Private Club Radio Show
Welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, the industry's weekly source for education, news, trends, and other current developments in the world of private clubs.
Hosted by the talented entertainer and industry expert, Denny Corby,
the podcast offers a unique perspective on the private club industry, featuring expert guests, product spotlights, predictions, and more.
Whether you're involved in a golf club management, yacht clubs, athletic clubs, or business clubs, the Private Club Radio Show is the essential podcast for
anyone seeking valuable insights and information on the latest trends and developments in the private club industry.
Private Club Radio Show
397: Building a Club That Feels Like Home with Paul Bovenzi, CCM
We sit down with our good friend Paul Bovenzi, GM at Berkshire Country Club, for a deep dive into creative club management. From adapting to COVID-19 with inventive community services to rolling out monthly menus that keep members excited, Paul shares his innovative approach to making a club feel like home.
Tune in to hear about Berkshire’s latest projects, Paul's take on mentorship, and how he’s tackling industry challenges with fresh ideas and a commitment to the community.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs, from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light. Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place. I'm your host, denny Corby. Welcome to the show. In this episode I am chatting with another friend of mine, another good friend of mine, paul Bovenzi.
Speaker 1:I've known Paul for quite a few years now. He and I met when he was at Myers Park Country Club and beautiful club, beautiful, beautiful club. But I think before that we met at a CMA event Carolina's thing, it was the one I remember, it was a ton of fun. But anyway he is. We met at a CMA events Carolina's thing, it was the one I remember it was, it was a ton of fun. But anyway, he is now up at Berkshire country club doing a great job there. The club's doing tremendous things beautiful new updates and renovations. But I was there performing and I was like, hey, let's do an episode live in person. So this episode he and I did live in person on scene on set brought a little mobile studio set up so he and I recorded and we just had a really fun, just casual conversation, just about what got him into the club space where he came from. Spoiler alert, didn't realize he wanted to be a police officer when he was younger, as did I, and so we just kind of chatted about that. He always looks nice and dapper, always wears a nice bow tie. I like to wear a nice suit so we talk about clothes a little bit. And he went from Myers Park up to Berkshire, so he went from the Carolinas to Redding, pa, and we talk about what that was like going into a brand new club, a brand new area, not knowing anybody and right as the pandemic hit and which meant it was hard to engage and interact with a lot of people because there was a lot of masks. There was the in-person, there could be, there could not be, because each state and area and places were different. So just maneuvering all of those almost daily, sometimes hourly changes of that crazy pandemic time, but just how you know, building up the club, what they got cooking there, and we just talk about mentorship, life. It's just a really cool, fun conversation in it and there's something a little bit I want to say different or special about it, because I think when you're in person the vibe is just a little bit different. So I just thought it was really fun casual conversation a little bit more on the longer side it's about 40 minutes, but still a really cool fun chat with our friend Paul Bovenzi. And before we get to Paul, before we get to the episode, quick thank you.
Speaker 1:Shout out to some of our show partners which you're going to hear about more in the episode a little bit later. But we have Kennes Member Vetting, looking for upgrading your member vetting process. Check out membervettingcom. We have our friends Concert Golf Partners, boutique Opener, operators of private golf and country clubs nationwide. And we have our friends Golf Life Navigators, zillow meets eHarmony for golfers a great way to advertise without advertising. Check them out. Golflifenavigatorscom and myself. The Denny Corby experience. There's excitement, there's mystery. Also there's magic. There's magic, mind reading and comedy, tons of crowd work and engagement. It's a blast If you want to learn more, denny Corbycom. But enough about that, let's get to the episode. Let's welcome to the show, paul Bovenzi. That was good. You you're not from. You're born and raised Originally.
Speaker 2:California oh, I forgot. Yeah, born and raised California, moved to Charlotte for college and then stayed there. Normally it's the opposite People go West Coast, couldn't wait to get out of the West Coast, but I loved Charlotte. Charlotte was awesome and I was there for 17 years. Charlotte was awesome and I was there for 17 years, finished up as the AGM at Myers Park, got the GM opportunity up here, moved up here and, honestly, it's been awesome up here.
Speaker 1:It was like right in the beginning of the pandemic too, right, wasn't it? Oh, it was perfect timing on my part. Yeah, Because it was like how's it going? You're like I don't know anybody, I can't meet anybody Like. Can't meet anybody like this is.
Speaker 2:It's just on this weird little island, I remember. So I started in January 2020, and I was sitting in a I think it was a membership committee meeting in March and I never had my phone on me during those and I said this isn't how I operate, but I need to keep my phone here because there's an announcement sometime today. My phone buzzes, it's an announcement sometime today. Yeah, my phone buzzes. It's the announcement everything shut down. It's like, uh, I gotta take this. I'm sure whatever's happening in here is going to be really important, but, yeah, I need to figure out what's going on. That was it, you know, march 16th, 17th, whatever it was. We shut down and crazy no golf, no food and beverage. We did to-go food, we did to-go meals, we did essential grocery pickup because we could still get our deliveries, so we had members buying toilet paper from us. Raw proteins produce everything that we could, just to try to make it convenient.
Speaker 1:I think that's when clubs really showed their value. That was like family community Clubs came together. So much for that.
Speaker 2:It was a good time. It was a good time for us, it was a good time for the club. But it was a weird start time Because everything that you think that you're going to do as a first-time GM just went out the window. It's like, oh yeah, you're going to go in, meet, meet the members, meet the staff, get get to know the team really well, come to find out. You don't get to see the team for the first six months that you're here and it's like you do.
Speaker 2:The mask is on, you can't really see them or yeah, hey guys, sorry, we can't be near each other. We have to space each other out. You know I won't see your face for however long. We have to check your temperature when you come in the building, like I promise, this isn't how I operate.
Speaker 1:I forgot about that Some of those whatever you want to call them blockades you had to. Oh yeah, times were nuts.
Speaker 2:And everything was spur of the moment. We'd get a mandate. It was like, oh yeah, this is effective tomorrow at noon. Well, what do we do with all the stuff that we were operating with up to this point? We had a golf outing, like two days after the shutdown, that we had to cancel. It was like a 160 person golf breakfast, lunch, dinner ordered in all the proteins, ordered in everything, all the perishables. Obviously the liquor didn't spoil, but all that food is like, yeah, now what? But it was. It was a weird time I was.
Speaker 1:Uh, probably one of the cooler things I got to go do was last year. Last year I went to the NCAA National Championship Club Conference. I got to hear Colin Burns so he was just talking about when he had the US Open and just like you know, you're going from this giant. It was just fat and I chatted with him last week, the week before I forget when it's all coming out, but just hearing that story again and just how important community is and you know communications community and you know how you went from this giant event to now having no spectators and moving it and it was, it was just nuts, it's. I think I was talking to Ben Lorenzen about this too, and it was like I don't think we'll be as creative as we were in our lifetime no, there's no because we had to just pivot and move and it was just.
Speaker 1:I think I think it's cool from my end too just because then I pivoted to virtual shows quick, I think my first one. I made it on april 1st and I and I did it on purpose, and I made it april 1st, april fool's day, and I purposely did like my good club clients I said, hey, we're gonna do it on april 1st, april Fool's Day, and I purposely did like my good club clients, I said, hey, we're going to do it on April 1st, we have first ones. You guys are going to be my first ones. Because I was in my head. I went because if the show sucked, then April Fool's, you guys have a virtual show. You knew this wasn't going to work, but no, that was. And then just hearing just how clubs were just pivoting and making to-go orders and to-go pizzas and everything, just how they all came together, was just absolutely amazing. It was so cool, the one you did for ours was incredible.
Speaker 2:We did a take-home, bake-your-own pizza kit. Yeah, so I think that was your club then, and so we gave you all the ingredients, the dough, the sauce, all the toppings, and it was go home, bake your pizza, log on to the show, eat pizza, watch the show. We had a great turnout for it and we got a ton of great feedback from it. They loved the show. It was a good time. But if I never have to do that again, I'll be okay.
Speaker 1:I think we're okay, Hopefully Never again. Knock on wood. So were you. Did you go to school for hospitality? What did you go to school for?
Speaker 2:Criminal justice and psychology.
Speaker 1:Were you going to be a profiler? I wanted to be a cop Yo me too, really Dead, serious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just didn't pay enough. I was bartending. I was a bar manager. I was overseeing a few different restaurants. I graduated. I went through the basic law enforcement training, stuff went through all that. I said. Here's your base pay. Having fluency in a second language, you get a little bit of a bump. I make bartending so I can't afford to do that, but that was the goal. But I loved hospitality. I loved the restaurants. I went from the restaurant to the hotel, to the clubs and it's been so much fun. And given everything that's going on right now, I'm glad I'm not a cop. They've got one of the most difficult jobs in the country, right now Ooh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Early on, I think I realized I really just wanted the car.
Speaker 2:Yeah sure why not. Yeah, turn the lights on.
Speaker 1:Go as fast as you want, like I was, like I would have pulled my dad over every day, like my parents going to work. Like pull over, sir. Then I have a meeting.
Speaker 2:Get out of the car, um well, your engagement video had the police involved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that that was fun. Um, and looking back, I don't think I realized how cool that was, because it was December 2020 when crazy stuff was going on with the police and I got my local police department to be involved. People were like, how did you do it? I was like I messaged the chief on LinkedIn. So, going back, he did give me my very first ticket going to high school. I got my very first ticket from him. And then fast forward a few years later a buddy of mine has an insurance agency. He goes hey, I'm buying new or I'm donating money.
Speaker 1:So our local police I live in Clark summit. It's like a small town, it's like we knew of each other a little bit, just little bit, just through the community. And then when I was doing the engagement stuff because I'm one of those people if I have a gift, I have to give it to you. I can't hold on to something so I had the ring and I was like I can't have this in the house. Are you going to hold it? Well, just knowing it's just sitting there and she doesn't know. So I was like how am I going to do this? So I reached out to the police, the chief of police. I was like, hey, can I? So he's like call me. So I called him. I told him the whole thing. He goes as long as no one's carrying, you're okay. That's the only stipulation. He goes, and if there's a real emergency we have to go.
Speaker 2:Well, where are their priorities? Getting engaged?
Speaker 1:Tell them engage, come to get some, get it together, so so, but looking back, it was really cool. Then he, the, the officer that I was working with, he, he didn't tell me, but he told the other office, a couple other officers from like, because it's a little small area, so like all those, all the surrounding communities, they were all it's like three, four cars pulled up. It was nuts, um, and luckily it was, you know, friday during december, so nothing was open, like you couldn't do anything. So I think that knock on wood helped, um, but yeah, I think, and I think I think that was also just a little thing for me, like, just to be like with the police, but not I'm like, ah, uh, there's a cool video that was, that was watching that I didn't tell anybody.
Speaker 1:I had the video team either. Like not my parents and nobody, because like they were all hidden, like it was a drone in the sky I'd do like in bushes, like they were in camo, uh. And then so that was the only downside of the other officers coming is we had two other camera angles that were blocked because and then they couldn't be like hey, can you? Like you couldn't just pop out like guys, can you move? Like that would have spoiled the whole thing, uh. But yeah, putting me in cuffs and stuff, that was that was fun, that was fun, uh. So yeah, that's so. I didn't, I didn't know you want to be a police officer. That's so funny, uh. But I think deep, I think once I knew as well, like I was like, oh, I want to do that, I want to be swat, I want to like do all this. Like, oh, no, you have to start off as and work your way up. I'm like, oh yeah, I can't get the vest and go, I can't just do some training.
Speaker 2:I can't start at the top, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. So did you know about clubs when you were in hospitality? How did you end up finding clubs? I did not.
Speaker 2:I got into hospitality just I needed a college job. So I went into the restaurant and started working there. I was looking to leave the hotel. The hotel was a boutique hotel that was ultimately bought by Hyatt. Everything went corporate. They're a great company but it just wasn't what I was looking for. One of our wine distributors came in and said hey, myers Park Country Club's looking for a food and beverage manager or something like that. Would you be interested? At that time I was thinking sounds like a resort. There's no resorts in Charlotte. This could be a good experience for me to pursue the resort side of the hotel route and got the job there at Myers Park and loved it. I loved the team that I worked with. They were just phenomenal and I got to learn so much and do so much that it was like, yeah, I'm staying here, this is the right fit. So no, honestly, prior to getting the job at Myers Park, I don't think I stepped foot in a country club.
Speaker 1:It tends to be a lot of the managers and club professionals. They're just like I didn't even know about clubs or they'd have a stigma, or like I thought they were this place and they show up and like this is actually pretty neat, it's a lot of fun, and especially the ones who come from the hotels and come from the more corporate-y side and they're like a. This is a nice little change of pace, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's freedom, it's creativity, it's innovation and it's a repeat clientele. You get to know the people that you're serving day in and day out, and so you can custom tailor it. You can make it specific to them so that you're relevant to what they're looking for. It only pushes that innovation further and further, because you know what they want.
Speaker 1:There's no surprises, because they're very blunt and they will tell you 100%.
Speaker 2:They'll tell you 100% and it's a good thing, because if they don't tell us, we don't know. Yeah, so it's a great industry. It really is, and CMA is doing a great job in getting involved with the student chapters and getting that out there and trying to fight for our market share. Trying to fight for our market share. But everybody's going to hotels because the hotels have the collective money pool to put their name out there, yeah, where we're essentially just individual entities trying to pull what we can. But cma has done a phenomenal job with that yeah and uh, who else?
Speaker 1:who was I chatting with? Oh, my goodness, what's her name? Uh, from new jersey. She does a lot with the johnson wales brain farting because she works for johnson is big in the club space trying to get kids in and she's big on like getting them in the clubs, like field trips, getting them to experience it. Just feet in in the ground going, doing that's huge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we were in the Carolinas we had such a great talent pool down there with USC, johnson Wales, cpcc, central Piedmont Community College, ab Tech up in the mountains. There were so many people in the hospitality programs and because the Carolinas chapter was so strong, we had a presence everywhere. All the job fairs, everything that was going on. We were able to pull in some great talent, which has been a little bit of a challenge up here Central Pennsylvania. There's no big hospitality programs out here there's no JWU, there's nothing like that, so it's difficult here Down there. It was great.
Speaker 1:How do you then deal with that now? So you're now in Pennsylvania. You came from Charlotte. How do you get good talent?
Speaker 2:We've partnered with Penn State Berks and they've got a hospitality program. They do a great job with the size of the program that it is. It's not a huge program but a lot of it's service and culinary driven, not necessarily focused toward clubs. We partnered with them last year and they did a mock dinner mock service. They set up this pop-up restaurant. They created the menu. They worked with our culinary team to execute this meal and they did a great job with it. But partnering with them has been great. Bctc, which is the technical college just down the road. We've actually gotten a lot of really driven individuals from that. But it's all culinary and so on the service and hospitality side that's been tough. But from the culinary side there's a pool around here and it's great. You just have to tap into it. It's a good place to be in because there's a pool around here and it's great.
Speaker 1:You just have to tap into it. It's a good place to be in because there's a lot of clubs and areas that that's. Their biggest struggle is that culinary component Absolutely, which I don't think. I realized how big of an issue it was until I started the podcast more and chatting with more and they're like, oh man, and I was like, really I thought it would have been easy peasy, but it can be difficult and it's different from a restaurant. It's different from everything else. For them it's still hospitality, but you have to be fancy without being fancy and you have to be bougie without being bougie, because you can't be too out there.
Speaker 2:It takes a special person, my cousin up in New York. He's a chef at a restaurant and I was talking to him about the dynamics of the culinary operation here. I said when a member comes to the club, if they want Japanese food, it's got to be really good Japanese food. If they want Italian food, it's got to be really good Italian food. And they have to be able to get that all under one roof when if they go to a standalone restaurant and they want Italian, they're going to an Italian restaurant, not a Japanese restaurant. And he goes oh, that sounds awful. I said, honestly, it's amazing because we get to do so much. It's like I like just putting my head down and repeating the menu for three months and then switching it. It's like that's not how we do it. We change our menu here every month. Now we it's like it's not how we do it.
Speaker 2:We change our menu here every month. Now we just started that. That's be hard. It's awesome because you get the buy-in from the team back there, and so every member of the culinary team is contributing to the menu, and so there's friendly rivalry back there. Who's creating the best dish? Whose dish is?
Speaker 1:selling the most and their brains are constantly going to if they're like, oh cause, like next month, like hey, end of the month, or, you know, it's a constant new.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So two weeks before the end of the month we're putting this menu down so that we can get it put together, so that we can then present it to the front of the house, so that they can do the training on it, so that it's ready to roll out at the beginning of the month. And it's been exciting for them. It's like cool, we get to create something new every month. When did that start? Last month? So it's new and new is fun. But they're excited and you know it could crash and burn. Yeah, it 100% could. At least it tried. But our end of the year is coming up, so we only have to, you know.
Speaker 1:No, but I'm sure, because where I was going with that is I'm sure then you must get more members to come, just to at least see them. I think every club has members who don't always come or are like, oh, we have to go, let's go check out the club. But if you have something new, it's like, hey, we have to go check it out this month and hey, let's go back because they're not going to have it next month. So it probably might preempt or get people to come, maybe that one more time, that second time?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, the members are already talking about it. What's going on the next menu? What's going on there? We had a member come in last night. She said Paul, I love the pork chop. Do not take that off the next menu. I said tomorrow's the last night for the pork chop. You have to come back. And she goes. Really. I said no, we've got two more weeks to the end of the month. She goes ah, okay, well, I'll make sure I come back, but they are excited about it and they are talking about it and we're actually getting member feedback and contribution into it. Oh, this would be great. This would be great. Obviously, not every idea is a great one, but letting the culinary team know what the members are asking for is giving them some sense of direction as to where we can go with it. So for the month and a half that we've been doing it, it's been well received. It's been going really well. I just hope that the momentum stays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what have been some of the bigger changes, challenges, differences coming to Central PA, maybe ones that you didn't expect. What were some unexpected ones you were like, oh, I did not expect.
Speaker 2:The biggest unexpected for me, and it actually has really nothing to do with staffing labor, anything like that. The days are shorter, it gets dark earlier. Up here we do 18,500 rounds and with the nights or with the days shorter and getting dark earlier, you know, 18,500 rounds didn't seem like that much, coming from a club that did 34,000 rounds, but we had a lot of rounds in in a short period of time and our superintendent and his entire team do an incredible job keeping the course as great as it is in such a tight window. Yeah, they don't have the time that we necessarily would have had before. They're cutting in the dark. They're out there breaking the the bunkers in the dark and doing the best they can because our day starts early and it gets dark early. So that one was interesting for me. During the winter it's dark at five o'clock, 5 30. It's just kind of weird. But um, that was the biggest surprise, or one of the biggest surprises. It just it did not occur to me that it gets that dark that early here yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I would say that the other part is just without having those major local universities surrounding us, our recruiting opportunities are just limited. We'd love to be able to create that depth of bench in our staff. Bring people in young, train them to do it the way that we hope for them to be able to do it and move them up through the ranks. Take somebody fresh out of college and have them work in the dining room and then have them become a supervisor and then a food and beverage manager and keep developing them that way. But we're recruiting from other restaurants at this point we're stealing talent from other people, which I don't necessarily love that model because it does get reciprocated.
Speaker 1:But that's where we are right now. Well, it keeps everybody on their toes, yeah, it keeps everybody fresh, yeah, how many memberships do you have? 600. Are you guys at capacity?
Speaker 2:We are Well just shy of, but we'll be there. We had an eight and a half million dollar construction project that we did assess for, so we had a few members leave, but I would imagine by spring of next year we'll be back on it, back on the wait list.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you have another assessment coming now.
Speaker 2:That was it, gotcha that was, that was the previous, yeah, so now that's gone. So once the winter passes, we get back into golf and pool season. Yeah, memberships start flowing in again yeah, because you guys, what?
Speaker 1:yeah, just this past, in four months, you did a big renovation in the. I was, I was, I was quick, it was real quick. Um, what you did?
Speaker 2:a million, two on the course and then two million in the kitchen yeah, so 8.5 in total, with another two to come, but we did 1.6 on the course. Um rebuilt two greens, capillary concrete in all of our bunkers. We went from 54 bunkers to 83 bunkers. We put a lot of sand back out there, but it was a restoration project and that was what we reached. Because it bumped up. Oh, absolutely, yes, absolutely, absolutely. But it was a restoration to go back to what Willie Park and Donald Ross had originally designed for this course and over the years they took them out, made it easier to maintain, a little bit more cost-effective to maintain, but we had the original plans and went back to modernized versions of what it was. That's cool. So, working with Force Design with Jim Nagel who is our golf course architect, it was phenomenal, that's cool. So, working with Force Design with Jim Nagel who is our golf course architect, it was phenomenal, that's cool. And Mott Golf did the contracting out there and they did an exceptional job. But that part of the project so easy compared to the clubhouse Two million in the kitchen we redid the men's and ladies' locker room.
Speaker 2:All of our dining rooms. We expanded our main dining room, which is the 1899 bar, added about 120 seats to that, put an automated louver patio trellis out there. That's cool. That one was really cool and really well received. Members aren't fighting over umbrellas anymore, but it's been great. And golf learning center is next fall. So golf learning center absolutely so. 3 000 square foot, three indoor outdoor training facility. That's cool, which is gonna be a lot of fun, and it gives us an expanded season, that seasonality that we're missing right now.
Speaker 1:When it gets cold, go inside, open the garage door bays, head outside or leave them down and head into the simulator screen, and I'm sure that probably helps attract new members too, because let's just even say, I'm sure there's members who come and maybe they're not into golf yet or don't really know. Now it's like this great program, this great facility, it's like oh no, come in, we'll teach you Absolutely, and the programs that they have for it now expand way beyond golf.
Speaker 2:You can go down there and you can hit a baseball under the screen. You can go down there and play duck hunt on the screen, like there's just so much that you can do that. It's not just about golf, it's the social component. We have a bar that's going in there, we have food service that's going in there, and so it's going to be corporate parties, it's going to be birthdays, it's going to be all of those types yeah where you can go out.
Speaker 2:There. There's gonna be fire pits off the back, so it's just another killer, robbery yeah so we're excited for that one to come online. Three thousand square feet.
Speaker 2:That's a decent size it is. We're landlocked, we, if we could do more, we would do more because we think that it's gonna be one of those things when you build it, they'll come and we'll outgrow the walls. That's when you build up. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if I can take any more building right now, but that one will be fun. And then, after that, new pool kitchen. The pool kitchen is about 65 years old, so it's way overdue.
Speaker 2:That is a that's a yeah, but that will be huge, huge, so we're excited for it what are some some of the things in your career that you're proud of?
Speaker 2:I've had a lot of opportunities to be a mentor and to be a mentee and the relationships that the club world has created. That's, that's it. Um, I can tell you that I haven't kept in touch with anybody from the hotel world. Yeah, the hotel world was cutthroat, you know, we didn't share ideas, we didn't do anything like that. But the club world, from coast to coast. You've made friends everywhere and I think that that's it. You've created these bonds and relationships that I didn't get in any other field, and the club world and CMAs. So thanks for that. I mean you could have had it with the police, but Could have had it with the police.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Could have, yeah that's possible.
Speaker 1:Different, same, but different. Different. Similar yeah, but when?
Speaker 2:did you.
Speaker 1:Was that Because mentee mentorship has been a common theme and topic on the podcast and episodes with people as well, was, was that always on your radar? Was that always a thing, or was it like once you got in the club space and it's like, oh, like who was one of your first mentors?
Speaker 2:Mr Sakakini. He was my first GM at Myers Park and learning under him was huge. He was very encouraging. He wanted you to do more. He wanted you to explore more. He had no reason to really take me under his wing, it was just another kid that was filling a position, but still to this day I can depend and rely on him any time that I need to make a call. And then when he retired, mr Beto, he pushed me to go into CMA and that wasn't ever a big drive for Mr Sakakini.
Speaker 2:You can do it if you want to, but you didn't necessarily need to. Mr Beto told me that I needed to and I'm thankful for that, because it wasn't a priority before and now it is, and that's where you really see it. Take these people that are willing to learn and help them, and take the help from people who are willing to give it, and our industry is just incredible for that. So there's people that I'll talk to a couple times a year that I've never worked with, that I can rely on for mentorship and guidance. Have you gone through this Absolutely, and this is how I got through it. Apply that to your life, however you'd like, but this is what we did and it's huge With this construction project that we went through.
Speaker 2:There were a dozen people that I called and said what did you do here, how did you handle this, how did you navigate that? And there was no hiding anything, there were no secrets. This is the good, the bad and the ugly of it and this is how we got through it. But even though we're all independent, individual clubs, we all come together to help.
Speaker 1:How do you find a mentee or how do you know when someone's looking for a mentor? Do people come out and say like, hey, I need help? I'm sure there's probably some people who ask for it Maybe. I'm sure that maybe there's some people who you can kind of maybe see that they're looking for like what does that look like? Like, how do you know?
Speaker 2:someone's. So cma does have a mentor. You know program where you can sign up to be a mentor, a mentee, and they get you paired up that way and you create a lot of great relationships through that. But it's more the informal part of it. Kimberly up at Saucon Valley, I look at her as my mentor. There's nothing that she doesn't know in this industry and there's a thousand times that I've called her just to vent and she's never too busy to take the call and there was never a time where I was like, hey, can you be my mentor?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know, that's what that relationship's kind of become. And, um, we created this little mastermind breakfast group where clubs from our area we get together once a month on Friday and we have breakfast together and we share ideas and we present topics and we just bounce around from club to club and each club hosts and the club that hosts the host GM is the one that comes up with a topic to talk about and we all share ideas about how we navigated whatever that topic was, and that's been huge. That's just this relationship that's been formed because Kimberly TJ and I used to meet up for breakfast and said let's expand this to our friends.
Speaker 1:You guys started getting bored with each other. We need some new faces in here, guys.
Speaker 2:That explains why Kimberly and TJ said include more people. I think they just got bored of me, but no, that's been great. So we meet every month. That's cool.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of fun. When did bow ties come into the picture?
Speaker 2:Oh, that was at Myers Park. I was always a necktie guy. The tie kept getting in the soup so I had to switch to bow ties. We had a member at Myers Park, mr Sumner, who was a bow tie guy and forever and ever he told me that I needed to switch to bow ties because he thought they'd look good on me. Never he told me that I needed to switch to bow ties because he thought they'd look good on me. And I said no, I've got 80 neck ties. I'm way too far along at this point to be able to switch my wardrobe. And he came in and brought me a couple of his bow ties and said give him a try. And so I would wear them whenever I knew that he was coming to the club. And it just stuck, bought a couple more, bought a couple more and eventually gave away all my neckties and converted to bow ties.
Speaker 1:You couldn't convert any of the. You can't convert a tie to a bow tie.
Speaker 2:You can, but you kind of look like bows of the clown.
Speaker 1:They're about that long when they come out.
Speaker 2:There's ways to do it, but it don't look great.
Speaker 1:You don't have clip-ons. Those are legit bow ties. Clip-ons would be sacrilege.
Speaker 2:You get frowned upon by the bow tie community if you wear a pre-tied or a clip-on. You just can't do that.
Speaker 1:Mr Sumner would come up from Charlotte and smack you in the face.
Speaker 2:He would not have it. Tj would drive up from Spring Haven and just take me out back and beat me. He would not have that. Oh, that's funny. Tj is actually really funny about his bow ties and I love this about him. But everywhere he goes he has a couple extra in his pocket so that when somebody asks how do you tie a bow tie, he can take one out of his pocket and teach them how to do it.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm getting a group together at conference and we're I'm just going to see if we can get him to run out of bow ties.
Speaker 2:No he will never run out. He's got one for every day of the year.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think I think I have to do an episode with him on how to tie a bow tie. Do it, I think I'm going to. He would love to.
Speaker 2:Oh, man, that's funny, tj, sorry, I just volunteered you to do a podcast on how to tie bow ties.
Speaker 1:Actually, I just saw on Facebook him and his club. I think their pool is closing this week or next week and they leave the last two weekends, I think it's open for dogs. I was like, oh, that's amazing. Yes, we just talked about that a couple days ago actually. All the doggos. I like dogs more than people.
Speaker 2:I get that. I get that sometimes. Do you have any dogs? I do, I have one, bernadudo. Oh, I know you got a Bernadudo. Yeah, yeah, big ball of energy. He's just turned two weeks ago. Oh, still a pup. He doesn't know how big he is. The kids love him. He's so patient. The kids climb and wrestle with him and crawl all over him and he does nothing. But then he reciprocates yeah, and they'll be laying on the couch and he'll come and just lay on top of him and one of the kids disappears because he just just buried him. But yeah, sweet dog, just so, so much energy. How many kids do?
Speaker 1:you have four jeez four, you're. You're getting up to a Billy Panagiotopoulos territory. Yeah, we're getting there. We're getting there. What's?
Speaker 2:how old 11, 9, 6, and 3.
Speaker 1:Okay, so quite the range. What's the work-life balance? How's that been with work and a family?
Speaker 2:Work wins every time, and I wish I could figure out how to make that balance. And I have yet to be successful in figuring out how to do it and I'm trying to do better. Um, my nine-year-old plays club lacrosse, and so club lacrosse, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that difference from travel across.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I didn't know if that was like school.
Speaker 1:I didn't know if there was like a secret lacrosse in club they didn't know about yeah, there's a secret lacrosse society where you have to be initiated into it.
Speaker 2:Um, where's the magicians? Oh, absolutely, at nine years old, they're giving them lacrosse tattoos, just to make sure that they're part of it Gang territory. Absolutely. I like that, um, but so she's been. She's been doing this travel lacrosse and it's tough cause it lands on Saturdays and Sundays, but I've already said you know I'm not going to miss them. No, that's very good, that's. That's been fun to see. And a girl playing lacrosse.
Speaker 1:Hell, yeah, she is tough. Yeah, I was going to say she is tough Lacrosse and field both. I mean those are legit sports, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:She's tough, she goes out there and she's a little girl, but she throws her weight around and she loves it. Off the field she is the sweetest girl in the world. On the field she is mean, she is just mean she puts that mask on.
Speaker 1:She's a whole new person, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And she's so good. But she is mean out there and it's great. Go out there, be aggressive, and it's fun, fun. It's fun to watch it's. I've never held a lacrosse stick in my life till she started playing. But to go out there and just go toss the ball with her, it's, it's fun, but it's hard. It is you got to cradle that thing. It's. Uh, it is. I can't cradle the ball flies out every time. It's just. But I can catch and I can throw. That's all she needs me to do. We went to our first professional lacrosse game a few months ago down in Philly. You watch the girls play and they're aggressive. You watch the guys play they're breaking metal sticks over each other's arms. I'm glad I didn't play it in high school. That's crazy. I played football, played baseball, but lacrosse seems tough Lacrosse hockey, field hockey.
Speaker 1:They're all savages, yeah, savages, definitely not hockey. I enjoy watching hockey. I like the fights. Those are fun, Yep.
Speaker 2:I could never see myself playing that 100-mile-an hour puck flying at you, getting pegged with that nope, even like baseball for me.
Speaker 1:I was like you know what?
Speaker 2:that's still coming fast yeah but they're not trying to hit you in baseball. Sometimes they try, but for the most part they're not trying to hit you that was a fun 45 minutes. Holy shit, has it been 45 minutes? Yeah, wow, yeah, that flew by.
Speaker 1:No, it was good. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:Want to talk about your show.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, because it's not about me. Okay, shows are about you guys.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being on.
Speaker 2:It's my pleasure. Happy to do it. Happy to do it. Didn't know what to expect, but I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Me neither. Thanks for joining us, paul, really, really appreciate it. If you are enjoying the episodes, enjoying the content, a like, share, subscribe. It means the world costs nothing. Whatever platform you are on or engaging with your Apple podcast, a five-star with a review is amazing. Same over on Spotify Kevin signed up for our newsletter and over to private club radiocom. Stay up to date with all of our latest episodes and content. That's this episode. Until next time, catch y'all on the flippity flip.
