Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.81 | Jackie Vidler & The Vera House Charity Event!

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Caffeine-Fueled Charity Event Planning and Music Debate Extravaganza In this episode of Good News York, host Matt Masur, joined by regular co-host Mikey B and special guest Jackie Ler, discuss a variety of topics including their favorite female vocalists, experiences with Microsoft Teams, and a detailed overview of Jackie's upcoming charity event for Vera House. This fun-filled episode dives into their weekend recaps, a viral LinkedIn post, and the details of a charity event featuring raffles, auctions, and even tattoos, all to support a good cause. They also preview their upcoming coverage of the New York State Fair. 00:00 Introduction and Greetings 00:55 Weekend Recap and Personal Stories 02:42 Debate on Greatest Female Singers 05:29 Good News York Merchandise and Website Updates 09:09 Viral LinkedIn Post and IT Industry Insights 18:29 Charity Event Announcement and Details 24:37 Event Excitement: Tattoos, Piercings, and More 25:11 Showcasing the Studio: A Behind-the-Scenes Look 26:03 Silent Auction Highlights 28:29 Ticket Sales and Donations 31:08 50/50 Raffle Debate 37:27 State Fair Plans and Reflections 41:13 Conclusion and Farewell

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Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. Hey folks, Matt Major from Growth Mode content. Welcome to Good News, York. It is a new week. It's Monday. Yes. We're starting like the closest to on time we've ever recorded on a Monday. Yes. Yeah.

I am eight cups of coffee in already. I'm on my second. I might collapse before lunch. Anyway, joining me as always is my smiley friend, Mikey B. And our returning guest, our hidden growth mode content member. She's like the fifth beetle. She is. You know what I mean?

She is. Jackie Viddler's with us. Now, Jackie is here to talk about an awesome, awesome, awesome charity event that she's putting on. We're going to get to that in a few minutes. Sure. But first I just wanted to catch up a little bit and see how everybody's been, see how your weekend. It was, uh, did you, uh, you didn't get arrested this weekend? I did not get arrested this weekend.

That's, uh, jury's still out on that. Uh, I did not get arrested. I went to, I went to, uh, I went to a, I went to a, go to more football? I didn't go to more football. I watched football. Okay. But I went to a service for a friend's mother. She lived 80-something years.

She lived a happy life. Way to bring the party down, buddy. No, I'll know, but, but, but it was, it was. happy in that when I sat there at this ceremony it makes you think about your life and you know they were playing these songs and

we had to sit there in silence and wait through these songs and one of the songs was by Celine Dion. My heart will go on. No it wasn't it wasn't it was oh she has more than one song yeah believe it or not I don't remember I'm the greatest singer in the world but I got to say it made me

really think about some things I need to come clean about. And I did it on social media yesterday and I'm gonna do it today. You listen to Celine Dion? I like Limp Biscuit. I like Celine Dion and I like boys to men.

And I've been ashamed of that for years and I'm gonna throw an extra one in. I love boy band music. And it just feels good to say. Like I'm, yeah, well, well, yeah, 98 degrees was okay. I was an in sync guy. You know, no disrespect to Backstreet.

You know, they're back, all right. But I just wanted to get that off my chest. I was sitting there at this funeral, and it was sad, but it was plain and I found myself just... Of all the deep thoughts, you decided to admit your bad taste. Yeah, just made me realize how much I love Celine. I mean, Alanis Morissette will forever be my favorite female artist, and I love pink.

She is the superior Canadian. Who do you think is the greatest female singer of all time? Shear vocal talent. Oh, wow. That's a great question. It is a great question. You know what? I got to go deep and go with like Aretha.

See, that's a very great, that's a great answer. And I could never, I would be doing myself a disservice if I said, that's not right. You know, I would make myself look like I don't know what I'm talking about. Because how can you say Aretha's not a great singer? But for me, pound for pound, Celine is up there, but I think she gets edged by Whitney. I think just Whitney was.

All right. See, you're going. Whitney was everything. 90s superstars. And they, no doubt, had incredible voices. I mean, Mariah's good. Celine's phenomenal. But Christine Aguilera.

I just feel like you got to, to me, if you're going to say the best of all time, you've got to dig a little deeper. You think so? I feel like Dolly might be in there, Dallie Pardon? Daly pardon. I mean, but also here's the thing. Really? What's awesome about Dali, I think, goes even beyond what she sings, right? Because she's a incredible songwriter who's wrote so many of these hits that even Whitney sang.

Sure. So I don't know if that's necessarily, if that counts in your qualification. because her musical resume goes beyond singing, you know what I'm saying? Listen, that's a fair point. And I don't even know what the qualifications are because I just make this up. Yeah, no, it's a great question. But I think I got to go if I'm going to, you know, backs against the wall, I'm going to go Whitney and then Celine. All right. Arita's up there.

Jackie, what's your, what's the go to there? Yeah, no, I'm on board with you guys, but I love your thought process with it goes beyond just their voice. Yeah. In the community and, like, just how big their home? hearts are. I'm just thinking, you know, incredible female artist, you know, these people that are everywhere doing these things, helping other art. Like I said, that's why I think of Dolly.

You think about all her songwriting and producing and everything that goes away beyond her just being a great human, you know? That, that, uh, it was the Bill's Super Bowl, I think, 92. That, uh, national anthem by Whitney Houston, to me, to this day is the greatest national anthem performance of all time, which is part of the reason I chose her. And her cover of I Will Always Love You, by the way, that was a Dolly Party song. Right, that's what I'm saying. And my favorite covers of all time are ones that become their own thing. Like for me, Joe Cocker's help with little help.

Yep. Help from my friends. Yeah. I can never get the name out. That song to me is the greatest cover of all time. I would put I will always love you up there as well because it's its own thing. If you listen to the Beatles, I get by with a little help from my friends. Great song.

It sounds nothing like this. Like, you forget that the Joe Cocker version is a cover of the Beatles song. Yeah. It's his own animal. No, I'm with you. I'm with you. Anyway. Hey, on a completely different topic, I'm sitting here staring at this big dumb cup.

That is a big dumb cup. We now have Good News York big dumb cups. Can I say I love the sheen? I'm genuinely impressed with the quality of it. Yeah. It's the first one that we got in, our first prototype. It's phenomenal. It's insulated.

It's whatever. it's like 27 bucks get it all right um we also have the regular mugs i say this only to point out something that i think everybody should check out so we did some work uh this past week on good news york dot com so we drive everybody to youtube and facebook and instagram and all these places all the podcast platforms and things and we sort of neglected the actual website for good news york right because, you know, I'm like, everybody looks at these other places. If you come to good newsyork.com, it is now just the best hub for everything that we've got. Exactly.

So if you want to watch the live episodes on YouTube right there on the front page, if you want to listen to the audio version of the podcast, which is something that we need to encourage people to do more of. That's sweet. So when I'm driving in the car, I don't have the video. That's great. 100%. And if you're a podcast person, what? every your favorite podcast app, whether it be IHart, you can just tighten it.

That thing's drift. No worries. Whether it be IHart, Apple, Spotify, all of those things. The icon for that is right on the homepage. It'll jump you to your favorite app so you can use that or you can just listen. And right on the homepage, there is now a link directly to our new merch shop. And was the long point that I was trying to get to. I would like to shout out and give you credit because I, you were doing most of that work here in the office.

in fact you missed out on an interview because you were putting in so much work and I need to finish that shit I just wanted to commend you for your work on the website it looks awesome dude and it's just easier to tell people when they're like actually somebody on social media this past weekend wrote I love this where can I see the full episode

I said you can go to our YouTube channel or go to good newsyork.com that's the best place to go what's nice is there's an automatic player and this is the part that's kind of neat to not nerd out a little bit but everything in there is mostly automated so what that means is when we put our episodes

on the different platforms, they automatically show up on the website. So it's as quick as you could find anything, you'll be able to find it on our website, which is pretty cool. And you just said how many episodes? What is, what is? I guess this is episode. 81, Danny? 81.

That's not wild. It's wild. There's a lot of really frigging cool people that you've brought on the show. Yeah. I see them popping up and I'm like, yeah. We have been so lucky to date to have so many great guests. It's almost like... And we're just getting started.

Remember that show, This Is Your Life? It's like old, like our parents, grandparents. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it feels like working here, because it's like all the connections that you and I and Danny and, you know, whoever's... Whoever's involved in all of this, everyone we've ever met and networked with are just like coming on the show and it's, you know, coming back from your past life. And it's just been awesome. Oh, yeah. Connect with old friends and share why they're awesome.

That's why we do this, right? It is why we do. And if you're unsure if I'm in my 40s, earlier I said, I really like the sheen of this. Do you believe I said sheen? That is definitely a... But you know what I mean? Like, I like... Who are you, Mike?

Who am I, Jackie? But look at that. You're such a dad. I am a dad. Total dad. I love being a dad. Anyway, I want to talk about one more thing and then we're going to get it. We're going to get into the goodies because this was kind of amusing.

I had a post to go viral on LinkedIn. Yes, yes, yes. LinkedIn. All right. And if you haven't guessed, it was for our IT side of the business. It's the place that I probably talk about IT more than anything on these different platforms. That's the place that seems to get the most attention for that. And in any case, all I did was share my professional experience with Microsoft Teams as your business phone system.

This is an option. Okay. It's the worst option in my professional. It is. And here's the thing. I don't mean to bash Microsoft as an IT provider. All of our clients have Microsoft licensing that we provide. There are so many of their tools that are superior to everything else.

That does not mean every product they make is the best choice. And teams calling or team's phone is a prime example of that. So I went on to just kind of describe some of the issues with it and laid out that, A, we offer an incredible solution that does all those things, but there's like a hundred other options that are better than teams, right? 100%. This post went super viral and a large number of folks agree with me. And then there was the Microsoft fanboys. Oh, yeah.

And let me tell you, IT guys and I am one are some of the snarkiest assholes on the planet, especially when they decide that their opinion is superior. It's really kind of amusing. The other thing that I found really incredible is the fact, I didn't really realize this, the fact that there are still what they call a Microsoft shop. Have you or a loved one ever suffered from an exploded head due to an extreme energy drink?

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at fine retailers like 7-11. Or learn more at LiquidDeft.com. Where? LiquidDefteth.com. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy.

upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this, even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at rs.com. Right. What that is, is that's an IT provider typically that not only offers Microsoft, like literally all of us, do, but they're a thousand percent in. And everything that they want to do in their customers' environment has to be within this

suite, even though there might be better ways to do different pieces. And it's very strange to me because back in the day, it sort of made sense. Back in the day, the model worked where if you were our client, we had you sign on and say we were your partner, and Microsoft would pay us. You'd buy your Microsoft licensing, whatever, and they'd pay us a fee to it. It was nice. And I could understand. It was.

And we used to get checks in the mail every month for Microsoft, right? And I could sort of understand at that point why folks were rabidly loyal to exclusively selling their stuff. It doesn't work that way anymore. It hasn't worked that way for a long time. Now the way it works is we, the IT provider, buy all the licensing up front and charge our clients. And we get a little bit of a wholesale discount. And when I say little, I mean like pennies, right? the only real advantage you can have is if you sell a lot more,

you will get more volume discounts. But that's the only carrot. You know what I mean? And it is nothing like when they used to pay us. So the fact that there is still today these companies, these IT providers that are just rabidly loyal to this one vendor when there are millions to choose from. Strange.

Drives me insane. You know, and just to see these guys argue about the, well, you know, you can do this. If you add these and all these. these different pieces and I'm like, listen, every other solution, it's very easy. It does everything anybody could have imagined with nothing special out of the box. It's great. You guys are all talking about things that are capable of if you have a full IT team and they do lots of custom stuff. This is not a viable solution for everyday businesses. And it drives me crazy when I see some

of these other IT providers, how they go about things. So much so to say one of one guy actually argued with me when I made the point that it is very important to get the end user, the everyday person, it's very important to get their buy-in and give them a tool that they will use. Yeah, right? The user doesn't matter. This tool is superior and this is what we as IT give them. Like, what planet do you live on? Like, that's a nice idea, right?

And we do that in the IT world on the backside, right? There's tools that we use. There's tools we use to keep you safe. Stuff that you as a user will never in a million years see that I can dictate. But when it comes to things that you need to do to do your job, we need to make sure we're providing a tool that you can and will use. Correct. I can tell you how many companies I've seen over the years have spent hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars on systems and processes and things like this

that never get completed or never get used once completed because they never ask the people who are actually going to use it for their input. So they end up with a piece of trash that nobody wants to use and all that time, effort, money that the company invested is gone. and the fact that this has become like a common mindset among IT providers kind of shows you why I run an IT company. Right. Because it's not the right way. Yeah. And this isn't my wheelhouse, so forgive me.

But, you know, I too was on that thread with you. I was monitoring the situation. I thought one of your best points, and I'm paraphrasing, you could elaborate on it, was that I think at some point you were talking about kind of all the things that teams can or cannot do. And the one person arguing with you was like, well, we don't need it to do texting. And you're like, excuse me, it's 2025. SMS is so important.

I don't know if you want to talk about that. No, I mean, that's, yeah, that's a great point. That's another, like, really ridiculous, outdated boomer mindset is they don't understand. Nobody wants to call you on the phone. No one wants to speak to you. Right. We want to text, right? And we don't want to go to your website.

and mess find your chat. We don't want to do those things. We just the phone number that you're advertised on billboards and trucks and business cards for the last hundred years. We want to be able just to send a regular message just like we can to our friends. For a company to go, we don't need that.

It tells me that we don't want to be in business in 2025. That's what it says to me. Let me ask you this because I'm sitting here. I'm listening to you talk about it. And do you think this is a product of the pandemic happens? The pandemic kind of microwaves everything for everybody. You know, all of a sudden we're doing Zoom class or, you know, meetings on Zoom.

And next thing you know, work from home becomes a mainstay. Do you think that they maybe developed teams, I don't want to say too soon because it was needed, but they kind of rushed it and they're missing out on some of the details along the way? Funny that you say that because that is sort of what happened. Teams existed before the pandemic, then exactly what you're talking about. They put the pedal to the metal and cranked out a bunch of stuff. and you know what, it had a lot of promise. So we spent, I can't tell you how long as IT providers trying to fully embrace teams.

Like my issue with it does not come from like hearsay or personal preference. It comes from really trying to go all in on this because it sounds in theory like a great idea. You got one tool for everything. Cool. Except that tool is junk. Right. And it doesn't do anything well. Like of all the features that it provides.

all of them are lacking. And it's like, you know, we've tried so hard to do this. We tried to do it for file management and things like that. It's a front end for SharePoint. Go right to SharePoint. You have a thousand percent better experience, you know. Video conferencing works half the time at best. And it'll be going, no, it's phenomenal.

It's shit. Any person in any office who's ever used teams for more than three meetings in their life will tell you that it's shit. There's other options. I mean, again, this isn't... It's all I'm saying. I used it briefly while I went back to college. I hated it. But I mean, this is from someone who's just like, ah, this thing sucks.

You're giving, you know, you were giving statistics and analytics. That's what matters, right? That's true. Everyday users like you who are not tech guys should be able to use a product easily. Yeah. You know, my least favorite part about LinkedIn is... Because you go to Twitter, right? You go to Facebook.

It's a goddamn free-for-all. F you, F this. But on LinkedIn, we have to be professional. So it's just passive-aggressive bullshit. Yes. And if there's one thing I hate in this world, it's people that are- I'd rather you tell me I hate you, get out of my face, then be passive-aggressive with me.

Corporate speak on LinkedIn is just... Yes, corporate passive-aggressive arguing is... It's actually pretty fun to watch. But I can't stand that. Yeah, you said you were monitoring them. I was monitoring. I was eating popcorn. I was like, ooh, ooh.

Because at one point they're like The guy gave you kind of the passive aggressive Like well Matt if you'd like to hop on a call I can tell you about all the features And you're like no thanks I spent like five years dealing with this bullshit Like you know and I was just like I don't need a demo yeah thanks

Just the passive aggressive I love it They can't tell you to go fuck yourself they're like If you could kindly go on your way now You know it's it's they can't say what they want to say No that's great but anyway In any case But we can we can say what we want to say.

Let's get to the good part of the show today. So our friend Jackie is not here just to dramatically increase the attractiveness of our podcast. Yes. Like by 100%. Although we really do need to book her more for that reason. Yes. She's got an awesome event coming on. Now, I attended this.

I'm going to let you give the whole spiel. But I just want to say that this is something that she is doing for a charity organization. She doesn't work for that charity organization. He's not a development officer. She's not purely out of the goodness of her heart. And Jackie, I will let you give folks kind of the pitch on the event coming up. Can I do the thing I did earlier? Please.

I don't know what it is, but go ahead. Good morning, America. I'm Jackie Biddler here live in Good News, York Studios with Breaking News. Nice. Brought to you by Ads on the Go. Get Ads on the Go.com. Yeah, that was good. Breaking news.

Let's hear it. Breaking news. So August 20th, this Wednesday, two days from now, my photography studio is throwing our fifth annual Vera House fundraiser. Yeah, that's awesome. And we're celebrating 15 years in business, which is really cool because we survived so many things. Yeah. Kind of a huge milestone. Survived a pandemic, divorced.

You know, all life stuff. And all the proceeds are going to Vairhouse. Like every dime goes to Verra House, which is super exciting. To me, it's that Verra House is an organization that is kind of near and dear to me for, you know, some personal experiences. And they just do amazing work in the community. And it's fun. So we call it a glow-up party because, um, We started it. It was actually our 11 years in business, but because our 10 years was 2020.

Yeah. And we couldn't do anything. Yeah. So in 2021, we called it the 10 again. So we were turning 10 again. I love it. And we called it the glow up party. And it's just grown into this beautiful miracle of a thing where we all come together. We have raffles. We have silent. We have a DJ. We have a huge tent that we just transform the back part of, well, really the entire studio into just a party scene. And we all come together and support Vera House. And they organized it all on Microsoft teams. Can you tell us about Vera House for those of you? Because I just learned about Vera House because I'm not from the area.

It's an amazing organization. Yes. So Vera House supports men and women, actually. That's important. Yeah, people don't. I'm glad you said that. That's awesome. That men are abused as well, but it goes both ways.

So they support men, women, and children who have been abused in multiple ways, whether it's giving them things that they need, getting them on their own. Have you or a loved one ever suffered from? an exploded head due to an extreme energy drink? Hi, this is Larry Deathstein, attorney at law. Every day, thousands of Americans pound extreme energy drinks and literally explode their heads right off. At Deathstein and Partners, we fight for you, so take action today.

It's stopped by the Death Steen and Partners' office, where we only serve liquid deaths, new sparkling energy, or better for you energy drink. There's nothing extreme about it, with only 100 milligrams of caffeine, that's equal to a cup of coffee. Plus, liquid death energy has got zero sugar. And none of that freaky stuff like sucralose or aspartame. When it comes to extreme energy justice,

Deathstein and partners will fight to the death. Also, if you're not near our office, you can still try Liquid Death's sparkling energy at fine retailers like 7-11. Or learn more at LiquidDeaf.com. Where? LiquidDeaf.com. You're listening to a podcast right now.

driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're in the podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. I'm bringing them in, giving them shelter.

It's a really awesome organization. Funny story, my mom actually worked there when I was a kid. Oh, wow. And she used to bring me to work with her, and I would do some of the ladies' nails and, like, their makeup and just kind of, you know, help boost their self-esteem. And so it's kind of transcended over the years into what I do now. So this has more meaning for you,

than most. That's amazing. Absolutely. And it's, you really have figured out how to put on quite an event because, between the organization

and just that, you know, everything that you've got there and the good time. Yeah. That's, that's the best part. You're on to something here.

It's like, partying, like bringing everyone together to party to give back to something that's a huge part of our community.

We have Cam's pizza that's coming out and making pizza. Our man, Tony, best pizza in Syracuse. Seriously. And pizza's kind of like, you asked me what my favorite food is. He's like, what if I did pizzas this year? I'm like, I love you.

Hell, yes. We have five points, liquor and wine is donating. We have a champagne toast and we have a signature drink. We also have a fair deli. So Fair Deli is donating beer and water. And so we have a bunch of different vendors that are coming in and just donating for an amazing cause. This year I'm really excited. We have Cordero Collective, which is a tattoo shop.

And they're doing pop-up tattoos. So there's going to be two tattoo artists. Wait, you can get tattooed at the event? Yes. Well, they do face tattoos. I'm sure. If someone walks up, they're like, I love this. Can I get the Tyson?

What? How much of a charitable donation would I have to make to get you to put a Good News York logo on? On my face? Not your face. I wouldn't make anybody do that. Okay. But just get a tattoo of our logo. How much would I have to donate to Vera House?

For their sake. Keep in mind, I'm not giving you any money in this scenario. I don't care. Donate what you will. I would do it. I would do it. I would do it. I've already got, I don't know, six, seven tattoos?

Why not? Just not nothing? See, you guys are all tatted. I don't have anything, so. Yeah, but that's cool. It's almost cooler not to have something. I don't know about all that. Yeah, there's not many people that don't have tattoos anymore.

That's true. Yeah, definitely. It's rare. I will do the Good News York tattoo, but nothing from here up. Just anywhere else. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

What else, can we get, like, pierced or head shaves or anything like that at the event? Are you looking to get, like, the bull ring? I figure we'll go all out. Yeah. I want to get a face tattoo, I want to pierce my septum, and can you shave my head? Here's the thing. We could do all that, and then she could do a photo shoot of it, right on the spot, before and after.

It would be... I mean, dude, I think it would raise... I mean, if you said that over the mic at the party, this guy will get a face tattoo, his head shaved, and his septum pierced pony up. I think everyone would be like, I got to see this. I don't even think we had to do all the three, but... Yeah. Jackie, I want to say that the other thing that's pretty neat, and again, you're celebrating

how many years in business. I think it's pretty awesome because it also becomes an open house for your studio as well, right? Folks get to see what you do in that awesome space. And we talk about our studio, but your photo studio is incredible. And you've got what? Three or four different room sets? Yeah. So we have a big shooting space and then we have like a bedroom set with multiple.

I kind of use every nook and cranny in the studio. But definitely working with growth mode. gives us the option to be able to do things in my studio as well, which is really cool because then you have, you know, totally so many different options. Absolutely. Whether it's in their space here or my studio, we've got a bunch of different. That's so cool. Jackie, at your event last year, the most fun part, I think, was the auction, right?

Yeah. So can you just quickly take folks through? They've probably seen a silent auction before, but just kind of how that works and some of the things folks can get in there. So this year we have Stacy Cook actually. Nice. Stabbing jabbed podcast.

Amazing, yes. She donated a couple different things, which amounts to quite a bit, Botox. I'm not familiar with it. Legit beauty treatment. Yes. Those things.

She does the best things. TR treatment. Yep. And I'm giving away, well, my studio is giving away a $500 gift card too. Wow. The silent auction, you know, it's fun because you kind of go back and you see where you're at as far as money goes. It's like old school eBay. Yeah.

You know? Yep. You don't know, like you keep going back, except you can check, you know? You can say, oh, who's who's betting what or donating what? But the only thing I don't like about silent ox is you don't get the, I love when they bring in those, D'la, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Stacey actually kind of did that with it last year. I could see that.

I could hear that. Yep. Last year, our buddy Dan, the car man, donated some mini bikes, right? What? It was great. For real? Yeah. Like motorized bikes.

But it was a kid's, like a kid's size. Yeah, but that's full size for me. Well, for him. Yeah. That's a road hog for this guy. He's thrown around on it and he's a big dude. Yeah, that's awesome. But yeah, we've got some pretty cool stuff.

I saw a video from, I don't know if it was last year's event or years past, and it looked, not only did it look awesome, but it was just really impressive. You guys raised like over $5,000 from Vera House. So this is no like small event where we're going to raise a couple hundred because, look, any amount of money is great. Yeah. But you guys are bringing in quite a bit. Every year we're trying to level up and,

Being that this is our fifth annual and 15 years in business is like, it's a huge. Yeah, we're going bigger, go home. You're trying to up the game this year? Absolutely. I love it. I love it. I'm trying to make it as big as so when you asked, you know, if we could do this, I'm like, absolutely, I want to get it out to every year.

Yeah. It's not too late to get pre-sale tickets. We have swag bags and put a couple extra cool things in the swag bags this year. Obviously, the tattoo thing is pretty freaking cool, too. But everyone who pre-registers, we cap it at 100 people. So if you want to get in there, you got to get in there quick. But it's $25 pre-sale up until tomorrow and then $30 at the door. But you get pizza and drinks and free things.

And that's all the donation. Yeah. That's 100% of that. 100% goes to donation. So you've got your tickets at the door. You've got the silent auction. And I'm guessing you're happy to take just straight up donations if folks want to. Yes.

Contribute as well, right? So thank you for bringing that up. Instead of paying for your ticket, you can actually bring items to donate to Vera House. Oh, I didn't even know that. Yes. So we actually have it on the website. So you can, and we have a QR code and the website to be able to register. But yeah, you can bring.

We had a whole mess of stuff that we had to bring to Vera House. I was like in tears when I presented them with the check and bringing all the stuff in. You know. That's awesome. Yeah, it was really cool. And they were super appreciative. And it's just, it's awesome. Jackie, if folks want to participate or if they can't make it and they just want to support this cause, where do they do that?

So on our website, I can share the QR code and the website. We'll have all the links in the episode. Yeah, absolutely. It's simple. It's invokingimages. Dot square. at site, but you can donate monetarily if you can't make it, but you can also buy your tickets for you on that site.

I love that. I love that. Lots of parking. That's key. Yes. She cut a deal with the neighbors, I think, and they hooked you up with that. Yep. Lakeland Auto across the street allows us to use all of their parking space there.

And since we mentioned that, if you could, just throw out the address real quick so folks know where it is. So it's 841 State Fair Boulevard. August 20th from 6 to 9 p.m. I'm sure we'll have a little after party too. The neighbors, never mind. If you're heading towards the fair and you're like, I don't want to deal with this nonsense,

I want to go to a party. You just keep driving. There you go. And you'll be at Jackie's. Yep. Or if you want to skip the fair traffic. Yeah, ideally don't go past the fair ticket there, I guess I should say. Yeah.

But same road. Yeah, take 690 to the Lakeland exit, make a left, and we're down on the right-hand. inside. I got a question. Will there be a 50-50 raffle? That's a really... I feel like he's going somewhere.

I'm a little nervous. I'm not going to like. No, no, no. Because I think 50-50 is like baseline the easiest way to just make some extra money for a charity. I got to text Courtney right now. She's Courtney from Crown Coordination. She helps me plan this entire event. She keeps me on the straight and narrow.

So that's actually really great. Well, I think, you know, it's just an easy extra way to make money. But here's my thing. I know where he's going. Yeah, you know where I'm going. I do. About a month ago, I was in a golf tournament and I won the 50-50. And the charity, it was for a charity.

So I won it and I gave it all back. And I remember a few people around me were like, dude, but it's 50-50. Like, they already get 50%. Like, it's good that you gave it back, but you should have kept something for yourself. And I'm like, no, I don't. What do you think the unwritten rule? What's your, there's no right- a wrong answer. Yeah, and a charity, the go-to

move is you've got to give it back. Right. When I donate money to 50-50 and it's a charity. Yeah. I go in with the mindset, I'm essentially just giving my money away and if I win, I'm giving, I'm not going to walk away winning anything. Right. Just, that's me.

I don't think anybody's wrong if they keep it. I'm just trying to feel it out. I'm always curious. But also, like, don't you get a little bit of that clout too? Like, everybody's like, oh, yeah, this good guy money back. Oh, yeah. Next thing You know, everybody's buying you a drink or something before you know what you got. That's the best part.

I did that one here at a golf tournament and I gave it back. And, I mean, everybody was like, dude. I mean, I left blackout drunk because everybody was just like, that was so great of you. I mean, I admit, it does feel good too. You know what I mean? Get no respect. But, yeah, it was a, but at the heart of it, I just think it's the right thing to do.

And I'm not saying if you keep it, you're wrong because there is no written rule. I'm just trying to figure out what you think about it. If it's not a charity, forget about it. So that's what I was going to say. So if it's not a charity event, which I don't know how many other events like a stag party, it's like the only other thing I could think of where they even do. You can do those? People out of the area.

That's a whole other time. Yeah, I was going to get into that one day. People out of the area don't have any idea what that is actually. That was a valley thing. Poor locals that have to do that to pay for weddings. But anyway, yeah, I'm just trying to think of a non-charity event that even do a 50-50. I went when I go to the Bills games, they've been doing this for years.

They do a 50-50 for the whole stadium. It's like $122,000. It's just a straight-up 50-50. At least I think so. And so if I was going to win that, you bet you're ass them. It's $122,000. Yeah.

So, you know, that's a different story. I mean, it's just a 50-50 for fun. Yeah. Yeah. But you tell me any, as soon as I know it's to raise money for someone in need, come on. What are you doing? I'm with you.

Yeah. Oh, thank you for that. Idea. Well, I mean, it's just a 50-50, but you're welcome. Yeah. No. You use, like, raffle tickets already, right? Yes.

So honestly, you don't even need anything extra. Right. Just another bucket. Right. No, absolutely. Because, I mean, we have, I think, about 15 gift sets. So each raffle is. Bundles to bid on or whatever, yeah.

Multiple gift cards for so many different places. So that's a good idea. So so much random stuff last year. Because it's one of those things where you, I got it. Random stuff. Well, yeah. But of course, you know, it's for charity. Sure.

I'm putting bids on everything. Of course. You know. You're like a zoo for sale? I want some great hunting gear last year. I don't hunt. I know. Again, go back to those damn golf.

You've got eight sets of golf clubs. You've never swung one in your life. I love you for that. I got a really fancy trail camera. That's it. That's great. Check in on the trail. I think what you should do,

you could be a pioneer, Jack. This is what you're going to do. Uh-oh. You're going to do the 50-50 raffle. Call it 100-0. Then there's no question. It's not a 50-50. It's 100-0.

If you win, you're giving it all back. Yeah. There it is. It's for charity. Come on. At that point, shouldn't you just go around with a bucket and say, just give me money?

That's pretty much. That's pretty much. We're going to draw a ticket. She did. You know, maybe you draw the ticket, and they get it. get a gift card to Duncan. But we keep the actual

money. Nice. Wow. Bazing. Jackie, we're getting off the rails here. But anything else that we should know that folks might want to know about this awesome event.

I think we covered it all. Honestly, we got the tattoos just come out. Bring your glow up shoes like Stacy did last year. I definitely like we brought, I bought a whole bunch of them now. Tell her to bring the unicorn.

That woman's wardrobe, I know. I can only, I can only imagine. I would love to be. Like, I feel like if you opened her closet, it would be like a holy shit.

Can you imagine? Yeah. She's just like a living light bulb. She's magical. And that's a compliment. I mean that in a positive way. Yes. No.

She is amazing. But yes, bring your dance and shoes. Cut in a rug. Yeah, absolutely. Salt City Sound is going to be there mixing it up. Anything you want to promote for your photography, videography.

Yeah, let's just, let's give the links for that as well. Well, I want to do more with growth mode. Well, that's, you know, I want to, I want to create more content for the growth mode clients. Well, that is the great way to go. For those that don't know, Jackie works with us on, I'm going to say, our out-of-studio stuff. So, on location. I think a lot of people that come to growth-mode content, they see the studio here and all

that stuff, and they think that's cool. What if we want to do something at our place or, you know, what if we don't want to be here? We have a more than trained top photography and videography professional on the team here in Jackie. Not only is she awesome with a camera, she's got drones and like she's a match. And that reminds me. It's a segue into a nice plug. Coming up this week, next week, we are going to be at the great New York State Fair. The great on location.

New York State. And you can check that out. We're going to be broadcasting from there. We're going to have clips from there. We're going to be doing it. It's going to actually. Danny came up with a great idea. We're going to be great New York for the next couple weeks, which I think is just off.

Very exciting. Yeah. So are you guys going to be roaming or do you? Yeah. Oh, lots of roaming. If you want to join us, we would love to have you. Mike's going on vacation next week. I know.

When I took this job, we had already planned the vacation. We do one vacation a summer with the fam. Obviously, I would not take a vacation during. the state fair when we're located in Syracuse, but that's all right. It's all right. I'll be here for the first couple days. I'm going to be blatantly honest and transparent live on the podcast here. There's a real good chance that I'm going to get fared out in like a day or two.

Perfect segue. I was just going to ask you both. Let's just say. I'm just going to be totally honest. Somebody has the ability, whether it's financial, whatever. They have the physical and monetary ability to go to the state fair. day that you think anybody would do lots of people do that yeah every day love the fair okay all right um you do something different every day you really can people watch that's true

people watching is its own thing yeah here's the thing my challenge has always been i've always seemed to manage to pick the hottest day of the summer to go oh my god i know so we go and we're having a good time but like you're so dripping from sweat that it's like listen we got to bail my only complaint about morning it was kind of cool and i'm cautiously optimistic that we might, you know, not boil at the fair? Which would make a lot more fun. There's a spot you can stand near where the food is, like that strip of all the food vendors.

Yep. Where you could get about a whiff of 15 different smells and sometimes not great. Sometimes you're getting the animal barn mixed with fried dough. He's not wrong. It really takes you on a ride. So I don't know if it's good or bad, but just be ready for that.

Everyone talks about the sights and sounds. Don't forget the smell. We're going to be there to capture it all. Except the smell. You don't have to smell it from home. We can create smell of vision, dude. We'll be billionaire. They've been trying to do that forever now.

I know, but they're not you. So are you guys going open day? Yeah. Actually, we're going. Perfect. Reopening day. Yeah, we potentially will even be there beforehand, but that's still up in there. Do you know how did they?

I'm going to call you guys out then and make sure that you guys at least come down to the party. Oh, hell yes. That's a given. Did Syracuse has always been the home of the state fair, correct? Yes. Do you think that'll ever change? I hope? No.

Okay. And you think they did it because it's the most central location in the state? I'm sure there is some history that goes to that. I couldn't begin to tell you. We should ask someone at the fair. And we will. Because I just care, like, I know it's the New York State Fair, but it feels like it's more of a very large local county fair

because not, I don't do people come up. From New York? 100%. Yeah? Okay. All right. I'm not shitting on it by any means. I'm just...

No, I understand. It's just, it's local to us, so it doesn't... It does. It does. It's like when I lived in Hercimer as a kid, they'd be like, Herkimer diamonds? And I'm like, I don't go to the Hercimer diamond mines. I should have. I mean, we did for field trips, but you don't appreciate what you have when it's...

You're 100%... When it's close. That's true. That's true. In the words of Cinderella. You don't know what you got till it's gone wall. Not the Cinderella I thought you were talking about. No, not the Disney Princess.

Wow. We're talking about the band, baby. You know it's time to go when I start singing. Cinderella. Definitely time to go. Jackie, it's been awesome. Jackie Viddler. You know, any time that you are not booked at this hour of the morning, just come in here.

You can genuinely be a third. You can just throw a mic out of the chair. You could actually. And physically. And I, no, I think you could. I don't think I'm speaking. You can always be our third co-host. I really don't care.

Show up every day. Hop on here. She is the coolest member of the team, not just when it's behind the scenes. Very excited, by the way, just a quick side note. Very soon you're going to see some of the stuff that we shot at our content day. And Jackie shot some incredible stuff. Awesome. And all of our clients were there.

And it's a good time. And stay tuned for more because we are actually working with a bunch of growth mode content clients at the fair. It's one of the other reasons that we're going there. We're going to capture a lot of them in action. Absolutely. And I don't know. It'll all be fun. But we'll tell you all about that more tomorrow.

Yes, it is good news. York, sponsored by ads on the go, get ads on the go.com. That's it. I'm Mike Brindisi. I'm Matt Major. And that's Jackie Viddler. Yeah. I don't need introductions.

I apologize. Behind the board, as always. I'm out of line. The apparently kid. Oh, yes. And of course, your kid. Oh, yeah. And our great Danny Tripote on the ones and twos.

And we'll see you Wednesday. Yeah. Peace out. For the fourth year in a row, we turned up the glow for a cause. Our 14th anniversary celebration was one for the books, complete with glow sticks, light up sneakers, vibrant outfits, amazing food, drinks, and an incredible silent auction and raffles.

Because of you, we raised over $5,000 for Vera House, helping to support their mission of ending domestic and sexual violence and providing crucial services to survivors in our community. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for glowing up with us and making a difference. Until next year, let's keep the light shining. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog.

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