An update from the Porch

What are you thankful for? It’s a question many of us get asked around this time of year. Here at the Porch we are thankful for our community who has invested in our work by watching, engaging and sharing. We are working hard to create a community connection that is both authentic and reliable. On a special Bring Back The Porch, Brian and Bernie talk about some of our recent projects and take a moment to say thank-you to you. Enjoy!!#yxh,#medicinehat,#medhat,#communitymatters

Transcript

0:00

It's been great to have you back in what you love, and I've watched how much you love it, and you do love it, and you're good at it. And you are doing a great job. I am just very, very happy that we were able to do this. And I think there's many things that can happen after the election. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And the next candidate for medicine. Oh, wait a minute. I've been doing so many of these podcasts. I would like 25 candidates. I think as of, this hour. I was just sort of, you know, into a habit of welcoming the next candidate. But you're not a candidate. No, you're Bernie Leahy. Yes. You're the man who's, you know, responsible for all of this. Yes. Yeah. Some other people helped out with. Yeah, some of the stuff. Most of it I know. And I've brought from home. And, and then we bought a little bit of stuff, but. Yes. And I'm not a candidate. No you're not. I appreciate the people that are candidates. And, good for them. And whoever gets in, I wish them all the luck in the world. We have been busy in this room talking to a lot of candidates, not just medicine. At city council. We've had a couple of public school trustees come through, and, two from, Cypress County. And, we have had an inquiry from, counselor out in Radcliffe who would like to be on the board. So, you know, our message is starting to, reach the people in the community. And I think that's one of the things we wanted to talk about here. During our next, little visit here is the reception we have had in our first month. It has been heartwarming for me. You know, it's been expensive. You, Well, put that aside. It's been great to have you back in what you love. And I've watched how much you love it. And you do love it, and you're good at it. And you are doing a great job. I am just very, very happy that we were able to do this. And I think there's many things that can happen after the election, but, so I've really enjoyed this time. It's been exciting. I've learned a lot, with you and, Bob and Lynnette and, how the editing goes and the cameras and and the whole bit. And I'm hoping that we can continue it after the election. You know, however much you guys want to do. But we have started to talk. Preliminary, preliminary. We can cut that, Bob. I know we don't cut that. Or put in how you say that word. We've had preliminary discussions. Preliminary discussions about what the future is, and that is probably where I'm the most excited. Is, because we've had people that have asked us and hadn't offered us money and, and, it would be sad if you weren't able to continue with what you like to do. This is the thing is, we, have been wondering, well, what's next? Because in the last four weeks, we've been. You know, pretty busy with with, a few things. We attended a podcast summit in Calgary where we were with other people who do podcasts, learned an awful lot about the podcast industry. Did not understand a lot about it until we went to that. We went to a, a course, at the medicine at college where we spoke to some, young the marketing and, design students, they're going to be working on some things for us so that we can get, maybe a younger perspective, into our environment, our podcast environment. So, yeah, there are things that are happening. You bought another camera that we can now take out into the community to, extend our reach into, medicine that which is something that is near and dear to my heart because we can't just sit here at the, at the, on the porch and just talk about things. We want to show people what's happening to. Us, for sure. Yeah. And, and not only did we buy a camera, we bought a shotgun microphone. I'm not sure why I'm so excited about that. Yeah, yeah. You get excited by the say. Look, mom, I got a shotgun microphone, but, I am thrilled. Makes me happy. And I think anything that we can do to put Medicine Hat in a better light and, to share it with people at home or around Canada or wherever. And I think we can do that. We, have been looking at our analytics, which is, provided through the back end of, of our, Facebook site and the numbers that I've seen up to this morning over the last 28 days just boggled my mind. 138,000 views. That's a lot of people in the city of 63 to 65,000 people. So we must have, I guess, tapped into something that people were interested in. About a month ago, I wouldn't have had any idea what that meant, other than I know it's a lot of people or a lot of I mean, 138 anything is good. So. But since when we went to the, Pug Summit in Calgary, we've done very well. And, and a lot of it is that it's, it's just good information because how many calls do we all get about Bernie? Who do I vote for? Oh, yes. Who do you think is strong? And really, I don't like I don't I've been fairly busy as well. So I'm not I don't really follow what's going on with, you know, where they gather. And I don't know if we've had very many of those. Have we were the where all the candidates come. There was, the Chamber of Commerce had, I think, three for the, council candidates and one for the mayor's smaller forums. Was I believe they've had, one for the mayors at the Wiener Center, which I understand was very well attended. And, a lot of the council candidates have been invited to various and sundry little gatherings where they've been able to meet with people to a different campaign or because, you know, really without, chat, television being there to document a lot of it. It's it's, you know, it's like a four, tree that falls in the forest if there's nobody there. Does that make it sound? Yeah. I don't know. We also had the good fortune of having Jim Groom on as a, our first guest. But we started down the, electoral trail here. Jim will be coming back as well to, sort of look at the campaign, to the, probably about into three weeks into the campaign just to see what his impressions have been, because it is a different campaign. This time there's 39 candidates. As I mentioned, we've probably had 25 in total come through already or have booked time to come through. So, it's a lot to absorb. And, people have been expressing, their comments on Facebook that they've thanked us for this. Oh, yes. Yes. So I have, you know, many people that have, that I've run into that have talked about it. I know as well, at work and other places. So, and you guys have done an amazing job. We, we had a compliment from, a fellow from CBS, Chris Wilson. Craig Wilson, former. Chat worker, TV person, news person. And he watched, an episode or two and, and and that made us feel very good. Yeah. Because he knows, you know, what good is good quality. But I think. No question. The three of you have done an amazing job, and, it's good to hear your voice again. The next step, though, is we need to monetize. Is the word that we heard at the podcast. You know, how do you make money doing this? Because we do need, you know, I can go into co-op. I can go to the cash register, and they don't say, well, Brian, you're a nice fellow. We'll let you have the groceries for free. No, they're. Show me the money. You know, they're flexible. So we have some mechanisms in place and we're going to be having a few more where people can make sure that they contribute to help us continue with this. Yep. And I think, I'm not real good at asking for money. I've never done it. Me neither. And I think we both. If we're going to ask people for money, we need to supply them with something. We need to give them a product. Yeah. So. And that. Because really, we've never done this. I mean, I'm way out of my scope here, and you've, I mean, you've been in the industry, but not in that part of sales and sales. And, you know, there's pattern on which which, and that is just started, we've had some people that have approached us about, you know, donating, and the good, good quality businesses. And that's what we haven't asked anybody. They basically called us. Because you've been paying the freight. You have been our benefactor, as I've been referring to. You. Yeah, yeah. And that's okay. As I said to you, when chat closed, it was like the clouds opened up and my mum came through the clouds and said, if you can help these guys, you need to help them. Yeah. And, and I don't I. Yeah. It's okay. It's it's it's been good. I had most of the equipment. And when you called me through Lisa from the chamber, it was. It was a no brainer. Let's go. Because really, I mean, this, for the most part, was already set up. I didn't have anybody that can get it. And, I mean, Bob and Lynn that they can they can do amazing stuff. And so we, we bought some more equipment and very happy with my new camcorder, with my shotgun mic. And Bernie running around just. Yeah, I just want to be the boom. Poor guy. Because I think the boom poor guy's a that's a neat job. As long as, you know, people don't talk like for an hour. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I still am busy in real estate and, and that's going well. And I think we'll, we'll need to get some help and I think we can. We can. I'm not saying we'd ever replace chat, but I think we can. We can do some, some stuff to keep people informed and, and even more, I guy, we've got some pretty good ideas. We've got a whole litany of people that we could have on as guests and, just small steps. You mentioned you've been busy. We know that you've been in and out of the building here quite frequently, and you're running shoes on because you've been busy selling a couple of projects that you have been working on. Some land on Maple Avenue and Second Street across from the Reman center was was one of the projects that you were involved in. So that one that one was a long project, but with different people. So I've been trying to sell that for probably about eight years. And we went through some different, you know, purchasers and things like that. But this one worked out and, I think there'll be when both phases are done, there'll be close to 90 apartments there. Rentals are. Needed in Madison that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and a good developer and, and then I also have been working on, some land up in ranch lands. So we, we have a pending sale on that with, Josh from, Span West, and there'll be, two condos built there and, then they'll be, a 12,000 square foot slice of commercial. And so hopefully we can have a dentist and a couple of family doctors and maybe a physio in there. Very preliminary, but there is some interest and there'll be some extra garages for the condo people. So it's actually it's a pretty neat project. You haven't been letting the grass grow under your feet? No. It's been very busy. I'm a lucky guy, as I say, and I happen. Like I say, you're blessed. And you say I'm blessed, and I'll take that. No, it's been good, real estate, but I've been in it a long time now. 31 years, I guess. About 31. So still enjoy it. Ina told me to get a hobby, so I guess you guys are my hobby. Through your hobby farm? Yeah, and I've enjoyed this hobby, so, And I really enjoy your guys's company. It's. I think it's been good for all of us. While we. We set out. When we started, we said one of the rules was. It's got to be fun. Yes. If it's not fun, we don't do it. No. No. So we've had a lot of laughs. Yeah. And, and none of the things that we'll ever do will be harmful to anybody. It's not I mean, I'm not into that stuff. I don't want anything to do with that. No, we. Want to highlight the positive. Yeah, eliminate the negative. That's the song somewhere. Yeah. No. You leave here better than when you came or, or the same, like, I don't I don't want any of that stuff. I must say, I have cup envy. I'm looking at my back to the porch mug, which, you know, nice. It's very. Nice. Oh, those are good, but but. Yeah, but I look over your way and I see a Yeti. I don't have a yeti. No. So I have come envy. Yes. And you should. Because, a grateful client, brought me, I stressed me, I will share, but they are mine. A yeti cup with what is above. Porcelain. Ceramic. Ceramic, ceramic inside. Now yours does not have ceramic. No. Plus. Oh you do have decals on both sides. Well, we had to put a decal on this side because it has to face the camera. It's called product placement. Oh yeah. Well mine is. Etched. Yes. So anyways, as I say, great, great folks, great clients, amazing people. And that was very nice of them. And so I told them that when you and I didn't know when we were going to sit down, but that I would bring it out. And there it is now, there will be a day when I find out where this where they got this, that will have more. And I'm sure there's people out there going, well, how do I get a bring back the porch mug? And now we're also sporting our bring back the Porch hoodies. You have any ideas where maybe you're going to go with that? It's called merch. Well, one of my buddies said, you know, when people come on the porch, once you come on like you're done, you're in the web like you can't like your porch. Your porch, dude. Right. And so, so we went to logos and we got some hoodies made up, and they're very nice. So I think I'll go get some more, the mugs, we can get more, minor things. We should get two x. Block heaters. Block heaters, vests. That. This is her talk. And you're listening. Is a good husband. Yes I do, I do listen and and I think it would be nice when people leave the porch that they have a gift. If they're worthy and if they weren't worthy they wouldn't be on the porch. Right. I mean there's, you know we, we've, we've had some pretty amazing people on so far. Just the, the people that are running for, for office and and some of them have good stories and interest. Well, everybody has a story. Everybody has a story. And that's one of the things we want to do with this podcast is try to tell as many stories from the people medicine that as we can. That interests me a lot. Yep. So so we'll see where this little idea goes. It started with a phone called and, maybe a wrench in the merchandise, maybe somewhere down the road people might actually be able to buy some of our merchandise. Oh, dear. But, you know, as they say in broadcasting, stay tuned. So. What I was thinking about the other day, Brian, is that people that watch this, if they have some ideas or comments, good or bad, I mean, that I mean, we're going to see whatever they say, right? So, let us know what they think. And I think that would be interesting. Give us some ideas. Where do you want this little venture to go? Yeah. To go away or. Yeah. So yes. There you go. The good or the bad? Just like Statler and Hilton and the Muppets. Oh, it's pretty bad. I just got out. Oh, do something else. Yeah, I, you know, I think we we've got the stuff now. We could probably do some damage. I guess it's that, And if we need some more, we'll get some more. But, I look forward to the future. And, and I think I think it's good. And once the political stuff is over, then we'll branch out into some, because you guys have been super busy. We've done I don't know how many podcasts we've done this week. Probably 8 or 9 as it's only Wednesday morning. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. No, I think we're good. And I, I want to thank you again. It's, it's been amazing, and it's good to hear your voice again. And I think that is what we're going to hear a lot from the public. Is that we need to hear you. Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. I want to give you a phone number in case anyone needs to call you. Got a house to sell, Bernie? I think Lynnette will put it on, but, I mean, it's(400) 350-2252 eight, but, yeah, it's easy to find. Me call anytime. If they want. Not in the middle of the night, you know. All right, Bernie, thank you very much. Oh, no, that's been good. Thanks, Brian.