006 - Bonus Episode - Facebook Jail Edition

Hey everyone! Welcome to our pre, pre, pre-episode of the Pit Pony Podcast! We're sat here, Sunday 20th of October, 2024.

So, why are we here today? Well, we’ve been planning The Pit Pony Podcast! We're talking to members of our Life After Teaching group about their incredible journeys out of the classroom, and we were all geared up to post about it... until Facebook threw us in jail. Yep, we’ve been “restricted” and can’t even post in our own group!

But here’s the thing – we’re launching our podcast this week anyway. Jail or no jail, we’ve got five amazing episodes lined up, EARLY for those who subscribe. So, consider this your sneak peek and get ready to hear all about life beyond the classroom, straight from those who’ve lived it.

Sign up for early access HERE

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Edited with finesse by our Podcast Super Producer, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

Transcript

0:00

Hello, and welcome to the Pit Pony podcast. Pre, pre, preamble, pre-episode, pre-release, pre-everything, all the pre's. It's Sunday the 20th of October, 2024, and we're sat here. It's quite sunny in Warrington. It's nippy, to be fair, Sarah, I don't know what it's like over in your end of Warrington. It's chilly. Chilly, for sure. The heating's on. Whoa, okay. You've been a good girl. So, why are we talking today? The reason Sarah and I are talking today, and we're going to put this straight into the Life After Teaching group today. We've planned the most amazing podcast, haven't we, Sarah Dunwood? Yes, we have. We're going to call it the Picked Pony podcast. We're going to speak to members of the Life After Teaching Facebook group about their amazing journeys out of the classroom. Well, we're going to make sure that we get their listeners. Don't worry, we'll post in our groups, won't we, Sarah, on Facebook. That was the plan. That was the plan. All right, it's not a problem, because we are the admins of a Facebook group with 166,000 members. Brilliant. We will leverage our position as admins. However, right, what night of the week was it me and you were on the phone, and we realised we heard the clink of the Facebook jail door and the lock behind us? It's Thursday night. No, it was Thursday night. Thursday night. So, we're on the phone. You're wittering on about something, so I'm scrolling on Facebook. Nice. I open it. Don't tell me you don't do the same, because I know for a fact you do. You're updating your status, and I'm pouring my heart out over Ellie, and I'm like, and I go, oh my God, I go to catastrophisation, don't I? I've been banned from Facebook, right? And I just need to give you a little bit more of a context. When there is a crisis in either one of our lives, the balloon goes up, and then what happens is one of us catches the, I'm going to be all right, I'm going to make sure we're all right with this. I'm going to steer us through. One gets the sensible button, and the other one gets the Captain Mammering button that goes, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic. I went into meltdown, so I grasped that button, and you went, I'm gone, take a breath, let's see what's happened. To then find out, guess what? You'd been banned as well. Yeah, but we've not been banned. Right, no, at that point, I've gone banned. I've catastrophised. I'm never going on Facebook again. I've lost all of those photos. I'm Captain Mammering, remember, all right, Florence Nightingale. You're wandering round with your lamp. You're golden. I'm never going to see pictures again of when we went to town. Right, you then see we've not been banned. What's happened? We've been restricted, and as with anything to do with Facebook, and you and I are in the Facebook world quite extensively because of the business, and that's really critical in this story, that we're admins on 50-odd business pages for our franchisees. For Conexus Tuition, all over the country, aren't we? Correct. So, Mary Worth, places I've never even been to, I'm the admin on those business Facebook pages. Right, and what has happened is that Facebook operate a strikes rule, so at different points along the way, incorrectly, I will add, Facebook pages have been temporarily suspended, and then they've been released on appeal, but the initial suspension sits there as a black spot on your record, and when you hit a certain number, any admins who are on those pages get restricted. So, fundamentally for us, that now means that for 30 painful days, we cannot do anything administratively on our own pages and our own groups, and this is the bit that makes me laugh, is that the page in question that was suspended on Thursday night was suspended for impersonating a brand, our brand, and we've had, honestly, the trauma, I finally found an email yesterday that we could email, and I have sent them a very lengthy Sarah Dunwoody email, with this, that, and the company registration, and blah, blah, blah, but the suspension is incorrect anyway, because we can't be impersonating our own brand, because we are our own brand. So, the chief operations officer, the chief exec of Conexus Tuition, has been restricted for impersonating their own business. It beggars belief. So, fundamentally, what that means is, one week before the official launch of our podcast, when we were literally talking on the phone on Thursday night about, and we're going to post this in the group tomorrow, and we're going to do this, and we're going to do that, we find that, no, the grill has gone across, it's been locked, and we can't post in our own group. I, 16th of November, isn't it, we're out of Facebook jail, there's no glamour attached to this story either, because I've got in trouble all of my life for a whole host of different things. I'm constantly, constantly causing chaos wherever I go. Conexus hosts a National Tutors Conference, for example, and we bring hundreds of tutors every year in July, and we have the most amazing, amazing conference, the logistics that sit behind it, the planning, the compliance, the insurance that's necessary. The first National Tutors Conference, and well oiled on the dance floor. Country Roads Take Me Home comes on, with Lisa, who works in our head office. I open my arms and go, I love you, Lisa. I lose my footing. I fall on to Lisa. Lisa busts her finger. There's blood all over the dance floor. It gets stopped, doesn't it? The DJ has to stop the dance floor, first aid has to be brought in, and I end our National Tutors Conference being carried out to the marquee. That I can live with, right? I've had that all my life, Sarah. I was in the head teacher's office as a kid. I was in the head teacher's office as a teacher. Trouble all my life. This is the most boring suspension I've ever had in my entire time. And the funny thing is, so obviously one of our moderators has posted on Friday with the teaser about the podcast. Lots of excitement, super interested. But what everybody's asking us, why is Sharon and Sarah in Facebook jail? That's the interest. So hence why we're doing this. This is what gets me about life after teaching. This is who they are as a group. We write this thing for Elyse to post, don't we? Because Elyse works at our head office. So we write what Elyse has now got to post in our group. We have to send her the teaser podcast video for Elyse, the precious events. But more importantly, what we want is, we want a form attaching at the bottom of it so that people can sign up to get the episodes early. And then just this light touch of a sentence, Sharon and Sarah are currently in Facebook jail. Well, that was it. The rumor mill starts. What have they done? Is it nudity and profanity? Somebody messaged me and I'm like, do you even, how have you breached community? Is it nudity and profanity? Oh my God. Not midweek, it's not. And then I was expecting when we announced that we were doing this podcast, because we have, we've put our money behind it, our time behind it. We've got a production team. We just want that, that almost antidote to sometimes our group can be said, oh, it's all doom and gloom. And we said, no, what we will do is we will give pit ponies, group members, the opportunity to share their thrival story. I was expecting my inbox to blow up with Sharon. This is amazing. This is going to help so many people. The original pit pony video changed my life. Oh no. What have you done? Tell us what you've done. Crying, laughing faces coming through. You're in Facebook jail. That's guys. Thank you. So 16th of November, we're free. However, we're launching our podcast in jail. That doesn't mean to say that you cannot sign up for your early release. You cannot listen to us across the platforms. When are we pressing go? So we've changed our schedule a little bit. So we will be pressing go on Thursday afternoon. Okay. Which is what date? Uh, the 20th, 24th of October. So people who've signed up early using the mailing list link and we'll put it underneath this as well. Well, we won't. No, you won't Sarah. Do you know why we won't? Oh no, that's true. Cause we're doing porridge. Correct. But there will be a link to, to sign up. So people who have signed up will get early release on Wednesday. Beautiful. And that will actually be a bundle. So the first release is going to be a bundle as five podcasts and they, they're setting the scene. They're setting the tone for the rest of the podcast. So there's a short mini episode about the life after Facebook, uh, life after teaching Facebook group and its origins. There's a mini episode about the Pit Pony podcast, uh, the Pit Pony video. There is the original audio from the Pit Pony and then there's your story and then my story, which I have to say was a bit weird being interviewed by my best pal. I loved it. You know, you know, I'm stepped into full loose women mode, haven't I? Oh yeah. I am loving being the presenter of this. Completely, completely. And even my husband said last night, Oh my God, she's found what she was born to do. I love it. I love it. Facebook radio. So the, they all come out on, they'll come out on Thursday. The only platform they won't is Apple because it takes slightly longer to process them on Apple. So they'll appear on Apple on Friday. Um, and then weekly after that on a Wednesday new episode with a guest telling their story. So yeah, the button gets pressed at four o'clock on Thursday afternoon this week. But in the meantime, if anybody wants to start a just giving page for the Facebook too, um, we're quite happy. Might even start an only fans, try and get a bit of money. Do you know what I mean? Oh, we're locked out of everything now, aren't we? It's unbelievable. I told our Ellie, the Facebook too, the Facebook three, the Facebook too. Our Ellie walked down while I was on the phone. She went, are you all right? I said, no, I'm not. I said, it's a crisis. I said, I've been backed off Facebook. She went, well, what are you going to do then for 17 hours in a day? I'm like, thank you, love. Support. Your support is well received. Yeah. Thank you. Well, you've got nothing to do. So yeah, we can comment. We can still be there, but we can't post in our own group to promote what is going to be, I think one of the best things to come out of this group ever. Please subscribe using the link below for your early episodes. And you'll hear from us Wednesday or Thursday of this week. See ya. Thanks gang.