Episode Lineup:

Leading the Way – Guest: Dr. Christine Hammond, Emerita Board Member / MI-ACE Emerita Spotlight

Michigan History Moment – Topic: Shrine of the Pines

Now Spinning – Guests: Freddy Angeles & Giovanni Sauceda, MSU Vinyl Nights / Club to Club (Connecting with MSU Vinyl Nights)

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**** Producer's Note: The following is a general transcript of LCC Connect's weekly radio program. Contents include but may not be limited to podcasts, program imaging, announcements, and PSAs. More detailed and accurate transcripts of the podcast episodes featured in this broadcast can be found at LCCconnect.com or by following the links provided in the show notes of this episode. ****

Hello and welcome to Leading the Way Women in Higher Education, a podcast dedicated to celebrating, supporting and advancing women in higher education across Michigan. Hello, I'm Dr. Cynthia Rooker and today we're exploring the enduring impact of leadership through the lens of the emerita role.

Joining us today is Dr. Christine Hammond. Good morning and would you please introduce yourself?

Well, good morning, Cynthia. It's a pleasure to be with you and always a pleasure to talk about Michigan ACE Network.

And according to our organizational bylaws, emerita are senior leaders who have been designated and it really is a special honor to help the board and help the organization following some period of significant service that each of us has been recognized for. Throughout my career, the network has been vitally important.

As a young and emerging professional, seeing the role models that I had in other senior women on the Michigan ACE Executive Board was inspiring to me.

I will also say that as I grew as a professional into mid level positions, it was so affirming to be able to call on that level of expertise and to ask questions, questions in a candid way, knowing that the people who were on Michigan ACE Board would give me their very best advice, would understand when I made mistakes, would congratulate and encourage me as they saw my career progress. In fact, I will say that my desire, my intention to apply for the presidency of Mid Michigan College.

The current president is retiring. Have you thought about a presidency?

That sort of encouragement through the years has made a difference for me as an emeritus member of the board Now I hope that I can have that same impact, can provide that service for other women and men as they come through their professional pipeline to make the most of higher education, which is so important in our state and in our country today.

Fantastic. Wow, what a legacy you have definitely trailed for other women in shaping institutions and making future leaders. That's wonderful.

Well, let's go ahead and get started with our questions. Could you please share just a bit about your path? You've explained a little bit about it.

But as far as becoming emeritus, like, what role does that mean to you personally and professionally?

Yes, the emeritus status is a special honor. It's occasionally bestowed by action of the board in recognition of significant service or exceptional contribution.

I think all of us who are in the emeritus role and there are two versions of the emeritus role. There is an active emeritus status and an honorary emeritus status. I was active for many years and have now moved into honorary status.

I think that all of us hope that we provide some level of continuity for the organization. Some we hope, wisdom about why decisions were made as they were. As the organization has developed. And Michigan ACE has blossomed so beautifully.

Over the years that has expanded and now we have women, women at all levels from across the state. And those of us who are emerita, we provide some service.

But we also get the benefit of getting to know the emerging leaders in our state and the women who are doing wonderful work in colleges of all types.

That's fantastic. Wow. So much that you can share with us. This is great. Well, in reference to.

So with Michigan ace, how they envision an open higher education environment, how have you seen this vision evolve over the course of your career?

Yes, right. The network is very committed to an open and just higher education environment that is a core value for us.

As I said earlier, the network has just blossomed over the years.

They were people who were at the vice president, president or president level, trying to open up the pipeline for other leaders. In doing that, they broadened access by opening doors to women of all ages in higher education. We have had programs for undergraduate women.

We certainly have supported graduate women, both in their participation in the network, but also with support for certain research projects.

Over the years, it is, I think, the only organization in which you will find members who are from community colleges, private colleges, mid sized public colleges, R1 universities, so a variety of institutions.

And you will find women who are pursuing graduate degrees, who are new in their careers, maybe having their very first professional experience, people who are mid career, people who are moving up through the ranks through something like the leader shadow program. And you'll find senior leaders, people who are at the kind of top of their career or getting ready for retirement.

And then those of us who are emerita, most of us are retired and can look back on our careers and have the opportunity to help others and learn from them as well.

Oh, that's a great example as far as how it's really evolved over the years, where you meet them, where they're at, and if they want to grow from there or look at other avenues or stay where they're at. Wow, that's fantastic. Could you please share maybe some of the most meaningful ways that you've worked to elevate women's voices in leadership?

Sure. I would really encourage anyone who's listening to us today, Cynthia, to consider participating in the annual conference.

It is a remarkable event every year and not only provide really good professional development, good workshops, good recognition of achievements by women and by our institutions over the past years, but it is a great way to build your own network.

You know, now that I'm sweating of more senior in my professional role, it's interesting to me to hear what has made a difference to others as they interact with me. And I'm struck by the number of times people will say things like, I remember that conversation we had when we talked about, or you once told me.

When I hear those recollections from others, I'm reminded of how important personal relationships are, that we have a chance through the network to meet each other person to person and to be there for one another without much artifice or competition. We're not competing with each other in the network. We are encouraging and affirming one another.

Oh, I love that. Yes. And thank you so much for that plug about the conference because, yes, that.

Is in the early days, as I say, about the evolution of the network. The conference traveled around the state and we were pretty happy if we got 40, 50 people to go to the conference.

You know, now we are every year somewhere between 250 and 300 women from across the state. How special is that? I mean, that is wonderful growth.

People coming back year after year to reconnect and to get sort of rejuvenated and in stressful roles, as many roles in higher education are not just now, but over the years.

Those conferences provide that affirmation that gives you that little boost to say, yep, I know why I'm doing this work, and I'm going to go back and do it even better on my campus.

There you go.

So I think the conference and the Women of Color Collaborative luncheon and the Leadership Shadow Program, all of those opportunities and more give us support for our members and our institutions.

Absolutely. Well, Chris, can you please tell us how you personally have contributed to mentoring emerging women leaders? And why is that work so important to you?

Yes, it is very important to me and very significant because you learn from those you are trying to mentor.

For me, the Senior Shadow Program, when I was the president at mid, enabled me to bring other voices, women's voices from the network right to the campus and to have that opportunity to work with those women, one of whom I worked with a number of years ago, and she just reached out to me last week and said, I'm a finalist for a presidency. So you see the growth of the people who you're working with, and you know that they are going to do great things that mentoring has done a lot.

The Young Women Strong Leaders program that we had for many years, I think was an opportunity for us to open doors for women who were undergrad or grad students at the time.

And I remember how special it was when I was a grad student and a woman who had already launched her career successfully would talk to me as a real person and engage with me as a colleague. I learned a lot about how to navigate higher education, and I hope that in some ways, I've been able to share that with others.

Oh, it sounds like you already have, right? For many women, right? Absolutely.

So with the IDEALS Framework, which is Identify, Develop, Encourage, advance, link support that guides Michigan ace's effort, can you explain which of these principles resonates most with your own leadership journey?

Yes, thank you for that question. I think the IDEALS Framework is such a nice mnemonic for helping us to remember what we're about.

And I often talk to institutional representatives about keeping those in mind because they're such concrete objectives.

We want to identify promising leaders on our campus to see them develop, to encourage them along the way, to maybe open doors, mention their name in the right circles, help them advance, put them on the right committees, let them go to the right conferences, and then linking people together and supporting them both as a group and at the individual level of those. I think identifying is probably the key.

The initial name of the network when it was first established by ACE was the National Identification Program, and it was to identify promising leaders. That's really what needs to happen and what we want to have happen for ourselves. Right. We want somebody to see us.

And so I think those of us in the network provide a valuable function when we can really see the talent in others, identify that leadership potential, and then go on to use the other ideals that develop, encourage, advance, link, and support. To take that from just an identification, oh, that person's doing good work, to that person's doing good work, and I should help her do more of it.

I think that's what I would say about the ideals framework. I love that framework.

Yeah. I love what you just explained. I think that's fabulous.

In fact, I'm the ir, the institutional rep for Lansing Community College, very proudly and honored to be one.

Thank you for that service.

Thank you. And I enjoy it very much. As you were speaking, I was thinking I could see that on a T shirt or something.

Wow.

I could see that we'll have to market that a little more, but that's on another note.

Okay.

But anyway, so as a merit, a leader, what keeps you inspired and engage as you connect with. With the involving needs of the institutions and within our communities?

Right. And for those of us who are retired and have moved on to other things, that can be a challenge. Right.

And so it's great for us that we get to know emerging leaders and women who are coming through their careers. In my case, when I retired from the presidency of mid, I signed on with the Registry.

And the Registry, as you may know, is an organization that places interim leaders in higher education when a college or university has an immediate need.

And so I've done two Vice President of Academic affairs positions, and then most recently last year, I served as the interim president for the College of DuPage in Illinois. It's a college of about 29,000 students.

Those positions have helped me to stay connected and actually have given me a further appreciation for the Michigan network. Not every state has a network as strong as Michigan, and so we really can take pride.

And we've been recognized at least twice by the national network as an outstanding statewide network. We can take pride in the work that we're doing.

I also stay connected through Michigan ACE through the various initiatives, and I'm delighted that we're starting this podcast. I will be listening to all of those and really trying to learn from each of the sessions.

Fantastic. Well, good to know we've got a fan out there anyway, for future reference. That's great.

So, you know, looking at our current landscape of higher education, which is evolving and constantly changing, Chris, could you tell us, what advice would you give to women who are aspiring to senior leadership roles today? What would you tell them?

I would encourage women in leadership today who are aspiring for senior leadership roles to be brave and to keep a sense of perspective. So if your career is a book, what you are going through now, maybe just part of a chapter and things will change.

I think sometimes when we're in difficult situations, it's easy to become mired in them and to think that they will always be that way. But we look for the positive elements and we can be intentional about that.

Research shows that for every negative experience that we have, we need three positive experiences to counteract it.

When you, when we are struggling, when something negative happens, when we face a challenge or make a mistake, we can then go out and get three positive experiences to counteract that. And I think some of those positive experiences can easily come through our relationships with the network.

You have a store of positive energy in Michigan, ace upon which you can draw, and we shouldn't forget that.

Wow. That's fantastic advice. So, finally, what does legacy mean to you?

In other words, how do you hope that your work continues to influence future leaders in Michigan?

I think that those of us in administration see our legacy in part in the policy decisions and the programs that we might begin. But it is a step, especially in the people that we leave a legacy.

It is the people who will think back to the conversations we've had, the opportunities, the projects we've worked on together. Those are the things that are going to carry on through the next generation. Will my name be attached to those? Maybe not, and that's okay.

But the ideas and the sense that higher education is valuable and opens doors in our country and is good for what we're trying to do, I think that is an important legacy that is worth pursuing, whether our name's attached to it or not.

Oh, absolutely. Valuable legacy. Absolutely. So much.

Well, Chris, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your experiences and reflections on the role of emerita in higher education.

I have to tell you, your story reminds me so much of leadership that is not just about titles, but also you mentioned and you explained the impact, the mentorship and the legacy that we all will leave behind. So I appreciate the honor and definitely the conversation that we've had together today.

This has been so enlightening and educational in so many different ways. Thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure to talk with you and I hope that when I go to the conference next June, I'll be able to talk with people who have listened to these podcasts.

Yes.

Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to leading the way women in higher education to listen to this episode and others, visit lccconnect.com until next time. Keep leading, keep learning and keep lifting others along the way.

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This is Amy Wagonar from the Historical Society of Michigan with a Michigan History moment. It was called Michigan's White Pine Era. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, loggers clear cut their way through Michigan's pine forests.

They devastated the land. In their wake lay nothing but endless acres of tree stumps. Yet out of all the destruction came something of beauty. The Shrine of the Pines.

Rain Raymond Bud Overholzer was an accomplished outdoorsman from Ohio. A fishing trip brought him to Baldwin, Michigan area, and he fell in love with it.

The landscape of tree stumps impressed the outdoorsman. Where other people saw only ruin, Overholzer saw an opportunity to memorialize the lost forests.

He envisioned a Shrine of the Pines that he would fashion from the tree stumps.

Like a sculptor who looked at a slab of marble and saw an image inside it, Overholzer imagined forms that lay within the tangle of roots in the pine stumps. Out of those, he fashioned beautiful pieces of furniture, tables, chairs, beds, and other items. He used no power tools, nails, or screws.

Today, the Shrine of the Pines operates as a museum complex on the Pere Marquette River. There you can visit Bud Overholzer's wooden creations and stroll through the woods on nature paths.

This Michigan history moment was brought to you by michiganhistorymagazine.org.

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Hello everyone and welcome to Now Spinning, the official podcast of the Lansing Community College Vinyl Record Club. We meet twice a month to listen to vinyl and talk about music. Stay tuned to learn about how you can get in touch with us and attend our meetings.

All right. Hello everybody. Welcome back to Now Spinning. We have a very special episode for us today.

We have some guests here today from MSU Vinyl Nights, so why don't you go ahead and introduce yourselves and get right into it.

My name is Freddy Angeles. I'm coming from MSU and I'm the Vice President Of MSU Vinyl Nights.

Hello.

I'm the co president and co founder of MSU Vinyl Nights over from Michigan State.

What's your name?

Gio. Gio, that's my name.

Good to meet you.

What's your name?

And then also with us today we have Tyler Rec. And I'm still Simon Medina, as always.

There we go.

So first of all, I want to say thanks for coming on here. Really appreciate it. It's cool to know that there's other like vinyl clubs out there, Ones that.

Are like close by.

Yeah, right. We. We talked to one that was in Japan, but we didn't know there was one in Michigan until, you know, just a little bit ago.

So that's really awesome that you guys got into it.

So how are their plans coming to go over to Japan and get a meeting set up over there?

We're working on it.

Shout out to the final record club in Japan.

Yeah, they're cool. They'll listen to. They actually listen to these.

So that's.

So that's why we got to give a complimentary shout out.

Friends of the. Friends of the show. Friends of the show. So I just want to, you know, let's start out from the beginning though. So how did you get into vinyl?

Like what was the. What was like the incident that got you to start collecting?

If I'm gonna be completely honest, it's gonna be the co president here and then the other co president. So that's gonna be Kenny and Geo.

Yeah, Kenny's cool. Yeah, yeah.

So those two really brought that up upon me. So where I come from, Florida, there's not a lot of that.

Especially the small town where I'm from, like Immokalee, there's not a lot of vinyl stuff or physical media. It's all digital and all that stuff. So whenever I came over here, I met these two people by coincidence.

Met Kenny in the gym and then I met him just because, I mean, he's long friends with Kenny. And then they introduced me into vinyls and. Greatest blessing I've ever had. Appreciate you guys.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So honestly, I just got into albums. That's really what I love more about it. Less than the physical media part.

I love the idea that the artist like specifically put each song in the specific spot that it's in and it's kind of like a story. That's what I'm really into. So then when I like found out about like how big the record community was, kind of caught my eye immediately.

My ear immediately. And I got into that like as fast as I could.

That's awesome, man. What was the first record you ever bought yourself? Oh, can you remember that?

We didn't. We didn't.

We didn't. I asked you this. I was trying. I think that was, like, the first time. That was what the.

I think it was the first.

The very first it was on. It was the second one you guys had, but it was like, the end of March. Pretty sure. Yeah, Right.

I think the first one that I received was man on the Moon, Kid Cudi. The first one that I bought was Kitsie Ghosts by Kanye and Kid Cudi.

Nice. How many. How many records you say you have now?

Now it's 70. Still growing.

Nice.

But that's where we're at right now, I think.

I'm sorry I cut you off, man.

No, you're good. I was gonna say, I think the first one I got was with Kenny. We had Win up over there. And then it was. I know it was a jazz album.

I don't know who it was specifically if it was Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra, but I know it was a jazz. And I know that was the first one I got, just because I was there with Kenny, and I felt like I had to get something. And then after that, I was just.

I was pulled into it way too much. I couldn't. I couldn't stop.

That's how they get you, man. That's how it always goes.

And I've got a question that I probably asked you guys to, like, how did you find us? That's a good question, because, like, I didn't even realize you guys were a thing until you stumbled into our meeting on 18 March.

I was like, oh, we have a meeting this Friday. You know, come on in. Friday the what? 21St or something like that, you know? And I was like. And it was like, come on. I was like, sure, I'll go.

And I went. And. Yeah, and I liked it.

I'd go, I'm planning on going this Friday, but by the time this thing comes out, there won't be any more, though, for the rest of the semester.

Yeah. Yeah.

We actually, me and Kenny there was. When we first started thinking about becoming a registered organization, we tried to, like, look up record clubs in the.

In the area, you know, just to see, like, what would work with. If we could even do it.

And you guys actually showed up the website when we were looking up, like, we saw, we found lcc, vrc, and that's how we found it at first. And then when we became registered, the.

The LCC president Steve, he reached out to us and just talked about what LCC VRC was and we made it to the first meeting that we could.

Yeah, nice.

And it was kind of strange because we knew who Steve was, but we didn't know who he was. So we walked in thinking, okay, so who do we go up to? And I can choose ourselves as.

Yeah, go to the guy dressed all fancy because he's.

Well, there was a couple. We couldn't just distinguish someone and be like, I think you're the president around here. You look like the. You look like you run stuff around here.

So we just kind of stuck around and we had a great time.

Oh yeah, 100%.

That's good. Yeah. I was also. That kind of leads in. What I was going to ask next was how did Vinyl Nights come about?

What made you think that it would be a cool idea to have like a, you know, a record club of your own? Like what. What inspired it? I mean.

Yeah. So honestly, it happened so fast. Me and Kenny, our president, we dorm together. So we were just talking one night.

We said, hey, what if we invited a bunch of people over? And like, I think at first we called it Record Nights. And it doesn't really. Doesn't really sound off the tongue as you will.

So we started Record Nights. We said, hey, we're having a Record Nights tomorrow. Just come over at like 8. Let's just hang out in the dorm. And that's how it started.

And it really was just like, just our friends. But then we just had to keep on doing it every week. We started doing it every week in the dorm. It started growing out of the dorm.

Yeah.

Because like, you guys.

You guys are in Holden, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I used to work in South Neighborhood. And you know those dorms can be really very, very small.

Yeah, yeah. It was not. It was not very space efficient for what we were trying to do. So then we moved out into the Community Lounge and it's just.

We just got so much support from Community, from everybody who was interested in it. And we were like, we kind of have to, like, we have no choice but to make this an actual organization.

Yeah.

Even.

Even getting the chance to have some certain MSU basketball players show your last one.

Shout out. Colin Carr and Jeremy Fury.

Shout out.

That I completely missed because I'd watched My Sisters.

Yeah, we almost missed it too. We kind of. We saw them and we're like, oh, that's cool. More people came and then we looked, oh, that's Cohen, Carr and Jeremy Fears.

Crazy enough I looked them dead in their eyes, and I looked at one of our members, Jacob, and I was like, I know who they are. I just don't know their name. I'm completely blanking. I know there's somebody, though. They're. They belong. They. They do something. I know that for sure.

I. If I was there, I would have played, like, the Curly Shuffle, you know, like that. Dude, this song. That slow.

A helmet shuffle at MSU basketball games, I would have played that. And. Hey, you guys probably know this one.

Does this sound familiar?

Yeah.

And then I know at the end, they introduced themselves to us as they were leaving. They're like, yeah, my name's Cohen. I was like, nobody. I was like, oh, this is the Cohen car.

Yeah.

And then he was like, Jeremy. I was like, Jeremy. Oh, my goodness. I. I was over here just rambling on. I don't even know who you guys are.

Yeah, the. That's awesome.

I hope they show up.

This one.

Yeah. I'm going to tell them Tyler missed out.

Yeah.

Show up this time.

Bring in, like, one of my, like, dad's MSU tickets or something like that.

Let me get one signature, please.

Or get my. Or bring my MSU hat.

Yeah, get the hat signed.

That's good.

Yeah, it was pretty cool because it was the record painting night and people had them sign their. The records that they were painting on, like, the back of what they were already working on. Yeah, that was a cool idea. That was super sick.

I did not get my record sign. I just thought about that. I should have.

That brings into another thing, like, you guys do a lot of very cool stuff, like you partnered with, like, the Holden hall government or something. Was that the one on Thursday where you guys painted in the engineering building, or was that.

No, that was the Office of Engineering, Diversity and Inclusion.

I know. Freddie. I assume you got that kind of deal with that, right?

No, actually, that was set up with him through one of the connections that he knows, so. Wow. His mutual friends, who was part of the engineering college.

Oh, shout out.

You here?

I thought you would have been with the mechanical engineering and all that stuff.

I know you're here, but not too well. So it was just. It was a mutual connection that they know each other.

Yeah.

That was amazing to see. Once I seen that we were going to have that up, and I was like, oh, my goodness, that's amazing.

Is there any other, like, things that you're gonna plan on doing in, like, maybe over, like, this? Well, if people don't go back home, you know, if you still have that sort of group that stays here.

Is there anything that you may plan on doing during the summertime?

Well, actually on the drive here, we were just talking about it. I got a message receiving asking for me to bring vinyl nights to Florida, which is where I'm going back for the summer.

Wow.

And I'm thinking of bring that down there and seeing if I can get a small crowd to just participate or just to acknowledge. Because like I said, not a lot of people take pleasure in physical media down there. Not because they don't want to, just because there's no access.

So that's really awesome.

Yeah.

And we also talked about encouraging our members and our followers to have their own vinyl nights. So you know, if you want to get with your friends or just be by yourself and play, play records.

Yeah.

And if you want to send in the videos, that's what we're thinking about right now. Just to keep it going, you know, keep people excited about it.

That is like the kind of downside of being at like a university is like, oh, you have all these people going back home. Whereas here at lcc, nobody lives on campus, you know, Cuz everybody just commutes here. Right.

And you know, usually those people like live around, you know. But I do appreciate like what you guys do outside of like just the regular vinyl nights, like camping out for record store day.

Yeah. That was interesting to see that I.

Had to miss too. Cause I was watching my sisters.

But you know, I will say it was a cold, cold night.

Right. Yeah.

Seeing those updates on Instagram, those were fun too. Hey, it's three in the morning, you know, wrapped in a big blanket.

No. Yeah. Honestly, the big thing that we kind of like emphasized when we started to make this organization was that this isn't a place for vinyl lovers.

This is a place for just community.

Yeah.

You know, you don't have to collect.

Yeah.

You don't have to even be into music.

If you want to meet friends, if you want to play a record that you got, if you want to just listen to records, whatever you want to make it, you know, that's what it's about.

Yeah. And all the people that I see going through your.

Because you guys bring like a case, like you and Kenny, you two and Kenny like bring in your own case. And I see people like looking through those.

Right.

Like looking to see what to play and all that stuff, which is, you know, really cool.

Yeah. We try to do the same thing here, you know, it's like, you know what we like to say is that like, it's like, firstly, it's like a.

Just a friendship group, you know, just.

Right.

And secondly, it's a record club. You know, we make a point to be like, you don't. You know, you don't need to have records or anything.

You just got to be willing to hear stuff you wouldn't normally listen to. That's what we like to say.

I feel like that's one of the things that is, you know, so fun about vinyl nights is having people come in and find new music tastes.

Absolutely.

Yeah, definitely.

I don't feel like I have to, like, stick to the same shtick that I always hate have here, where I'm like, oh, I bring in a bunch of old music, you know? Cause I like sticking to the themes here. With you guys, it's no theme, and you guys are staying there for, like, three hours.

And I could bring in, like, fits in the Tantrums or something like that. Or I could bring in, like,'50s music or something without, you know, because I've done that the first man.

I think you guys left, you know, and people, like, dance to it and all that, which is, like, pretty cool.

And then I think one of the greatest things is hearing someone say, oh, what is this?

Or, like, I love that. I love that.

Who's playing that?

I remember Kenny. I had Fitz and the tantrums picking up the pieces. The first March, whatever meeting. March 21 meeting. I brought that in.

Kenny was like, whoa, what is this? I was like, I'm definitely. I gotta listen to this, right? I was like, yes, you should.

Yes. And that's one of the joys.

And I think with us having the crate and thing, it's fun seeing people pull out of vinyl and see them and talk to their friends, think, oh, wow, look at this.

Yeah.

Oh, I want to play this. And, like, that's one of the greatest thing I see about physical media.

You can pull it out, show it to other people, and express your gratitude and, like, how much you enjoy that record.

Yeah, that. That's. That's what I really love as well. Just being able to. It's a good way to start conversation. You know what I mean?

Like, you bring in a record somebody likes, they're like, I like that one. I recognize that it's a good song.

And you start talking about it, and then, you know, you go before, you know, you've been talking about this band or something for, like, 20 minutes.

Yeah, it's exactly how it goes.

It's fantastic. Yeah, I was gonna. I was kind of segueing. From that into. I know there's, like. There's a lot. Oh, God, I can't talk today.

The way you run your meetings is definitely, like, a little bit different than ours, because I think that compared to ours, yours is kind of a little bit. It's like, a little bit more structured, but, like, also less structured at the same time, if that makes sense.

The structure part that you guys actually have, like, a way to tell who's up for playing something next.

We got kind of a line.

Yeah, kind of. But they have. They have a definitive thing, right.

Like, you know, you write your name on the sticky note, what song you want to play or what side, then you put it in the queue, you know, that is pretty cool. We hear it's like, oh, you know. Oh, there's nothing on.

Just literally go right up there.

Yep. I think one of the nice things that y' all have is y' all stands, which we did take a lot of inspiration from, and then we took that.

I think the structure that you're referring to is the queuing, but the structure would also have to be the fact that we sometimes let sides completely play out.

Yeah, definitely.

And then we forget, just because we're having such a great conversation about what's going on in the background.

Or, like, movies, like, in that first meeting where everyone was, like, all mad at people and stuff.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Shout out to Sarai. I hope you have gone down to watching some of those spectacular movies that we were talking about, because they.

The Lion. The Lion King. Sorry. Sorry, Sarai, for calling you out, but everybody was so, like, mad. They were so confused, like.

Well, you have never watched the Lion King.

Some of your other takes, I understand, not watching, but the Lion King.

Yeah, like that.

That's the lion king.

Not like, 99.99% of people know the Lion King.

Such a good movie. It's a classic.

So crazy.

I think we might have one of the vinyl nights be just like, a movie marathon where we have music soundtracks to the movie that we're watching, because some people need to watch these.

That's a good idea.

I think the crazy part is, like, I think it's more difficult to go your entire life without seeing the Lion King.

Like, I feel like, everywhere that takes effort. You have to, like, avoid it. You got to be trying.

Yeah.

Oh, man. I'd say part of why you can be able to be able to play, like, just whole album sizes, because you guys. You go for, like, three hours every night.

That is.

Yeah. Sometimes when March Madness was going on MSU basketball was conveniently at 10pm yeah.

So we just stay, like, two hours later and watch the basketball games.

Yeah. We don't. That's not something that we tried to do. Like, we don't try to just go for super long.

But honestly, it was MSU basketball, and you're like, what better place than to be on campus watching MSU basketball?

Right. Exactly. But I don't think we've ever ended at a time that we were supposed to.

Yeah.

And it's just like. I think that's just kind of, you know, that's like. It's not like a meeting. Like, we call them meetings, but they're not meetings.

They're more just like, hang out.

Right.

You know, that's another thing that brings it back to, like, kind of the unstructuredness of it.

Right. I think that just comes from us meeting in the dorm. I think we kind of just stuck to that. That, like, we love that hangout.

Feel that.

Right. And we don't want to lose that.

Yeah.

And something you definitely don't want to lose. It brings together the camaraderie. Oh, let's, you know, go do, you know, whatever, like, afterwards, like, you know, which I really enjoy.

I remember there was a while there with our record club where we'd have a group get together and we'd go, like, to the record stores. Like, we'd go to Flat black and circular first. Then we'd shoot down to the record lounge, and we'd go back to LCC here. I still do that.

You know, I'm just. I'm by myself.

Yeah.

Because everybody's busy or working or stuff like that.

Right.

And that's. That's also what we try to do with our themes and our events that we do.

We try to focus on things where it doesn't take up your entire time, where you can still talk to people, talk about music. You know, like with the painting night, that was perfect. You know, just paint while you talk to the people around you.

And the music's in the background. You're listening, you're thinking, man, this is a great record. While you're in your painting, shout out to all the Picassos that we had out there.

Oh, my goodness, so many great artists.

I wish I was.

I'm not one of them.

Yeah, I'm not either. I mean, I was gonna paint my cottage, but I was like, no, I don't. I don't want to. I don't want to mess that up.

Yeah.

I just. I just. I just painted The X men logo.

Yeah, that one was pretty sick.

Sadly, like any. I'm sorry to anybody who saw my imogly Indians logo. It was no good, actually. It was really bad.

It was a credit to my high school and I don't think I did it justice.

I'm sorry, guys. I'm sure they'll forgive you. They can't see it right here. We'll have you back on one of the days.

You can, like, bring it and hold them up for the camera. They can see it.

I don't think we can make it that day.

Yeah.

Right. But yeah, painting. That's a really awesome, like, idea for a meeting. I mean, like, do you have any, like, besides that, if.

Do you have any other ideas, you know, going forward for kind of like special topics like that?

Totally.

You're willing to share?

Yeah. So actually this week we're doing. We're super excited. We're doing a like, song wars tournament.

So really what it's going to be is like, everybody picks a record and we're going to have a theme go up from like a wheel and then like a bracket style people going against each other and see, like, who can match the theme the best from their picks, like their records. We're really excited about that one. We have that. And next week we're going to do a karaoke night.

Oh, man.

Oh, I'm gonna be there. I don't care what I have to do. I'm going to be there.

So that one, I think the idea for that one is like, either queue up a record, you know, because not everybody wants to do karaoke. Either queue up a record or cue up yourself. You know, you want to sing something. So we're really excited for that.

We want to do some more theme nights next semester. But yeah, we're really excited. We have a lot of ideas.

I'm looking forward to it.

And we have a ton of ideas. It's always just the execution that comes down to. So you can throw an idea there.

But when it comes down to the execution is like, oh, we actually have to plan how this works. We have to make sure this is viable for everyone and, like, have a good time.

Right.

Hit me in my. Right in my soul. We love coming up with ideas, but then when it comes to, like, actually running them, you got to think about that too much.

It's just a hassle.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think the two painting nights that week we had two painting nights back to back, that was like the most stressful week of my life.

Did you, like, do you got, like, actual records people. The paint on or.

What was the one. The engineering building was like, little, like, seven inches. Yeah, like, but they weren't, like, actual. Yeah, they were like.

They were like.

Yeah, they were like, fake ones. But, like, the. From one pictures I saw on the Friday one, it was like, actual, like, actual ones.

We made sure that they were all, like, unplayable, like, beat up, kind of like, did you.

Where'd you get them from?

It's just like, FBC giant, like, bookshelf.

Right.

I went over there to talk to him. I was like, hey, is it okay if we just grab, like, 60, 50 of them and just take them? It's like, is that fine? They're like, yeah, go ahead, Go ahead.

Shout out fbc. They're one of the most amazing people. Love them over there.

They're awesome. I wish I was there to see that one. Definitely, though. That's a awesome idea for a man.

So was I.

It's okay.

That one took a little bit.

A little bit of time to set up, and then we had to remove all the vinyls from the actual albums and then setting them up for everyone to get to the painting.

So you got, like, just a pile of, like, 50 album covers somewhere?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. It's in my. It's my house.

Nice.

They're hanging around in the corner.

Yeah, somewhere in there.

Bring it.

But bring it back. People can draw on those next, maybe.

Yeah, yeah. We had some people drawing on the covers. Like, I don't know how. I don't know where we had.

We didn't have them for display, but some people just found them and then started painting them.

They were a box in the back. Some people just decided to grab them, right?

Yeah.

Good for them.

Yeah.

I've, like, a couple albums I've found. Like, I had a FEC and record lounge, like, in the dollar bin.

Sometimes people will just, like, draw on them or they'll just put a mustache on someone. That's so beautiful. I. I wish I remember what the album was, but I remember I found a couple like that.

Or like, geez, I can't remember what it was. But yesterday, Andy. Shout Out Andy, he brought in, like, something. Because our theme yesterday was live albums.

We're gonna have that podcast episode, like, later. But Joe, you were there. You remember this how? Like, whatever, like, album. He had the S and the P. Jesus Christ Superstar. Yeah.

And the S and the R were colored in with blue.

Yeah, that's the. That's the fun of collecting. You always, like, by the old stuff, you see someone else owned it and they.

Yeah, well, love. I saw a copy of Revolver one time where John Lennon's lips were painted red. Red.

That's beautiful.

And those are unique. You're not going to find that anywhere else. That's just yours.

That's good. That's. That's the part of the joy of the physical media aspect is, like. Especially if you buy used. Every single one you buy has, like, a story.

Yeah, yeah.

Somebody, like you said, painted John Lennon's lips in red. They write their name on it or everything. It's always interesting when you buy something to wonder like, oh, who had this? Where did it come from?

Yeah. One of our first vinyl nights, someone picked an Earth, Wind and Fire album from. From my collection. And I never opened it, but I just had it. And we.

We pulled it out to play and we realized, like, it was an entirely different record.

Nice.

Oh, yeah.

That started some controversy over.

I don't like that.

No.

I don't know. Not at all. I've had that experience.

I had the Frank Sinatra, the World We Knew. Great. Fine. I thought 50 cents from this old couple out in Reno.

Nice.

I thought I had gems. I take it home. I didn't even take the time to check there. I take it all the way home. Then again, it's only 50 cents that I paid for it.

Yeah.

But I take it all the way home. I'm ready to play it. I pull it out. It's a completely different album.

I'm like, oh, nice.

Goodness.

I have a Gary session with Gary Lewis and the Playboys on those. I was like, oh, I'm gonna play their version of Palisades Park. This is gonna be great. I, you know, I put it on the. On the turntable.

I go to queue it up, I put it down. It's completely different song. I look at the label, and it's a completely different Gary Lewis and the Playboys record.

That must have been a little bit more heartbreaking. You were actually down to play it, right? Yeah, I mean, I just pulled mine now and I seen it.

Same artist too.

Close enough.

Earth, Wind and Fire. It was another different Earth, Wind and Fire album, which is pretty crazy.

This one time, I actually lucked out. I bought this. It was like a Cream or something with the band, but, like, it had two albums in there instead of one. And I didn't say anything.

I just bought it and I was just like, they don't even look at it.

I have that experience, too.

Shout out to the record lounge.

I need to run that problem.

Friend of the show, literally. Yeah, I love Heather. She's really nice to give me good discounts.

Always hooks me up. I love that.

Yeah, I got an experience with that too. The two records in one, I think, off Facebook, marketplace. Like, I got like a lot of records, you know, like a lot, like six records or something.

And one of them is Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath. And they had two records in there. And one of them was Paranoid.

Jeez, that is a fire. That's a diamond.

Yeah, it's up north right now. Any final questions?

No, I don't know. I mean, do you have anything you'd like to ask us at all?

Yeah, we should have. We should have.

That's a good question.

No, we. Honestly, we were very impressed. I mean, we're coming from this organization that just started.

We've had about five or six meetings and then coming to check out one that's already established, made established, and already has a structure of some. Of some kind. It was really impressive to see your guys record club.

So I would say, I would ask, I don't know, what kind of principles have you guys stood on as you guys continue to grow?

I mean, I guess just the number one thing that we believe in is just accept being very open and accepting to people, no matter what their music taste is, whether they own records or not. We like, you know, everybody can play whatever they want. It's like a judgment free zone.

You know, the music you play, whatever music you know that you want to play right now.

And then. Yeah, like. Like he was saying it was super impressive to see what you guys were doing. And I mean, this podcast in itself, it's super amazing.

That's something that I really like. I love the idea of having a podcast for the vinyl nights.

Oh, yeah, we would love to, but I mean.

Oh, yeah, the time, though. Time. The management.

Yeah, if you ever figure it out, man, just give me a call.

We'd love to have you.

Or, I mean, Impact is in Holden hall.

So.

I'm glad to have you guys on. I'm glad that we were able to, you know, inspire you, you know, a little bit.

You guys have also taught us a bit, like, you know, just seeing how you guys have started out avoiding some of the problems we had when we were starting, I know you've come up with like. Like I said, like a couple of the ways you. The ways you do things, you know, it's inspiring to us. At the same time, it's good.

There's like a little back and forth.

Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%.

I do think though that's going to have to call it for today. Thank you so much for being on both of you guys. It's an honor to have everybody on here.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you.

Thank you for having us.

If you're interested at all in coming into any record club meetings in the future though, you can check out our website which will be everything on there we'll have the podcast, the Let Pass playlist from past meetings and any information you need about future meetings, themes, that kind of thing. Also, I'd like advise you to check out the MSU Vinyl Nights. They have a Instagram go follow their account.

You'll find anything you need to know about their setup, anything like that, new meeting dates, themes, all that kind of stuff. MSU Vinyl Nights, Suvinyl Nights. Go check them out. They're really cool. Thanks everybody for watching. Watching or listening in from home?

Watching?

Well, there's a video. There's a. Yeah, but thank you all for checking it out. We'll see you all next time. Thank you very much. Bye bye.

Bye.

Bye, bye, bye.

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