Rally Point 47

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rally pointers fall in good afternoon and morning wherever you're
going to be in the world today across the world.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is James the Sartim ring with Amena Laciadocano Bam.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Folks here with you at the rally point.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
And of course we have the man behind the microphone,
Zayna Brain. How are we doing today, folks.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm good, loving life.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Outstanding, outstanding.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
First of all, I want to say thank you to
our man Derek get It Done Anderson. He's been on
the road kill on it thanks to you, folks, and
I say thank you very much supporting his cause being
with Etna Medicare Solutions. We're glad we met you, and folks,
we have an outstanding show today. Okay, America, it's the
Sage James heming with Amana Makanu by side. We have

(00:46):
some guests here today. First and foremost, I want to
introduce Chris Hanbeck. She is a mentor manager for Big Brothers,
Big Sister the Sun Coast UH and also we have
production specialists to Lloyd. He is also an Army vendor
of sixteen years. Welcome to the show and thank you
for your sacrifice, sir.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you. Won't you tell America a little about yourselves.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
I am a mentor manager with Big Brothers Speak Sisters.
I've been there for five years. Oh sorry, I've been
there for five years. My job is to match littles
with biggs and provide them the opportunity that they might
not have otherwise with a trusting adult.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
Okay, all right, And I'm Tom Lloyd. I'm the production
specialist for Charlotte County, Florida. I do all the videos
for the county and other different promotions and things like that.
I've got about twenty six twenty seven years in television
broadcast news experience along with my sixteen years in the military.
And that's and I'm pretty much And I'm born and raised.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I'm a Florida native, Floridian, legitimate.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Folks, true Floridian born, was born in Florida, not a transplant.
But you did take a slight detour I did elsewhere? Right?

Speaker 6 (02:06):
Where were you in?

Speaker 3 (02:07):
New England and Connecticut?

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Very cool? Yeah, I jokingly said purgatory, but just kidding
to anybody who's from Connecticut.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
Ar.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
That'd be me. Tom. Tell us about your military career.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
Well, I, you know, like most people that came in
around the time, it was shortly after nine to eleven,
so a lot of us were inspired to join the
military because of nine to eleven.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
So I did.

Speaker 5 (02:33):
I went to my basic training in Fortville, Oklahoma because
I was field artillery, and so I was there and
came in in two thousand and two. Did three years
with the eighty second Airborne Division. Deployed to Iraq in
two thousand and three as part of Phase two. I
was in a little town called all Fallujah, a lot.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Of people have probably heard of it.

Speaker 5 (02:55):
And then was in the got out of active, went
into the reserve, move back down here to Florida, and
I joined the Florida Army National Guard and I was
with them until December of twenty seventeen.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Well thank you for your service.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, definitely, especially eighty second Airborne. That's a prestigious organization
to belong to.

Speaker 5 (03:14):
So it was interesting.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
That's probably how most of us would sum up our
time in the military.

Speaker 5 (03:21):
I mean, I tell people I used to jump out
of perfectly good airplane, So.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
I mean, yeah, I've seen a bunch of you guys
train Sometimes you jump out a plane, grab your shoot,
get on a bus, and do it all over again.
How many jumps do you guys usually do in practice? Actually,
when you jump, you don' When you jump, you're jumping
out of a plane. It's not really practice.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
It depends.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
I mean you're only required to jump once every I
think it's like two or three months just to stay
on status. But I mean I was only there for
three years and I have a total of about thirty
thirty one jumps, everything from a C one thirty to
a chote, jumping out of back of helicopters to jumping

(04:01):
off of black Hawk helicopters as well. So but I
do prefer the C seventeen.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
It's like the Catalygz, isn't it beautiful?

Speaker 5 (04:09):
You can, you know, you can stretch your legs out
and not have to worry about theirs space somebody's standing
on you and walking all over.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
You can walk around and stretch your legs while you're
in the air. It's fantastic.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
You jump out of a helicopter, it's totally different, especially
a black Hawk. You just kind of push yourself off
and you go straight down.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
But it's nice.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
I mean, it was fun, it was enjoyable. I would
say that the best time I like to jump was
at night. Which most of all my jumps were at night.

Speaker 7 (04:39):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (04:40):
But it's beautiful when you jump out and it's just
quiet and you can see, like especially on a full moon,
you can just see everybody's cann you can see everybody,
you see the planes going by, and you can just
it's just quiet and it's.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Relaxing, relaxing. I don't know that some people would describe
jumping out of an airplane as relaxing.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
They probably at the same time.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
It's like to each their own, and I think probably
the adrenaline and everything that goes with it is kind
of It's just it's the rush and then it's the
awe of your surroundings. So that's pretty cool. That's something
I didn't get to do while was and the Air
Force was jump out of perfectly good airplanes, but I
got to ride on some of them. They're pretty cool.
That's why the C seventeen, when you said that, was like, yes,

(05:22):
I can vouch for that. That's a fantastic bird right there.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
But today we're going to talk about the mentorship program
and how it affects well, I believe it impacts our community,
and not to go on a little bit of a
tangent A long time ago, was it three years? Choices
and Chances, Yes, kind of. We produced a movie for
Charlotte County and one of our dear friends, Elizabeth, put

(05:49):
together a film about suicide. But one of the unentoined
themes in that whole film was there was a mentorship
in mentee relationship dynamic throughout the whole film, and it
kind of progressed into situation calls effect resolution, and it

(06:09):
gave you there are bad mentors and there are good mentors,
and life comes at you that way. And that was
my first exposure to like mentors really have a real impact.
And we were just having a quick story before we
got on air today and how being a veteran can
have unique impact and it doesn't mean you have to

(06:29):
be a veteran to be a mentor, but you don't
realize the impact you may have on an amountable child
being a military. You don't talk about being a military.
You don't talk about being a veteran. With some of
the equalities that we have we bestow to our mentee
just by osmosis. And from the story you guys were
talking about earlier, I said, hmm, yeah, he got a

(06:51):
little military exposure and goes, oh he picture, I like this,
I like that, and he became his own person. But
please expond on your experiences that you think that the
a the need for mentors in Charlotte County or anywhere,
and how they do have a quantifiable impact on our
youth today. Basically, how do you feel that mentors have

(07:14):
impact our kids and by imageable status, the important the
importance of it.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Do you feel that.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
When when a child is paired with a mentor that
there's an affect for both the mentor and the mentee.
Is there a positive a positive reaction to that relationship.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
Absolutely, so, it's very important. The relationship between a mentor
and a mentee often has an impact on both of
them just by virtue of they're no longer alone and
they you know, can influence each other in the mentor

(07:54):
is giving something of themselves, you know, talking about their
life experiences, you know, finding a you know, support to
a child. Oftentimes we think of mentors in just that
they need education, and that's not always the case. A
lot of students, a lot of kids need someone to
support them in their life, in everyday life. Because a

(08:19):
lot of our kids right now have coming from divorced families,
they may not have that, you know, parental influence, and
so sometimes it's good to have someone outside of the
home that can provide them that positive relationship. I think
youth often live within themselves in their minds. They think
that the world revolves around them, and so they don't

(08:41):
feel that somebody can relate to them, especially parents, and
so sometimes to have a positive out you know, outside
influence is helpful to them to realize that other people
go through experiences and you know, can that it's not
just parents don't understand, and you know that there's a
reason and a purpose for things. So I think it's

(09:04):
very important for youth to have other influences, especially if
they don't have someone at home.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Okay, and Tom was a mentor through the Beyond School
Walls program. So actually, Christa, can you tell us about
the Beyond School Walls program, how that came to be
and what it exists to do.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
Okay, So, our Beyond School Walls program is a national program.
We offer it here in the Suncoast. It's where we
partner with different businesses or right now we're partnering with
Charlotte County government and we form that partnership. The employer
puts out a solicitation that they're looking for mentors, big brothers,

(09:44):
big sisters, comes in and does their thing, which is
usually an interview, a screening process. So all of our
mentors are screen type two so that we know that
we're putting good people with our u and we facilitate
the meeting. So there's different types of mentorship, but in

(10:08):
this particular, beyond school walls mentorship, once a month we
meet with the students and the mentors and we go
over something that has to do with our county government.
If it was a regular business, they might go over
different departments in their business. And so it gives these
high school students the opportunity to learn about different positions
within the government, how people got to where they are,

(10:31):
because you know, we all don't just take one linear path.
So it's good for students to realize that they can
start out thinking that they want to be a marine
biologist and you know, take different steps and that things
might change and evolve and change their mind and see
how they can get where we are. You know, sixteen

(10:52):
years in the military and now you know your your
role is something different.

Speaker 6 (10:55):
So that's the goal.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
Of the Beyond School Walls program is to offer students
that opportunity to see different things that are in our
community as well, because we also hope that kids that
work outside. You know a lot of kids go away
to college, but we also want them to be able
to come back and they need to know what they
can come back to, that there's different career opportunities.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Here, got it, and basically expose them to you know,
people who might be different than the folks they see
at home, yes, or you know, people who have different
walks of life, different life experiences. And then Tom, that's
where you come in. So if you would tell us
about how you came to learn about Beyond School Walls
and how you came to be a mentor, well, like.

Speaker 5 (11:35):
Christa was saying, it was solicited through the county, through
our human resources department. They said, you know, hey, we
have this program and if anybody's thinking about wanting to
be a mentor, please, you know.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Let us know.

Speaker 5 (11:47):
And I had thought about this for a while. You know,
being in the military, I was always a more of
like a training NCO. So I was always training soldiers
and I had and I loved I loved teaching and
I was like, you know, this is something that I
maybe you want to try and do and be a mentor.
I've never been a mentor before, so you know what,
let me try and be a mentor. And I was
actually also at the same time going through The county

(12:10):
has internal programs and we have a program called LDP,
which is our Leadership Development Program. So I was currently
going through that, and I had a mentor who was
a director of one of our departments, so I was
matched with him, and so I was going through the
same thing like I was his mentee, he was my mentor,
and I was like, you know what, hey, let me

(12:31):
try this with Beyond School Walls and let me try
this program because I think this is something that I
might want to try and do. And so I signed
up for it, and then I was matched with my
little Felix and it was his junior year when I
first met him, and the rest is all kind of
history after that.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Well, so you mentioned Felix, tell us about some of
I guess the challenges, but then also some of the
rewarding aspects of being a ment tour through Beyond School Walls.

Speaker 5 (13:02):
Well, I mean, you know, we all had our meet
and greet sort of meeting, that first meeting that we
had at the County County Administration building in the actual
County Commission chambers. And so there's always that, you know,
awkward you know, getting you know, hey, I got a
guy and get to know you. You know, this is kind
of sort of forced, but not really because you decided

(13:23):
to go into the program and so did I. So,
you know what, let's get to know each other.

Speaker 6 (13:27):
And we did.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
And he was.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
Very quiet, you know, kind of reserved, but he for
the most part, you know, you know, he filled out
his stuff and I gave him my number and he
gave me his information, and we you know, we talked
and texted each other every once in a while, like, hey,
how's it going today, you know, how was.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Class or whatever you're doing? Okay, whatever, you know.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
And he talked to me about his family and a
lot of his family here they they're into.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
HVAC.

Speaker 5 (13:55):
So they so he helped out his brothers and stuff
in HVAC and that was something that he said he
thought he might want to go into. And I said, okay,
you know, and he learned about me and my background
and television and news and cameras and video and all
kinds of stuff, and so the we kind of hit
it off, you know, and we were talking and every
meeting like we were having good times and we were

(14:16):
discussing different things and whatever. And then all of a sudden,
it was like out of the blue and he's like, yeah, hey,
by the way, I'm going to go into the Marines.

Speaker 8 (14:25):
And I'm like what, like, you know, you know, I
don't know if that's what he's doing, but you know,
but yeah, like it was totally he's like, oh, I'm
going to go in.

Speaker 5 (14:37):
I'm like, oh, great, you know, and he's like, yeah,
I'm already signed up. I already pledged the whole nine
yards and I'm leaving, you know, in June after I
graduated high school and I'm heading.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
To Paris Island, you know.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
And I was like, great, that's awesome. And then it
was like like I was telling earlier before, like we
had a meeting at our Centennial Park and he came
in and he used to have like long, curly hair
and it was all short cut, clean, perfect, you know,
military almost like a high and tight. And I was

(15:09):
like all right, you know, and he totally changed, like
totally opened up a little bit different, you know, and
his walk was a little bit different.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Things like that you had your fingerprints on helping him
go from being like you won't but other people will.
Because I feel like these kinds of programs, what they
exist to do is to help give that child kind
of that that leg up or that extra helpful push.
Not to say they're not getting it at home, but

(15:37):
sometimes I'm a mother of an eighteen year old, and
I can honestly tell you my son probably resonates far
more with the encouragement and the mentorship, if you will,
or the guidance that he gets from other adults than
anything he gets from me. I could tell him all
day how wonderful he is and how awesome he is,
but he would probably look at it like you're my
Mom's kind of your job to say that to me,

(15:58):
even though I mean, I genuinely mean it, but whatever.
But it's those outside adults who's outside influences, like my
son has somebody like that in his realm, and I
don't I don't want to name drop, but I guess
I will. Mister Christian at Charlotte Technical College is a
profound influence on my son, which I couldn't be happier
about but the fact that you are mentoring, Like, yeah,

(16:21):
your fingerprints are on his enlistment. Your fingerprints are on
all the development that he kind of went through while
he was being mentored by you. So that's that's pretty cool.
Like that's something that I hope any of our listeners
that are considering being a mentor will kind of take
into account. Is like, that's definitely one of the profoundly
rewarding aspects of it. For sure.

Speaker 5 (16:43):
It sounds oh yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean to me,
it was like subconsciously, I was like, yeah, that's awesome,
Like I can see influence. Yeah, you know, I don't
know if it was one hundred percent me, but and
I know he had other influences and stuff like that. Yeah,
but he had, you know, really great head on his shoulders.
I mean, he had direction, he had motivation, He knew

(17:06):
exactly where he wanted to go.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
You might not have been the whole piece of it,
but you were a piece of it. Like I mentored
several people while I was in the military, sum I
still continue to mentor today and I've been retired for
almost four years. And I think that's probably the coolest
part of mentorship is like you said, it's not tooting
your own horn. It's just being able to look at
that person and how much they've grown and developed in

(17:30):
the time that you've known them and been able to
help them, and you're just like wow, like I got
to be a part of that. Is more the mindset,
not I did that thing.

Speaker 5 (17:40):
It's like, yeah, Like you know, when I saw him
and he came in, he was totally changed, like look wise,
I was like.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Wow, yeah. And then once he started being more outgoing
like you were saying, where before he was reserved. It's
like you probably in some way you modeled that by
walking that walk or talking that talk without really realizing
It's not like you said, here's how you go about
becoming an adult. I don't think beyond school walls really
works that way. But I think it's just they watch you,

(18:09):
they listen to you in passing or whether you realize it,
you know, and then they, like Jay was saying earlier,
they kind of take what they will from what they
see that they like or that they see that they go,
I want that for myself, and they begin trying in
some ways to either emulate that or just make it
genuine to who they are exactly, and it kind of

(18:32):
morphs that way. That's the beauty of mentor.

Speaker 5 (18:34):
Even some of my other fellow colleagues that were also
in the program from the county, like they would tell
me like, oh my gosh, you and I was like,
I've seen their turnaround with their living and I've seen
what their mentorship has done. Like some of them like
literally sprouted out like a flower. Like they were just
so closed and they were so quiet, and they were
so reserved, and now it's like, you know, they're taking

(18:57):
on the world.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, one of the one of the aspects. And then
I'm going to relate this to boot camp in the
military or that first nine weeks we all come back,
we all come from different backgrounds and situations, and then
your mentor for nine solid weeks into becoming a marine,
an airman, a navy man, or a.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Soldier of sailors, a sailor soldier, guardian coasty, Right, I
think we covered everybody, Guardian. Yeah, I'm like, I think
we covered everybody.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
We we we have the privilege of being molded into
our individual soldiership, so to speak. And then you take
your own career in your own hands. As we're taught
in the military, which reminds me of a quote that
I just made up the great people, great people forshing fire,
But is the privilege of lesser people to light the flame,
and that is what mentors do. We like the flame

(19:51):
for the for the fire, the burn for our mentees.
And the best part is we see them sprout, which
I had experienced is earlier this weekend where my soldiers
is now on the swat Temo from Charlotte County. Nice,
I will say that the privilege of having gave advice
or life advice and helping contribute to their growth is

(20:14):
a quill in the hat, so to speak, of life
saying or we did that there and now they're positively
returning the favorite back to our community and to then
become a mentor themselves. That is the greatest gift that
keeps on giving to a mentorship. That being the case
and pure curate curiosity. How's one become a mentorship with
your organization?

Speaker 4 (20:34):
So with big Brothers, Big sisters. You can reach out
to our big brothers, big sisters some ghost online or
you can reach out to us at nine four one
seven six four five eight one two and we will
get you in touch with our intake people to sign
up online to become a mentor with the county. Right now,

(20:58):
we are looking for more mentors because we're getting ready
to kick off our third season and we have fifteen
kids that are signed up, so we are looking to
get some of some additional mentors, and we are always
looking for veteran mentors or any mentors you know. For
Charlotte County. We have about one hundred and ten kids

(21:22):
on our wait list right now that are looking for mentors.
We have three different programs. We have our County I'm sorry,
our community based program where you can take a child
out into the community and work with a child that way,
or our site based programs where you would actually go
out to the schools on their spa time or their

(21:45):
they're not it doesn't interfere with their academic programming and
mentor child there or after school. And then we have
our Beyond School Walls program, you know, in particular with
the Beyond School Walls program, I wanted to piggyback off
something that you said, Amanda, was that we do go
over some of those skills sets as far as how
to dress for an interview, how to fill out an

(22:07):
online application, how to fill out an application, how to interview.
So we are we're looking for Beyond School Walls kids.
We're looking at that first. We'd like to have juniors
and seniors in our program, and that is because we
are trying to gear them up for the future that way.
So that is, you know, one of the other benefits

(22:29):
with the Beyond School Walls program. And Felix, like you said,
he came in in his junior year and so you
had him for two years, two academic years, and he
did he had a complete change, just a complete flip.
He was actually awarded one of our scholarships his junior year.
He was awarded one thousand dollars scholarship because he had

(22:51):
mentioned that interest in going into the HVAC initially and
so we had Tom helped him fill out that application
process and he was awarded thousand dollars scholarship to be
able to you know, he was thinking about being dual
enrolled and then you know, like he said, you know,
he changed his mind. He had a different purpose. But again,

(23:11):
those scholarships they can win don't necessarily have to go
towards schooling. It can be used towards you know, anything
of their needs, but that is another benefit to having
a be enrolled awesome.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
And lastly, what's the what does I guess the commitment
look like for a mentor as far as like, is
it an hour a week? Is it an eight week long?
Is it a twelve week long?

Speaker 7 (23:32):
Like?

Speaker 1 (23:32):
What does that look like for folks who are interested
in being mentors?

Speaker 4 (23:35):
Sure? So, for beyond school walls, we usually do the
academic school year, so it's that that nine month period.
We're starting a little late this year because of obviously
the hurricane impacts. But for community based we're looking for
at least four hours a month. We prefer that, you know,
mentors might be able to get together with their littles
a little more than that, but at least four hours

(23:58):
a month. And then for site based mentorship, we like
them to do one hour a week. So that's that's
pretty much the commitment.

Speaker 5 (24:06):
And even with even with our beyond the school beyond
the wall, beyond school walls, where we still do four hours,
Like it's it's from like eight or nine till noon,
so we're with our littles for four hours there at
the administration building or wherever the venue is and we
usually rotate like we'll go to community services and we'll

(24:28):
go here, and we'll go here, and we'll go here.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
So we'll go to.

Speaker 5 (24:30):
Different places so they where they can see how the
county operates within the different departments and things like that.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
And one more question, how many mentees do we have
looking for mentors in Charlotte County?

Speaker 4 (24:44):
Roundabout mentees looking for mentors? So one hundred about one hundred.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
And ten, All right, folks. As a veteran, I must
say in Charlotte County there are nearly forty thousand veterans
available in Charlotte County. Now, we all have abilities and
knowledge that we need to pass on to our youth.
If you have the time, and I will say this,
if you mentor a individual or a child, you will
also carry that. You will get something from that yourself.

(25:12):
It's fulfillment. And also you carry on the knaves that
the army or our military has taught us to a child.
That being the case, I want to thank our guests
for being on our show.

Speaker 6 (25:21):
Christa and Tom.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
We hope to have you guys on again. And you
guys take care and God bless you.

Speaker 7 (25:30):
Veterans you served your country, fought for our freedom, bled
for our flag. Now are you drowning in a sea
of paperwork, lost in the jungle of the VA benefit process?
If you're not using a Veteran Service officer, then you're crazy.
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(25:54):
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(26:17):
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(26:39):
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Speaker 1 (26:52):
Roll out, and now we have with us again, our
dear friend from Charlie Foxtrot Brewing co founder and co
owner mister Nick York. Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 6 (27:03):
Hello, thanks for having me again.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Absolutely so we wanted to have you back on the
show because you guys have had a lot of moving
and shaking going on at Charlie Foxtrot and so we
wanted to bring you in and kind of get an
update on some things. So you guys recently had your
inaugural annual Foxtoberfest event, So if you could just kind
of tell our listeners, you know what that was about,
what you guys offered, and you know kind of how

(27:28):
it went. How Yeah, absolutely all that good stuff.

Speaker 9 (27:31):
So initially we were going to have this just on
site at the brewery, but we started to get a
little bit of excitement going and a lot of interest showing.
Turns out we were not able to expand expand it
into the parking lot. So we had about thirty three
days from the time that that was found out to
the time of the events happening to host it over

(27:55):
at the fairgrounds.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Nice.

Speaker 9 (27:57):
So we got our tents going. We had planning, planning,
planning tents, bounce houses, we had food trucks, music, we
had seventeen different German beers between cans and draft.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yes, you did a pretty impressive selection.

Speaker 9 (28:18):
And the vendors out there. Unfortunately, Hurricane Helene hit a
few days before the storm, which we thought, you know,
we're gonna keep doing this, hopefully give the community a
chance to take a break. Unfortunately, I think it was
a little too close to the hurricane. Everyone was still
dealing with the damage. But we still had about five
hundred and fifty people come out nice, which was awesome
for a first first time event. From my understandings, the

(28:41):
first time at Octoberfest has been held at the fairgrounds, correct,
so we're excited to learn from this. We had German
music for four hours, we had a local country singer,
Jason Brownie came out played for two hours, and then
we've finished off the night with some rock music. It
was a good time for everyone that was there. We

(29:02):
appreciate everyone that came out, and like I said, we'd
learned some lessons, got some good feedback after the fact,
and are just going to make next year is bigger
and better.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
Very cool. Are there any plans that you can kind
of leak to people as far as ideas that you're
playing around with.

Speaker 9 (29:18):
Yes, so one of the biggest things that was brought
up was the our ticket system for the beer. The
idea behind that was to expedite the transaction of money
for beer, so we thought selling the tickets at the
gate would help expedite that. Unfortunately, our pricing points weren't

(29:38):
the best, so we're looking at doing more of an
all inclusive ticket package for next year.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
That would be awesome. Yep, I'm just gonna say.

Speaker 9 (29:48):
Yeah, so one price entrance, food, beer for the entire
time you're in there, and then also we're looking at
doing a pre.

Speaker 6 (29:57):
Sale this year.

Speaker 9 (29:58):
I didn't want to do it because we had such
a little time. I didn't have really the brain power
to focus on building lists for pre sales on that.
But that's what we're looking for next year. Do pre
sale package with the beer and entrance fee, your food
for the day that that money also goes towards the entertainment.
And one of the things too, that I did not

(30:21):
realize going into this was how much planning really goes
into creating an event like this. Oh yeah, I spent
pretty much all day every day for those thirty three
days planning what beer to purchase.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
So you plan that in thirty three days essentially. I
mean you kind of had the structural shell prior to
that when you were planning on doing it in the
parking lot, right, But to pull that off in thirty
three days, that's pretty impressive because you need at least ninety.
But I would say an event like that you probably
need like four to six months.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
All right, this is disclaimer here, folks. For those who
are in the Army, we'll have the best plans, but
you know what, every time we have a plan, it's
always a frago and it's always last minute. People will scramble.
Except the Army. We are built to adapt on the fly.
And let me tell you something. We were there watching
the event and went off with a hitch. But our

(31:13):
friend here was all over the place with his crew
and he got it done. You didn't, you didn't know
there was a problem. But you can see that they
had the mission first and they were putting out far
as left and right. And I mean, again, army training
ats best, folks.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
I was going to say, I would dare argue that
I think most of the military kind of abides by
the improvise, adapt and overcome statement that I think our
Marine Corps brothers and sisters have kind of coined for
lack of a better term, but I think the military
in general just teaches us all to think on our feet.
Yeah for sure, exactly, and be ready to adjust or
pivot if you need to. So yeah, we we, I

(31:50):
think every one of us. It's in the room. We
were all there that day, so we saw you walking around.
I remember asking you at one point like, how are
you doing because you were like sweating buckets, you had
a towel on your head, You're just walking around. It
was halket like. I mean, it was hawt halt outside
that day. It was like in the nineties, and you're
just walking around, checking on everybody, making sure everything's good.

(32:13):
And I remember at one point I saw you and
I was like, how are you doing? And I don't
know if you were joking or not. I don't think
you were, but you said something like this is either
going to turn out great or this is going to
bankrupt me by tomorrow. I was like, oh, no, yeah,
I hope not.

Speaker 6 (32:27):
Yeah. It was yeah. Definitely.

Speaker 9 (32:30):
My ideas going into it was between the five six
hundred mark. I did let some of the hype monster
build me up and probably over extending.

Speaker 6 (32:39):
Myself a little bit. But we've had a great support.

Speaker 9 (32:42):
Here in the community already, so I'm sure we had
some beer left over, but we're already moving through it.

Speaker 7 (32:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
I was gonna say, I think you had another event
like almost right behind it. So it was kind of
like a nice thing because it was one less thing
to have to worry about having to order beer for
that event, because you still had some to give.

Speaker 6 (32:58):
To it, right.

Speaker 9 (33:01):
That was another lesson learned. Make sure if you're going
to do an event that you are the only source
of alcohol and that it is advertised as such. Because
we showed up we're serving beer and people were walking
in with coolers full of liquor bottles and wine bottles.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
Interesting. Yeah, I noticed people walking around with like their
own steins, and I kind of was wondering, like, was
that something where they checked the security checked at the
door to make sure it was empty, that you're just
coming in to maybe get your cuppell that.

Speaker 6 (33:30):
The yeah, soberfest.

Speaker 9 (33:32):
Yeah, we let some people who had reached out beforehand
ask if they could bring in their own steins. We
did that, but this the liquor bottles and stuff that
was in a no so totally different event. We were
booked to provide the alcohol for them and.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Okay, so this was a completely different event from Foxtoberfest, okay.

Speaker 9 (33:51):
Right, and when I asked, when we asked them about it,
they said, oh, we just needed someone last minute and
didn't advertise I had booked the event over a month
and bands, so that was a little frustrating. Thankfully, we
still had some sales and they paid us to be there,
but it wasn't what we expected. God, And it's just
one of those lessons learned, you know, a new company,

(34:13):
first time doing an event like that.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, and remember on the off of the heels of
a hurricane, there's some factors you couldn't control or how
people were going to respond to that. So regardless, it
was success then the less because people did show up
in good numbers.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
So yeah, definitely it.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Was a hot day and folks, Hottoberfest is now being
coined by Dry.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Foxtrot, Fox Taberfest ox Taberfest.

Speaker 7 (34:36):
Right.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, So do you guys also have other activities going
on on site at Charlie Foxtrot Brewing, Right, So one
that I kind of wanted to talk about was on
Wednesday evenings, I guess you have folks that get together
and for you know, a lot of our Midwestern friends
they play yuker, right, yea, So how is that going?
Because I'm curious, my husband and I want to come

(34:56):
out and play. We had a dear friend from Canada
who taught us how to play uchre. I think my
husband knew before because he was aircrew in the Air Force,
so he traveled a lot. He went to Canada a lot,
and he met people, you know, from all over and
so I think he had already played yuker. I did
not learn till five, but we enjoyed it. So when
I found out that you kind of have oh I
don't want to say a league because that just makes

(35:18):
it entirely too formal, but you have like Yukre Night,
I guess for a lot of better time.

Speaker 9 (35:22):
Yeah, right now we have a Yukre free play. I
grew up in Michigan and I love to play ukre.
So when we were trying to think of ideas and
things to do, I was like, why don't we just
host the Yukre Night.

Speaker 6 (35:34):
And it's grown.

Speaker 9 (35:35):
It died down a little bit during the summer, but
we still have a good core of people that were
coming out and playing, and I just expected to grow more.
I mean they come out Wednesday nights from five thirty
till sometimes they're there till ten o'clock at night playing
oh wow, okay, and it's all just we have one
of our regulars is kind of taking grasp of it

(35:57):
as their baby essentially, and they help coordinate, bring people
in and kind of help run it. You can either
be a single player or come in with the pair,
so that way you have a chance to to play
and they you know, rotate winners from this table, go
play winners at that table kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Nice.

Speaker 9 (36:15):
But at the very end of the day, everyone's just
out there mingling, having fun.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Talking without televisions on in the background.

Speaker 7 (36:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (36:23):
And then in the back half of the brewery that night,
we have a dart league that goes on nice. Yeah,
so that one it's uh, that is a twenty dollars feed,
but it's twenty bucks for.

Speaker 6 (36:33):
Six months of oh wow.

Speaker 9 (36:34):
Yeah, and that league is you know, people will get
wrapped around the the term league.

Speaker 6 (36:41):
This is a.

Speaker 9 (36:42):
Free fun or not free but fun. Just joke around
with the guys and play. Yeah. They also do their
own little in house depending on how many people show
up that night for it and how who plays who,
and then you know, a end of the season tournament.

(37:03):
So this turn this season ends in December and then
we'll start back up in January.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Wow.

Speaker 9 (37:08):
So yeah, that's it's a lot of fun. And what's
nice is those guys I hear all the time from
them as they they enjoy it because they're cheering each
other on, they're joking around, having fun.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
People are socializing. I think that's something that we've kind
of lost sight of over the last four years. I mean,
we're some friends of mine and I were just talking
about that, Like the way of socializing and just getting
together for the sake of getting together kind of fell
by the wayside from like twenty twenty to like twenty
twenty three ish. Yeah, and so now we're starting to
come back out of that and just kind of you know,

(37:42):
reawaken and rejoin society as we remembered it, you know,
like getting together, talking to each other, encouraging each other,
just hanging out, meeting new people. I Mean, that's something
I think didn't happen for a little while. So it's
nice to see it.

Speaker 9 (37:57):
Come back, and you know, meeting new people.

Speaker 6 (37:59):
It's obviously the goal.

Speaker 9 (38:00):
We've gotten asked a lot about putting TVs up for
sports and stuff, and my answer is still now even
though my Sunday is right now.

Speaker 6 (38:07):
During football season suck. We don't have a lot of
people come out.

Speaker 9 (38:10):
You can check in, but yeah, but we have you know,
Monday nights we do trivia and that's all in house.
It's five dollars per person to play. And then yeah,
Monday nights starting at six and you know, the prizes
are for first, second, and third and it's based on
how many people show up, so more people come in,

(38:31):
the bigger the pot is. And then Tuesday nights we've
been trying to get it off the ground. But music
Bingo I'm also in in house held and run. That's
five bucks a person as well. Thursdays we do are
more of our Hey I want to have a party

(38:52):
or I want to do a get together kind of night.
Open Yeah, open the every third Thursday of the month.
Though we do do a business networking and that is
it's not like you're being I's or your chamber meetings.
There's no fees, no dues, there's no standing up and
introducing your business it's solely Hey, we're meeting up at

(39:12):
Charlie Fox Trot. We're gonna have some beers, pass out
some business cards or whatever, meet and mingle other businesses
and see how we can work together.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Awesome, And then Friday is just kind of open. I
think you do have kind of an informal get together
on Friday evenings, if I'm not mistaken. I saw a
lot of people playing Golden Tea time, yeah, one time,
and then I also saw some folks hanging out in
the front. It was kind of like, you know, the
end of the week, you know, dust off if you will,
you know, burning off steam and just having beers and

(39:40):
hanging out.

Speaker 9 (39:41):
Yeah, the weekend, we don't try to book much of
anything or plan much because that's going to be the
time that people normally are gonna come out. And for us,
it's just a matter of people knowing that we're there, yeah,
and what we stand for and wanting to come out
and sport is because of that Golden Tea. Thanks for
bringing that up.

Speaker 6 (39:57):
Though.

Speaker 9 (39:58):
We do we are start in house tournaments on Thursday nights.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Yeah, I get my card bag, so I.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Will tell you if I could add something for the
for the wish list, which I'm sure wants and wish.
There's a saying about that wants and wishes. I don't
remember the rest of it, but I'll leave it at that. Anyways,
So like you have Golden Tea, which is cool, but
there's also like a bowling video game. But then, like
ever the universe aligns that you could bring one of

(40:27):
those machines into Charlie Foxtrot. That would be fantastic. I'm
just saying because Charlie Foxtrott is family friendly, which is awesome.
I have a fourteen year old son and that bowling
video game is like his jam and we used to
when we were station at Patrick. We were members of
the Moose Lodge out in Palm Bay on the East Coast,
and they had one of those machines, and somewhere along

(40:48):
the line, someone in the lodge decided to get rid
of it, and that shattered my son. He was like,
I don't want to go to the Moose Lodge anymore
because they don't have the bowling machine. So if you
ever brought that back, I'm just saying, it'd be magic.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Well, I'll say, if you bring that back, I have
a little participatory game that we played. We had a
bowl machine at our posts, and it's it's you have
to you have to hit a certain score to progress.
Like you start out you got may you have to
score one fifty five and the next week would be
a one sixty. It gets competitive because doing a three
hundred a perfect game is not that easy. And it

(41:23):
gets that it gets dound to two or three people,
wow wow, and about nine hundred bucks, and it gets
just why.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, I would say, so it's pretty serious steaks there, but.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
It's only good at try a Fox Trots. You can't
use it anywhere else there right on.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Very cool, So like you'd have a nine hundred dollars
bar tab well bar and merch I mean because you
also sell merchandise, Oh yeah, absolutely, which we love. Like
I have one of their shirts, my husband has one
of their shirts. They're like amazing quality. So whoever you're
ordering from these, don't change it.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
They're good food, merch and beer all one place.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Going to even like there's even board games and such
on a shelf over by the bar.

Speaker 9 (42:02):
So just brought in a pool table so we have
that going. It's a buck fifty game and on the
beer side. We have everything pretty much set. We're just
waiting to write it down in stone. But we are
expecting to have our first Charlie Fox Trot brew by

(42:22):
the end of November.

Speaker 6 (42:23):
Of November, yeah, something to be thankful for.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah, and remember, folks, November, thank you. Governor DeSantis is
a Veteran month, not day. The month. He'd been that
decree about five months ago. And guess what, I guess
we have a reason to take those names off the
off the board.

Speaker 6 (42:42):
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 9 (42:43):
I mean our goal for Veterans Day weekend is I
got to create the event and post it, but wipe
the wall weekend. So we have our walls with the
beart forwards and I want everyone to come in and yeah,
so on our walls it's a beert forward. You can
buy beer for anyone else. For the most part, people
just buying for a veteran in each of the different

(43:04):
branches that we have on the wall, and it's seven
dollars to buy a beer for someone else. It doesn't
have to be a VET, but for the most part
it is six bucks goes toward their beer and a
dollar goes towards nonprofits support veterans, And so yeah, that weekend.
We want everyone to come in and claim the beers.
We want to wipe it down. We have a great

(43:25):
idea on how to renew that wall to make it
a little bit more military funk and yeah, so, but
we want to do that. Before we do that, we
want to make sure that people get a chance to
take those.

Speaker 6 (43:38):
Beers off the wall. Definitely, definitely, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah, there's and there's some interesting ones on those walls,
like because there's a space on the wall for each branch.
Pretty much with the exception of the Space Force, we're
getting there, getting there, you.

Speaker 6 (43:49):
Know, it's like those we got their flag.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
At least you got to go exactly, they have a
flag and you got to go to an Air Force
recruiter to get into the Space Force anyway. So it's
kind of what it is for now, but it will,
I'm sure, grow and and go from there. But the
cool thing is on some of those walls, it'll say
like a veteran from a specific place where like we
bought a beer for a specific friend of ours until
we put his name on the board, so when he

(44:14):
walks in, he cannot be mistaken, like there's your beer, dude. Yeah,
so it's pretty neat to see kind of how that goes.
Or like one said, I think one was like a
veteran who's a fan of a certain team or something.
It's it's just funny. Sometimes they get oddly specific, but
then sometimes they just say Army veteran or Air Force
veteran or Navy veteran, and they just leave it at that.

Speaker 9 (44:36):
We have one of our guys who for our pine platoon,
like if they don't come in for that week to
get their beer, they tell me what they want on
the board, and so one guy has it for a
active duty coastguard spouse.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Nice.

Speaker 6 (44:48):
That's awesome. So yeah, so that's righten up on the
on the coast's board.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Very cool.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Apparently.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Oh yeah, I mean, like the possibilities are pretty endless,
and you guys are relatively new. So as you continue
getting that experience of you know, what it is to
own a brewery and everything, I'm sure the ideas will
just keep coming and it will keep things fresh. But
the cool thing is that you include the input of
you know, your customers, your patrons, because I know I've
given you like my beer wishless right where I'm like,

(45:18):
if you can ever get these, I would be so
excited and you'd have to tell me because I will
definitely come and buy plenty of them.

Speaker 9 (45:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, we get that a lot, and I
do my best. We have six different distributors that we
pull from, so it's just a matter of which Sometimes
they both have the same thing, so it's a matter
of which one has the rights to our territory. But yeah,
I mean anyone who came in on our opening day
back in January and hadn't been there until again until

(45:44):
now for some reason, it's night and day. We're constantly
making improvements, upgrading and just making it more community friendly
from our patrons.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
And I definitely have to get with you about making
you a designated as a veteran owned business with the
State of Florida. Yeah, and that I think would be
kind of a corner ston ongoing. We are in our
landmark stick your stick it to the ground and go.
People show up. I'm gonna be contact to the eight ten,
MP and mcdille, so they need to come down and
either we'll take a donation. Here, your name's on the

(46:20):
wall MP company, right.

Speaker 9 (46:22):
Yeah, Yeah, I started the process. I got a little
hung up. They don't make anything easy, No, do not.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
That's why it's called bureau crazy. So Commissioner Deutsche's listening again.
If me say your word bureau crazy, that's who I
learned that from.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Was that fifteen cents right exactly?

Speaker 9 (46:44):
But yeah, I mean we are, We're just continuing to grow.
I'm excited to see what season brings. We've had fantastic
support throughout the summer. Thankfully we didn't have much of
a dip in sales. It's been pretty steady all year,
so it'll be interesting and exciting to see what our
first season will bring.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, I think the word is definitely getting out because
I wasn't aware that you guys were here in January,
and then when I was made aware of it and
came in and saw what was what it was like.
My husband and I have been telling a lot of
people about you, and my husband was especially excited because
not many people like when it comes to merchandise and
T shirts, especially my husband's kind of like a broad

(47:27):
shouldered guy and so not many people carry his size
T shirt. But he was really excited because when he
walked in, you guys had his shirt like his size
ready to go. So He's like telling everybody about Charlie Foxtrott,
which is really cool.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Well, i'd like to see happen. Is to have a
god willing next year i've become accredited. Is I just
have a veteran benefit guy to sit there, a person
to sit there doing nothing, going on do claims? Is
going to back and let's talk about it because without
anything about the TV, too many conversations in the amount
of veterans I've never seen for in Charlotte County. I've

(48:01):
been here for a minute. I've been through all the
vfw's and as American legions, a missing one, a missing one.
But the point of the matter is VFW I've seen
fresh faces that are a my age or younger, which
I know for a fact or not in any one
of these places. And the simple fact that that stigma

(48:26):
and or pressure has been removed completely for me. It's
an environment where you can have that conversation, how you
found all your benefits?

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Sent I go.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Remember the way the government works is if you don't
file for that money and we don't use that money
allot it for veterans, they will assign it to something else.
So please get your benefits and take your brothers that
haven't come up yet. So you guys are a godsend,
and you know what I foresee, you guys are a landmark.
Most definitely your a landmark in our community as a

(48:53):
non partisan veteran business that foster's brotherhood, brotherhood and.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
Family.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
I think you hit Hey, it's really like the younger
generation of veterans, for whatever reason social constructs be what
they are. I don't know, but they're not very inclined
to walk into a veteran service organization post. They're just not.
And so I think it's kind of nice that Charlie
Foxshot can kind of blend a setting that's friendly to veterans,

(49:23):
but it's not a post and it doesn't have a
lot of the for lack of a better term, politics
and bureaucrazy that sometimes can come along with some fraternal
organizations and the structure they're required to have. So because
it's it's an informal it's an open social setting, but
I don't have to be a veteran. You can bring

(49:45):
any and all or welcome to come. But it's you know,
Charlie Foxtrott is founded on a basis of service and
purpose and things like that it kind of it's a
nice little blend. It mixes everything together and it makes
it to where it appeals to everybody, which is so
I think our younger veterans appreciate that because it's not
like a post where you have to be a veteran

(50:05):
to come in. I mean that for some folks that
just doesn't work. There's nothing wrong with that by any means.
And we appreciate what our vsos do for us on
Capitol Hill because I think a lot of people lose
sight of that. They're thinking about the four walls of
a post in their town. But it's nice to know
that Charlie foxtrots there and that it can be a
place where everybody can come and it's it's open, it's

(50:27):
you know, it's not going to be something that's terribly overstructured.
To the point that.

Speaker 6 (50:31):
It's not anymore.

Speaker 9 (50:33):
Is that you enjoy craft beer there. We're here to
build bonds of brotherhood even if you don't.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
You serve non alcoholic options too, which is kind of
nice because then for folks who maybe they don't drink
or you know, or if you want to bring your
kids like, you have that option to where it's still
family friendly. There's something literally for everyone, which is nice.
But yeah, I love craft beer.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
So I ask thee.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
By civilian population, the owner here is invited to it,
to our to our little sanctuary. Do not pretend to
be a veteran and you're not, because that's a quick
way of being asked to leave. And I'm not going
to speak on behalf of the owner. Civilians are welcome,
Veterans are welcome, Our families are welcome. Don't pretend to

(51:16):
be a.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Veteran because you are, and be who you are.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Be happy for what you are, because if you get caught,
it can get real awkward fast. Past experience at different places.
You know this let that slide is a little asterisk
and just that's the more that you know statement for there.
But Nick, I guess man, you are God send to
our youth, our young veterans, our community as a whole

(51:39):
in Charlotte County. I know you're gonna be. You're already successful.
You're gonna be a phenomenal success of minus the hurricanes
and timing.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
You're a part of our rally Point family, and thank
you for being here.

Speaker 6 (51:51):
Man, Thank you absolutely on the show. Thank you, Thank
you anything.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
Else I forget about I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Just thanks to our sponsors at no Medicare Solutions, Derek
Get It Done Anderson. Thanks to one hundred point nine
WCCFFM for putting us on the air on Friday morning
so you guys can hear us. Thank you to reachs
Across America Radio as well for having us on their
radio broadcasts as well. We just appreciate all the opportunities

(52:21):
to put visibility on organizations that are veteran centric. You
don't have to be a veteran to listen to the
show or to be on this show. If you support us,
if you love us, so just thanks and please continue
telling people about our show and how they can listen,
whether it's locally in Southwest Florida on one hundred point
nine FM or on the free iHeartRadio app. If they

(52:44):
pull that up and they search WCCF on Fridays at
nine am, they can find our show. And then also
we are aired on Reads Across America Radio on Fridays
at three pm, so you can find both Reaches across
America Radio and u c CF via the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Outstanding, and folks, remember We're here for you, veterans and
our communities alike. These connections we're making abroad and locally
our resources to be utilized by our communities and our veterans.
That's why they're there for that's where we're bringing them
to you. And you give us the strength and energy
to bring them, bring them to you through us.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
And with that being said, rally Pointers fall out.