAKER_03]: meet the editor. Coffee and donuts kind of thing, but we just haven't done it yet. We've been too busy.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that we definitely want to do, and I think we're going to be doing this in the fall, because right now since we're coming on summer, not a lot of people around, we're hoping to do a News Deserts workshop at the library with Dan Kennedy and Ellen, what is Ellen's last name? Ellen Clegg, yes, they wrote a book about news deserts and the library is, we've been working with them a little bit about doing something and introduce ourselves to more people. That is a beautiful library. Oh, it really is, yeah.
[Petrella]: It's been word of mouth. Another thing people don't know about, it is all word of mouth, but I've been up there quite a bit. I mean, I've done things with other people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Go and check out your library. It's amazing.
[Petrella]: It is. People have to check it out. We did a show on the library. Yeah, we really did. And I was like, wow. And the staff is so great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they offer so much. It's amazing.
[Petrella]: And people don't realize what they offer. And it's something for everyone. There really is today.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they've been very supportive of us, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you say it like I do, library. Yes, library. Some people think it's library.
[Petrella]: Don't tell me. No, it's not library. It never was. It's library. You know, that's library. No, no, no, no, no. All right, so, you know, the feedback's been good. I'm glad to hear that. What about the difficulties? I mean, it's got to be, I mean, you got to have days where it's, you know, what obstacles are you facing? You know, what are your biggest obstacles, difficulties?
[SPEAKER_01]: Aside from sitting in front of the computer for three hours and realizing you don't have a paragraph? Because writing is so easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's difficult. People aren't used to having a newspaper in their computer anymore. We were just reading, I was just reading an article in Pointner which had this fabulous thing saying, you know, more and more of these independent little newspapers are finding that they're hitting their head against a wall. And it's because so many of those communities, when they lost their papers, they switched, you know, town officials. So town officials aren't used to being accountable. They're not used to talking to newspapers. And they don't think they have to. And they don't think they have to. Exactly. I agree.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we can just take this as a fair warning. They don't. I mean, it would be very nice if they would return phone calls and answer our questions. And we're not out to get anybody. We're just out to tell a story. But the idea that we won't do the story because they won't call us, yeah, that's a myth. Because we're going to do the story anyway. It would be nicer to do it with, you know, with all the voices that we can get, because that's really, again, that's what we want to do. We want to be the voice for the community. We want the community to have its voice. We'll write the stories anyway. There's no urgency to return calls.
[Petrella]: Yeah. I mean, what's your experience? City Hall, you know, the local government, I mean, are they To be diplomatic. What's the feeling? Are they helping you out? Are they welcoming you? They're welcoming. They're very welcoming. I would think so.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're also very structured in the way that you have to request news. So you can't just call up someone that you want to talk to. You have to go through a certain process. And that is very frustrating. Because sometimes you're just asking a very innocuous question. And you could just literally call up that person. What day is the garbage picked up?
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, I just need to talk to a guy from DPW.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're running through this maze of just trying to get that. And that's the interesting part. Because if we're asking these very simple questions, and they can't answer them without going through a bunch of hoops, how are they going to answer a hard question?
[Petrella]: So, I mean... I mean, I have been told by somebody that I can't answer that because... Yeah, sometimes I think it's because they're afraid to answer. I think they're afraid to say something wrong. Even the basic stuff. And they've literally been told.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they've literally been told. Like, I know that I asked a very simple question of someone recently and he told me, I can't tell you that because I can't, I'm not supposed to be talking to you. That's not a good thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not transparency. For a community that keeps saying it wants transparency, that's not transparency.
[Petrella]: Let's be honest. I can get into a whole bunch of things but I won't.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we're hoping that we'll win them over.
[Petrella]: It seems like you're pulling teeth to get information.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it shouldn't be that way.
[Petrella]: It should be easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we're not afraid to go after that information either. And that's the thing that I think people, like Chris was saying, I think some people say, well, if I don't give them the information, they're not, that's not true. I don't think you're going anywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you said, there's probably not a situation we haven't come across in our years.
[Petrella]: Like I said, it's like what we do. All we're doing is giving you information. We're giving out facts. We're not out to get you. Right. No one's out to get anybody. what happened, why it happened, how it happened, who did it, who it's impacting, how it's going to hurt you, or help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to be fair, this is something that's happening in communities all across Massachusetts, that governments are becoming less Yeah. You know, less transparent.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is totally not. Very much so. I agree with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's everybody. It's everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lonely, it's a horror show. We have a lot of our colleagues that were also let go from the same conglomerate have started up neighboring papers and they're running into the same thing in their communities. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a very big independent newspaper community out there right now, and it's growing by leaps and bounds.
[Petrella]: Yeah, it needs to. It really does.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's wonderful to see. I, myself, for example, I'm a part-time editor for the Winchester News. Oh, I didn't know that.
[Petrella]: I learned something new today.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my other job, right. So what I've seen, and we've been to some different workshops and some different conferences of all these little places, and sometimes it's just people in the community with no journalism experience, and they'll start it up, and then they'll look for somebody like us, journalists, to come and help them be able to pull it all together. And everybody's at different stages. So you have people like Brookline, which they've been doing it for a really long time. And you have people with, you know, million dollar resources, who are doing an amazing job. But what I found is everyone has been very supportive and very helpful. So, you know, people have helped us along the line. And then we, in turn, have had people call us and say, well, how do you do this? I'm looking to start something in my community. How do you do it? And we'll either give them the information that was sort of helped us, or we basically turn them over to somebody who's a little further ahead of us and who might have that information. It has become very, very much so of a supportive little community.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's great. Yeah, and it's good for us, especially because a number of the people that we used to work with, who we miss, I have now started publication, so we can reconnect.
[Petrella]: The last question I really have, and I thank you. It's been wonderful talking to you. You know you're coming back, right? I hope so. We'd love to. I just think it's a great thing what you're doing. I think the city of Medford needs this. We've wanted it for a long time. So, I mean, what are you looking to impact as far as the way this, you know, things in the city, what do you think your impact will be?
[SPEAKER_02]: We wanna bring the community back together and give them a forum. And when I first started at the transcript as its editor, my whole goal was to give the city and everyone in the paper, it's not our paper, it's your voice, right? We wanna give people their voice. You know, as Wendell keeps saying, it's your community. We're just reporting the news. This stuff is happening in your community, right?
[Petrella]: We don't live here.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's your tax dollars. You know, and we're reporting it. We're giving you the information so that, you know, you keep saying, you know, to make the decisions you need to make. So that's the impact that we hope to have.
[Petrella]: And you all know how much is going on. We've had the charter, all the zoning. There's a lot going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're trying to wrap our heads around all of it, watching old past meetings and stuff to try to get a handle on what's going on.
[Petrella]: I think everyone wants similar things, but they're so far apart in this city. You want to see improvements, but you want to see them in a certain way. There's got to be some balance. There's no balance. Yeah, there has to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the other impact, I mean, I'd like to see is, you know, I want people to think of us, you know, something happens, like Nell said, you've got something good in your life happens, something bad in your life happens, you want to know what's going on next door. Right. Call us. Tell us. Tell us about it. Bring us a picture. You know, ask us a question. Just give us an idea. Give us your story ideas. Gottaknowmedford.com is our website, and gottaknowmedford at gmail.com is how you can reach us. So please, reach out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, we want to hear your ideas. We want to know what people are thinking.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do me a favor, say that again, how they can reach you. gotta know medford g o t t a k n o w medford at gmail.com is our email and they can contact you that way absolutely absolutely and gotta know medford.com is our website okay so please check out our website yes please do like us please like us yeah i i think i think it's going to be a great venture i i think the city of method uh
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're having a lot of fun.
[Petrella]: I think we're gonna you're gonna be welcome with open arms. I really believe that because everyone, you know, we need we need it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's been a good response. I mean, when we've called people, I'm like, I'm from Ghana, no Medford. And they'll be like, what's that? And I'll say the new paper, the new paper.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, yeah, it's been good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yes, they've been very, very appreciative. And you know, it makes you it makes you sort of feel like you're on the right track. Yeah, yeah, I think you so.
[Petrella]: Thank you. Yes I thank you the city's gonna. Thank you. I I'm so glad you don't know how happy I am that you came on the show I want you know people got to know what you're doing. You know why you're doing the whole the whole thing and I I am thrilled that you came on. I think we got the message out there somewhat. We're going to continue to get the message. We'll be back. Like I said, you will be back. You could be back on a regular basis. I have a fine feeling. go good for everyone, not just you, but for MedFed, you know, everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: The response has been phenomenal. I think when Chris and I pressed the button to go live, we were shocked because we had 300 subscribers in two days. We did it on a Friday.
[SPEAKER_03]: We were just like, I was in my car driving somewhere and she called me and she's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in Florida visiting my parents.
[SPEAKER_03]: She was like, we're ready to go. Should I press the button? I'm like, sure, go ahead, press the button. It was very, yeah, it wasn't very exciting. We didn't pop a champagne or anything.
[Petrella]: No, but it's a good story. It's a great start.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then by Sunday, we had over 300 people. So it's been great.
[Petrella]: Yeah, it's been fabulous. Like I said, Unfortunately, I know, I know, we got to end the show. You know, I just want to thank you, Nell, Chris, Wendell. I mean, really, it's been a great show. I think we did a lot of good things informing people. They know your faces now, that's what you do better. Is that a good thing? Might even get more recognized. You have people bothering you all the time. Well, anyhow, thank you very much. And thank you, thank you very much. You're very welcome, you're very welcome. So I'm gonna take a minute. uh... to thank you again uh... the show is uh... i guess i'm running over here so the show is officially over i want to take a minute to thank everyone who has been watching our show uh... we've been getting feedback and it's been mostly positive a little bit of negative but that's good we're getting feedback i don't care if it's positive or negative we appreciate it i want you to know that If you would like to share any comments, if you have any suggestions, you know, if you want to do a show, you know, you want to appear on a future show, you can contact us at my name, the one and only John Petrella, 55 at gmail.com. I'm going to repeat it one more time, John Petrella, p-e-t-r-e-l-l-a 55 at gmail.com And I just want to remind everyone you will be able to see replays of this show on method community media YouTube method happenings from all of us at method happenings I'm John Petrella stay informed