Off the CUPF: Community Use of Public Facilities

Staying Connected: Why We Don’t Build Alone

• Derek Ross and Emily Brewster-McCarthy • Season 2 • Episode 5

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Great teams aren’t just assembled – they’re aligned. In this episode, Communications and Outreach Specialist, Derek Ross and Community Relations & Special Projects, Emily Brewster-McCarthy focus on building unity and fostering team collaboration through clear communication and mutual respect. Are you familiar with the HVAC (heating ventilation and air conditioning) guidelines in school facilities? No worries. We got you covered. Plus, did you know? MoComCon 2026 is coming soon to Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL). Learn more!

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Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Welcome to Off the Cuff, a Community Use of Public Facilities podcast, the show where we explore, discuss, and introduce you, our listeners, to the wonderful world of community use. I'm Emily Brewster-McCarthy.

Derek Ross:

And I am Derek Ross. Together, we are your host, and we are here to provide you with some of the most up-to-date news and information about Cuff. Emily, are you ready to get started? Absolutely, I'm ready to get started. You start by Mambo? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm ready to Mambo. All right, all right. You see how serious we get when we come back? We're back. We're back. Season two, episode five. And you know, we start off that intro with a little bit of Mambo, right? We do. We do. We do, don't we? Are you ready to mambo? Are you ready to mambo? I'm ready. I'm ready. Isn't that how we start off? Just get serious and then go straight into Mambo. That is how we do it. Welcome back, everyone, to Off the Cuff Community Use of Public Facilities Podcast. I am Derek Ross, and I am joined by once again Emily Brewster McCarthy. Hey Emily.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Hi.

Derek Ross:

What's up? How you doing?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

You know, everything's good.

Derek Ross:

You good? Yeah, all good. Let's get into it. Highs and lows.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

You want to go first? Yeah, sure. We uh my high actually, we've been spending a lot of time at Silver Spring Civic Building and the crew over there is super cool. I mean, we knew this already, right? Of course. But we spent a lot more time there, and it's really nice. And it kind of goes with my low a little bit. And it's not that it's a low that like they're great, right? But my low is somebody actually came up to me yesterday at an event that we were at, and they had said, like, do you guys know where like we could do a quinceaneta? Like, we have no idea. And it kind of hit me a little bit where I was like, man, it's not a true low, but I'm like, people don't know that they could throw a quinceaneta at the Silver Spring Civic booth. Wow. What? And you know, people think like, okay, uh weddings and some other, you know, maybe like a bigger, like a conference or something like that. But I think they were quite surprised to hear that uh quinceañeta, like, so I'm like, okay, let's let's do this. Let's start promoting, let's start getting people out there, celebrating their birthdays. Right, why not?

Derek Ross:

Yeah, I like that. I like that. You know what? That does make me feel good. That makes me feel good. Was that the high and a low? That's the high and a low. Oh, that's a high and a low. I feel like I feel like what's a teamwork effort. Teamwork effort. Well, I guess I'll go into my high and low a little bit. A little bit, a little bit. So the high is, and I think we've talked about it numerous times, is our completion of the Silver Springs Civic Building at Veterans Plaza. Virtual tour, virtual tour, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So if you get a chance to go to our website, Community Use of Public Facilities website, and you go to our virtual tours. Under our virtual tours is uh another kind of tag, another kind of place where you can go to check out the new updated Silver Spring virtual tour. I want to make sure I give a shout out to Tebs, our technology team in the county for helping us so much to get this done with the cameras, with the time that was just well spent to just enjoy with the Tebs team and making sure this got done. And also, too, with our Cuff IT team for helping us get it on our website. We're doing so much more with the website. We're doing so much more in the county, but we just had to let the community know that we we we did do a checkbox. We got something done. We got something done, Emily. We we did it.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

We sure did.

Derek Ross:

We did it, we did it. But a low for me is a personal low. You know, I think I came to the realization that apparently I'm a parent. And what me too. Apparently I'm a parent. Apparently a parent. What I mean is that I find myself having to tell my son to put his coat on. Oof. And I don't remember liking to wear a coat myself. You know, I as a kid, I was like, you know what, I'm telling him to put a coat on, and I don't remember wanting to wear a coat when I was a kid. And now I felt like I'm being a parent. Anyway, you know, it happens. It happens.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

I was gonna say, I can't even really comment on that because yesterday I for sure it was like 30 degrees, and I was just wearing a cardigan. So I can't even say anything to you about that right now. But I should, I you should be parented. Like, I think did you yell at me? I feel like you were like, What's your jacket at? It's kind of cold. It's kind of cold. I felt that energy.

Derek Ross:

I felt that you did, you did, and it felt like it's cold. It's cold, but let me back off. You know, you know, you you're a person, you you're you're grown people.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

I brought a jacket today, okay?

Derek Ross:

You don't have today? All right, cool. Well, we're also bringing up the fact that it is cold outside where we're not only time-stamping it for ourselves, but it is cold. So that was a low. I had a chance to realize that I'm telling my son to do something that I didn't like being told when I was young. I did not want to be told to put my coat on. And here I am. Put your coat on. So here we are, here we are, just living our best life, living our best life. So, Emily, you know we always have this little did you know.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Yeah.

Derek Ross:

So, should we do this did you know portion of it? Sure. Or did you want to do what you normally do best? And that's give us a little bit of a quick encouragement to our listeners to follow us.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

You know what? I'm just gonna say right now, if you haven't subscribed to us, you should take a listen. You know, we're cool over here. We're cool. We talk about cool things. All the time. We talk about partnerships, we talk about what we're doing for the community. Uh, yeah, I mean, like, subscribe, as my daughter would say, comment, like, and subscribe.

Derek Ross:

Isn't that something they're telling us to do more promotions? I guess we promote better. Yes, we hear you. We hear you. So, to all our listeners, regarding HVAC or heating and air conditioning in school facilities, did you know there is no additional fee for HVAC? It is included and turned on during hours reserve. Please note that larger spaces take longer to reach temperature, especially when outside temperatures are extreme, like cold right now. As a reminder, the temperature set point is 68 degrees Fahrenheit in school buildings per Montgomery County Public Schools. Heat is not available in all gymnasiums. There are some exceptions, but it may take a while to heat or cool a space as large as a gym. We are also referring to our community use bridge. And that article is titled Staying Warm Together: Winter HVAC Reminders for School Activities. And in this article, if you go to our community use bridge, which is our blogger platform, we have a lot of articles that we're just basically just giving you generic information, giving you some stuff that it may not be found somewhere on the website or anywhere else right now. It's just kind of in our blogger or our community use platform. So that gives you an idea of specifically what we're talking about when it comes to the heat and everything else in HVAC and schools. We understand, we understand, we do, we do. But Emily, uh how can we talk about this? What are we talking about when it comes to indoor school facilities? Like what what what facilities are we talking about? What gets cold?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

I mean, yeah, we have gymnasi uh gyms, right? We have gymnasiums, uh also auditoriums, classrooms, APRs, all of those spaces. Uh we really just suggest um people bring in, you know, maybe layering up.

Derek Ross:

Sure.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Uh just because if it is 20, you know, degrees outside and it's, you know, gonna take maybe 30 minutes or so to heat up, right? Uh just to kind of keep warm. I I think Derek, you have a couple suggestions.

Derek Ross:

Uh sure, sure. Well, I I guess we're taking it back because I remember that last couple episodes you said you were gonna dunk on me.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

But I'm still gonna dunk on you.

Derek Ross:

You still you're still gonna dunk on me, but we're gonna dunk on each other being dressed a little bit warm on the basketball court. How about that? How about that? With some mittens on? Some mittens on? We can play basketball with our like our wool did the caps and stuff like that, but no, we're we're we're having fun joking about it.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

It's not it's not gonna be that bad. It's not it's not. We're just t we're just asking uh the community to kind of like bear with it a little bit. It's gonna take a little bit of time, but it will get there. Yes. Uh and it'll warm up and you'll be nice and comfy for your group.

Derek Ross:

Yes. And if you do have a chance to go check out the blogger, the community use, staying warm together, winter HVAC reminders for school activities. In that article, you will also find other information about how to reserve, how to also maybe do a schedule change and who to reach out to in regards to Cuff to kind of get that information kind of laid out for you to kind of help you get best situated, best practices and stuff like that. So that's kind of how it's going to work in regards to the whole temperature when it comes to schools and the cool heat and cool spaces, specifically also to, like to say, larger gymnasiums. And we're also making sure you suggested that we, you know, long sleeve shirts, light jackets, and everything like that. Don't, don't, don't, don't be like me, you know, not wearing any heavy coats. We may have to put on a little coat here and there. But we also want to make sure everybody's also comfortable using our facilities. That's very important. Very, very important. Um, so as we continue to go down the line, we also wanted to bring up the fact that we have not forgotten our PSAs. You know, I think we did a practicing. We've been we have been practicing. You know, we've been out doing outreach and communications, and every person we get a chance to talk to, we learn a little bit more. We we understand how to add some stuff into this, add a little bit of stuff into it. So I guess I can always go back and give it a little bit of a quick read. Should I do that? Should I do our PSA real quick?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Derek Ross:

Okay, that's good. All right, all right. I was just asking because I know you did a good job last time, too. It's your turn. Oh, it's my turn. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you so much, Emily, for giving me the chance. Thank you so much. But here we go, here we go. PSAs, just a reminder. Want to learn more about the Office of Community Use of Public Facilities? You like that? Oh, all right, just making sure, making sure. Then you are listening to the perfect podcast to get you started on your reservation journey. School facilities, the Silver Springs Civic Building at Veterans Plaza, Mary and Farrhia Town Plaza in Wheaton, Maryland, Regional Services Centers, County Government Building Meeting Rooms, we got you covered. Reserve your next event with Cuff.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Ooh, can you repeat that last line for me?

Derek Ross:

Oh, oh, I got that, I got that. Reserve your next event with Cuff.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Oof. And I'm gonna repeat that. Reserve your next event with Cuff.

Derek Ross:

I heard that. Yeah. I heard that. There you go. There you go to all our listeners. That is one of our PSAs that we're working on, and we're gonna keep throwing it in there. If you notice, I tried to put that little extra voice into it. Just being extra, just being extra. But then we'll jump right back to Emily. Emily, do you want to tell the listeners again what podcast are they listening to?

Speaker 3:

What? They're listening to Off the Cuff.

Derek Ross:

Yeah.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

A community use podcast.

Derek Ross:

Yes. Was that your PSA too? That was your voice. I heard the voice. I heard the voice coming. Yeah, that's my customer service voice. Oh, I like the customer service voice. All right, Emily. So if we're going back to it, we just want to make sure that people do know that this is season two, episode five. And the title of the show is Staying Connected. Why We Don't Build Alone. Isn't that something? Isn't that something? So, in this uh in this specific episode of podcast, we're also going to talk about some of our collaborations and how we're connecting with other departments in the county. Emily, can you give the listeners a little bit of our collaboration or a clue, cool partner that we got that we're working with this go around?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

I mean, yes.

Derek Ross:

Okay.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

So we've been we've been working with um Montgomery County Public Libraries uh in collaborations. We're we're we're in the talks of how this collaboration is gonna look, and we're actually gonna start today. Um so one of the things that I actually found out um I have plans for my birthday. My birthday, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell my everybody my birthday just because you know you guys are gonna tell me happy birthday when you see me on the street.

Derek Ross:

And that's absolutely absolutely.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

So my birthday is March 20th, and actually that's the first day of MoComCon uh 2026. It's their 10th year. Uh and it's MCPL, Montgomery County Public Libraries hosts this. Um, it's a free celebration. All things comics, graphic novels, novels, fandoms. Um, it is like I said, it starts March 20th uh and it goes through the weekend, so uh through March 21st, I believe. I think Friday is for um teens and adults, uh, and Saturday is for like uh families, like kids and families, and then teens and adults uh towards the end of the evening. But it's super fun. This is gonna be my daughter's first time going. We're really excited. Um, this is definitely a hotspot event uh for the county, and we have a lot of cool things um happening and in the works. Uh, I know Derek probably has a little bit to more to say about our MCPL kind of um collab, but I'm super, super excited. They have some awesome, awesome people working at MCPL. Um they're really doing a lot for the community, and you guys need to go back into the libraries. Yeah, why not? Like I know I like we we were laughing, right? We're like, how many people like still read? A lot of us. Yes, absolutely. A lot of us. Did you not catch me reading a book just that one? Oh yeah, you were watching it. Yeah, you was reading. So this is one of the things where we want to make sure that people know what's around them, right?

Derek Ross:

And use the resources. Sure.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Listen, so uh going back to my uh Mo CompCon, this is at Germantown Library and then Black Rock Center for the Arts. You can just go on their website and they're gonna have a whole bunch of information. Uh, but I just wanted to give a little quick shout out because I am super excited. You sound excited.

Derek Ross:

Way excited. You you sound really excited right now. I don't hear I don't know if we hear it in your voice, but looking at your face now, you sound really excited. But that's cool. That's cool. It's exciting. We we we often visit the libraries. We do. We do um for personal reasons as well, too, doing activities and stuff like that. So to be able to collaborate with the libraries is awesome. It's awesome. But yeah, but but yeah, I can I piggyback off of this? Absolutely. I know there's some very, very important news. Oh, let me see. Let me see what we got. Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's do another did you know? Can we do another did you know? All right, we're gonna sprinkle in a second did you know? This time, Montgomery County Public Libraries is turning 75 and we're celebrating all year long from a new commemorative library car to special events and programs at branches across the county. This anniversary celebration is all about the community we've built together. Join us for the next chapter with every voice, every story. Visit mcpo.events slash seventy-five to learn more.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Yes, 75.

Derek Ross:

75.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Woof.

Derek Ross:

75. That's awesome. Yeah.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

That's so awesome.

Derek Ross:

That is that is pretty new.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Commemorative library card? Sure. Yes. Yeah. I will what? I'm in there. What? I am in there. I will take that.

Derek Ross:

I mean, I and it it's kind of weird because that's like I'm looking at him like I will take the card. Don't get it. I will take the card. I will definitely do it. I have my card, actually. So that's what I'm saying.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

I have one too, but I want that one.

Derek Ross:

So, yes, that is a taste right now of what you've just heard. Sure. We are shouting out our partners and other organizations and departments. But once again, this episode is about, you know, connecting the dots and connecting other things and working with other people and working with stuff like that. So, Emily, you know, we're talking about this, and we just gave a shout out to MCPL. Once again, shout out to Montgomery County Public Libraries. But we're also still too talking about community use of public facilities and any other little thing. But as we bring this together, what what can we talk about when it comes to the podcasting and this connections and how to be connected? How are we doing this, Emily? What's what's going on?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

I mean, I think one of the things that we have planned uh for our show um off the cuff um is to bring people in and to really just have them take a seat at the table and be able to voice whatever's going on with their department and what they're doing for the community. I'm I'm just super excited. We have a lot of stuff uh in the works. We have things lined up like next few episodes, we're gonna have people on uh that are gonna be talking a lot about Cuff and um how it ties in with other partners, other collaborations. I'm just really, really excited. Um again, I I know that we're like trying to create trust through accountability surrounding activities, right? Such as this podcast, right? Sure, sure. And so we want to make sure that um the community knows how connected we all are and how important it is for them to see us working together.

Derek Ross:

I see it. Well, I mean, we're working together. Yeah. We're doing some great things. I I think we're doing some cool things, you know. And then once again, please go ahead and follow us. Off the cuff communities of public facilities. Most likely, if you're listening to this podcast, that subscribe button or like button is probably near you. Smash, smash, snatch. Hit it, hit it, hit it. Just go ahead and follow us. Hit it, hit it. It's cool, it's cool. But yeah, we are going to make sure we're reinforcing a lot of the stuff that comes with this responsibility, this voice of having this podcast, but we also get a chance to work closely with other departments in the county. We're sitting in a room as we witness another Teb staff member giving us all of the information and providing us with so much support. Once again, we love you and appreciate you, Tabs. Thank you so much for helping us. Once again, we also helped us do the virtual tour and everything. Matter of fact, Tabs has helped us do a lot.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Superstars.

Derek Ross:

Superstars. Superstars. Superstars. Matter of fact, we should we we we need to figure out some other stuff while we got, we need to figure out some other stuff. But you know what? I don't want to say we're gonna close out soon, but we're at that point in time where we have an opportunity to be able to kind of make sure we do our shout-outs, our high fives, and any other thing. But of course, we've already done it numerous times. Um make sure we shout out the MCPL, Montgomery County Public Libraries. Is there anybody else we should be shouting out?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Or I mean, uh we have well, I kind of want to wait because I want to wait until we get those people at the table. Like uh because then they can kind of take over. And um, I'm just yeah, I'm I'm so happy with all the stuff that we've been doing. But we haven't really spoken about new Cuff staff this episode. Okay. And we have been plugging them for like every other episode. Okay, okay. So I just wanted to shout out um Janelle Burwell, our new director. Hey Janelle. Yeah, and and honestly, I'm what's happening at Cuff right now is such a beautiful thing. And uh I I hope the community just um gives us some time to. Yes, we talked about this before. There's a little bit of like pardon our dust, because our website is getting revamped. There's a whole bunch of stuff that's kind of happening. There's like a a little bit of a rebranding happening. Um, and I hope that y'all just are ready for us.

Derek Ross:

Oh, yeah.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Because we're coming full full force. We're ready. We're ready.

Derek Ross:

We're ready. So you'll see us around. You, you will, you will. As soon as you said you're ready, I was like, we're gonna throw Mambo back in there. We're gonna get ready. Ready to Mambo? We're ready. I think we're ready. I think we're ready. I think we're gonna, it's gonna be a great opportunity for us to really kind of just link together. I think that that's been a good part about what's been happening. Plus two, of course, if we haven't said it, happy new year.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Oh, true. I guess happy new. Did we say it?

Derek Ross:

I don't think we've said it.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

Okay, happy new year, y'all.

Derek Ross:

I mean, I mean, it is looking at the date. You I guess we can still say happy new year, right? I mean, we haven't said happy new year to our listeners, but we need to say it now. We need to say new year, y'all. Happy New Year, y'all. I love y'all. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. We're back. We're back. So, you know, this gives us a chance to really make sure that we're in we're in touch with the community, working with everybody and stuff like that. Emily, do you have any last few words or anything like that?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

I can't wait for the next one.

Derek Ross:

Oh, can't wait for the next one. Yeah, I think the next one's gonna be a good one. I think the next one will really be a cool one. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy:

We'll see y'all next time.

Derek Ross:

Absolutely. Bye, everybody.

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