Off the CUPF: Community Use of Public Facilities

Welcome to the team Miguel Lozada | It’s a Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza Takeover!!

• Derek Ross and Emily Brewster-McCarthy • Season 2 • Episode 6

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In this episode, we’re welcoming a new voice to the team! Join us as we sit down with one of our newest staff members, Operations Manager, Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza, Miguel Lozada. During this episode we will learn more about Miguel’s journey and role within the organization. Tune in as Community Relations & Special Projects, Emily Brewster-McCarthy and Communications and Outreach Specialist, Derek Ross share additional information, such as CUPF’s upcoming opening day reservation on, February 9. Don’t forget MoComCon 2026 is coming soon to Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL). Learn more!

Connect with Off the CUPF

Thanks for listening!!

Kicking Off And Season Check-In

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Welcome to Off the Cup, a community youth of public facilities podcast, the show where we explore, discuss, and introduce you, our listeners, to the wonderful world of community youth. I'm Emily Christopher Cartley.

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 stuff on Mambo? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm ready to Mambo. And just like that, we are back off the cuff community use the public facilities podcast. I think this is what season two, episode six, Emily. I think we are there. We're there. It sure is. We're there. We're in it. We're in the thick of things, if we're going to say it like that. Welcoming our newest operations manager, Miguel. Miguel in the background. It's the Silver Springs Civic Building at Veterans Plaza Takeover. And I'm going to leave the whole name, the whole introduction to Emily. But before we get into this awesome person we have with us on the Silver Springs Civic Building, Veterans Plaza Takeover.

Highs And Lows Amid The Snow

Derek Ross

Emily, you want to do some highs and lows?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, sure. Uh I got a high for me. Actually, it's it's a saying. We just heard from our director, and I really want, yeah, I really want to go hard with this one. Like the first first write-off.

Speaker 2

Right, right off right.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Okay, and I'm really happy because I'm keeping it in my back pocket and I'm gonna just pull this out whenever I'm just gonna be telling everybody this. Okay, okay. Okay. If you stay ready, you don't gotta get ready.

Derek Ross

Ooh, okay, okay.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

You wanna say that again? If you stay ready, stay ready, you don't gotta get ready. Get ready. Okay. Okay. Okay, okay. And my low, you know, I think this might be shared across the table a little bit, but my low is that we got snowed in. And I didn't just get uh I I got dug out or like plowed out uh yesterday. So that was what, day four of the storm, something like that.

Derek Ross

You said day four.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

So yeah, you know, that's how my life is going right now. Derek, do you want to check in?

Derek Ross

Sure. You said day four. I felt like after that was going like dun, dun, dun, they got the movie day four, day four. Uh for me, highs and lows, highs, you know what? We are doing this with Silver Spring Civic Building. We're doing a podcast, not only talking about the Civic Building, but we're doing a podcast with our new operations manager. I think that's a high. For me, I'm enjoying it. I'm loving it. We get a chance to talk to Miguel all the time. We've been chopping it up, hanging out in the studio right now, hearing all of this wonderful things about Miguel. You know what though? The low is yeah, it's it's it's a lot of snow outside. And I don't think it's going away no time soon. But you know what? Shout out to all individuals who are doing a great job of trying to clear it up and do everything that they need to do in the county. Uh, we'll just put that out there as well. So that is a low. So we got highs, we got lows. But Emily, you know, we got we got to serve this upright. You know, we we we have an individual with us. You know, we had the Vanessa's, we had Eric's, we had the Rons, we had the Ramonas. We got somebody else we're gonna add to the party. Who we adding to the party, Emily?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

So we have uh actually, let me do, let me, Miguel. I'm gonna introduce you formally in a little bit, okay? But I'm gonna actually lob it up to you to do a high and low, just very briefly, before I formally introduce. Nice.

Miguel Lozada

All right, so my hi. Um, I'm very excited to be here, honestly. Uh, you know, I was looking forward to have this opportunity. Uh, you know, as you share, Derek, we have talked several times, and and I actually enjoyed a lot our conversations. This is that you know, there's a high energy among us, uh, especially you two. Um so it's great. Uh, and definitely my low as Emily share is the snow. You know, we're still dealing with the snow. There's a lot of it. Um, it complicates things, um, especially it's very, very cold. Uh you know, I've been here around for a while, but you know, when it's this cold, uh it makes me miss a little bit of Puerto Rico. Oh, yeah.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Oh, yeah. I wish I could be there.

Meet Miguel: New Operations Manager

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, well, you just heard from Miguel Lozada, our new operations manager at Silver Springs Civic Building. Welcome to the show. We have been so excited and waiting for you to hop on, and we are just so happy that you're here sitting next to us. Good vibes, good energy all around. All around. And I did want to say uh quickly,

Subscribe And CUFP PSA

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

right? And because we've been doing like these like in inserting PSAs. No, we have, we have. Listen, you've listened to us for what, maybe a minute and a half right now. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Hit it. Hit it. Yeah. Right now. Listen. I know you're not listening to but go back and do it right now, because I know you didn't just do it when I told you. Okay, so go back. Like, comment, and subscribe. Why not? Okay.

Derek Ross

We're cool. Yes. Why not? Why not? I like that. I like that. You know, you're throwing in all of that stuff too. I mean, uh is is now a good time. Did you want to introduce or should we do our PSA? Should we do something? What should we do? We're gonna keep this party going with that. Should I should I do the PSA? Absolutely. Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna do the PSA, Miguel. So we do our PSAs a little bit. I'm talking to the community as well, too. So I'm I'm gonna go into my my voice, my voice. Uh, want to learn more about the office community use public facilities? Then you're listening to the perfect podcast to get you started on your reservation journey. School facilities, the Silver Springs Civic Building at Veterans Plaza, Marion Friartown Plaza in Wheaton, Maryland, regional services centers, county government building meeting rooms. We got you covered. Reserve your next event with Cuff. I'm just throwing it out there. That was my voice. All right, going back into my real voice. Miguel, Miguel, Miguel. We are excited to have you here on the show. I'm gonna lob it back to Emily. And we're gonna keep throwing out basketball terms, Emily, because I know you already talked about dunking on me. Uh Miguel, Emily keeps talking about dunking on me for some odd reason. I don't know why. I guess I look like the guy that just gets dunked on all the time. That's another conversation

Miguel’s Story: Radio, Poetry, Mentoring

Derek Ross

back in the day. But the whole the whole point is that I'll lob it back up to you, Emily. Go ahead.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

But I'm gonna actually go ahead and give it to Miguel. I hear you have some special did you know's for us. Did you want to share?

Miguel Lozada

Yes, yes, yes. So um, you know, I was looking for this up looking forward for this opportunity. Uh, I heard a few of the um episodes from you guys, and I was very excited. So um thinking about uh things to share with the community and especially with you too, right? Um, so did you know that a certain point in life I was part of a radio station with a show, um, it was a hip hop rap show uh called Urban Voices. So um that's something. I mean, did you guys know that?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

So you you are not a stranger to a microphone.

Miguel Lozada

Yeah, okay. Definitely I'm not, right? Definitely I'm not. Uh and following that, right? So did you know that um at a certain point, um, without any high expectations, just because of the love of art um and the love of writing, I had the opportunity to record a few um, I will call it um, I don't know, poems or something like that. Uh but um you know there's a few uh there is a bit of music around um the waves that I created. Um not sure if you know if I can ever share because um beats were not um originals. So so there's some copyrights um there, but yes, there is some recording. Um so that's that's part of my life um that I that I enjoy a lot and and I still you know very proud of it.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Well, we love this because this I'm sure that actually connects you back to the community somehow, right? And I have a feeling that even though our listeners might not know you well yet, right? Sharing something like this makes us a little more human, right? It gives the community an opportunity to get to know us and the people that work behind the scenes, right? Um, and that run the civic building because that's that's you. And honestly, I'm so happy and like proud sitting at this table. Like all of us are very involved with our communities through arts, right? Like you were just saying. Um and I know we spoke a little bit off air earlier, uh, talking about how that, like, you know, you doing these things uh and creating this collective of artists and musicians and people that were producing things uh for the community and even turning it into like a mentoring program, those are all super important and essential things to your role now, right? So can you actually tell us a little bit about how that kind of brings in maybe like, is there a reason why that kind of connects to the work that you do now?

Community Work That Informs The Role

Miguel Lozada

So yes, I I feel like um, you know, recently I was thinking about all the areas and and and aspects that I have worked with the community uh ever since I was uh uh you know young, not that long by the way. So but um and I realized that pretty much I've been working um for the community, right? Ever since, you know, like I was I was young. And and related to the music that I just share, um I was part of this group and and we had this vision about um supporting the community um through uh the different um you know, like this discussion with kids, um helping nonprofit organizations, um, you know, serving as as mentors as well. Um kind of like help them to walk through uh to different paths to ensure that they could achieve um their goals, you know. I mean, if if it was music, music, but if it was college, uh how to help them and support them. Uh and we're talking about, you know, like you know, like communities with needs, right? And their nonprofit organizations and things like that. So now in in my role, um I feel like all those things that I worked with in the past come up and and and are like assets for my pocket, you know, like like tools that I have um to continue supporting um the community, right? And you know the fact that somehow I'm I'm part of these um events, you know, festivals, um, or any type of event that we have at the center, um, and and somehow I can support the vision of the organizer, right? Um it makes me feel great, honestly. Because I mean when I see the results and when I see you know uh the the organizers um putting their their ideas and their vision in place and successfully achieve their goals, um definitely I'm proud of it. Wow.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, that's super important to have somebody that like sees the vision or even understands the vision. This is why like having you at Silver Springs Civic Building right now is such an asset to our team. Uh you really come in with uh the community experience, and that's something that we can't trade for anything. That's that's you can't you can't buy that. That comes from you know life experience, that comes from really putting in the work to the community, and that's so awesome.

Miguel Lozada

Um, so yeah, definitely. I mean, I I'm enjoying every single thing that is part of my job. I can I can guarantee you that I'm actually having a lot of fun.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

See, see, yes, we love to hear that. We love to hear that.

Derek Ross

Emily, I I I know because you know, we have Joe, we have Tebs in here, but it's something about I don't know if somebody's cutting onions in here or something like that. It's it's always something weird. It gets my eyes watery. I think it's just whatever.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Behind these panels.

Derek Ross

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Is it a cooking show?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

There's definitely a cooking show happening. There has to be.

Derek Ross

All the time, all the time. Miguel, that is a great way for us to kind of get to learn a lot about you. We we talk to you all the time. We're telling the community, we're talking on the microphones, but we get a chance to talk to a lot of our operations managers, a lot of the individuals who are responsible for a lot of what you see from the buildings and what's coming about it. But great work, Miguel. You're here on the podcast. I hope that we get a chance to keep you to join you, get you back on the show. Emily, can we can we can can we kind of stamp that now?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

He has no choice. He will be back.

Derek Ross

He will be

Shoutouts And Team Culture At SSCB

Derek Ross

back.

Miguel Lozada

That is it. You heard it. I mean, uh there might be um additional, you know.

Derek Ross

That's oh, okay, okay.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Keep that coming. Because you know what? That that just shows, I think, the community that we're real people too. Yep. And that we have good people uh in positions that are willing to help the community and to really see the vision. So high fives for us.

Derek Ross

I feel good, feeling good. So, Emily, before before I we jump to the next semi, did you want to do another, you know, quickly encouraging moment to our listeners or something like that? You've been doing so good with that voice and stuff like that. You want to say something else to the listeners?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, let's do our uh uh other PSA.

Derek Ross

Ooh, okay, okay, okay.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

So I just did Veterans Plaza and now I'm gonna do uh Silver Spring. Uh and Laris, actually, I'm gonna do two. Okay.

Derek Ross

Oh, do you want to do two?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yes, I'm gonna do two. I'm gonna do Silver Spring. Okay, and then I'm gonna do a little shout out to the ones that we had uh in the last episode.

Derek Ross

Oh, you're about to do it. You're about to do it. Okay, so you guys ready? Yeah, I'm ready.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

The Silver Springs Civic Building at Veterans Plaza, located in downtown Silver Springs, is a premier event facility that provides an elegant setting for all types of events. The Civic Building combines modern touches with natural design and provides space for corporate events, conferences, nonprofit, and community group events, political gatherings, private parties, cultural activities, wedding ceremonies, receptions, ginks and more.

Derek Ross

And more.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

And more.

Derek Ross

And more? More. And more, we're gonna be able to do that.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

And I will say, so my next little thing, because okay, listen, not to make this about myself, okay, but my birthday's coming up in like two months. I know, listen, I know two months.

Derek Ross

You're gonna tell us ahead of two months.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Listen, all I'm hearing is you're complaining. I'm giving you enough time to give me a shout-out, I'm giving you enough time to give me a present.

Derek Ross

Okay, okay, oh, I see. I see what you're doing there.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

But you know what? Uh, one of my biggest presents, and I said this at the in the last episode, man. One of my biggest presents is I don't know, Miguel, if you know this. What? But my birthday is on March 20th, and I said this the last time, and I want everybody to know this, okay?

Miguel Lozada

I'm sorry, but mine is before yours.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

That's right, that's fine. But listen, listen, this is why mine is important though. On March 20th, not that yours is not important, but this is why mine is important this year. Okay.

Miguel Lozada

You won't forget mine.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

What is yours? Oh, wait, I knew the venture. I knew that. I knew that. And it's coming up. Okay, so we de we definitely have to give a little bit of an uh early birthday shout-out to Meghetti. Happy early birthday, Magellan. Early birthday, thank you. Um but yeah, not to like uh uh not to say that your birthday isn't important. Okay, yeah, back to me. Anyways uh so my birthday is March 20th, and actually that's the first day of MoComCon. MocomCon. Uh this year. And MoComCon 2026. Uh again, it's they're celebrating 10 years of doing MocomCon. Uh it's free. Um, you guys just go to MCPL's website and check it out. Uh it's gonna be a really, really fun event for family, uh, young, young uh kids, uh teenagers, adults. There's a lot of really fun activities. Um, yeah, I would just say hit it up. I'm so excited. I'm taking my daughter this year. I'm trying to just basically scoop whoever I can for my car, polyman, and yeah, we're all going. We're all gone. We're all gone. Yeah, we're all going and we're celebrating my birthday. We celebrate.

Derek Ross

We're gonna start up the MCPL, the libraries. We're gonna we're gonna start okay, okay. We're gonna remember two months ahead. Okay, thank you.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Y'all got no excuse.

Derek Ross

We got no excuse.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Oh, said it on air toys already.

Derek Ross

I know you said, I feel like you're gonna say it until we're gonna say it until it's my birthday. It's gonna be August. Yeah, I'm just letting y'all know Vanetti.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Birthday pass, right?

Derek Ross

Miguel, thank you for letting us a reminding us about your your birthday coming up on such an important day, too. Yeah, so it is, it is, and I did it on purpose, you know.

Miguel Lozada

I want to make sure you know people know, people are aware so so people um can't switch from Valentine's to my birthday.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Oh, okay, period. We're no longer celebrating Valentine's Day, we're just celebrating Miguel's birthday.

Derek Ross

So just that's it, that's it. That's an important movie.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

New national holiday.

Derek Ross

Exactly. So I don't understand that today is supposed to be his day. I don't understand what that day is. All right, y'all. So we we're gonna keep laughing, we're gonna keep chopping it up and enjoying this moment with our awesome Miguel. Shout out to Miguel. I'm gonna keep throwing that out there to you, man. Yeah, I really do think you're doing some great things, and it's awesome to have you on the show. We're gonna get it. We're gonna bring some seriousness into it a little

Key Dates: 2026 Opening Day Reservations

Derek Ross

bit, Emily. We're gonna discuss something. We do have an important date coming up for Cuff. Community Use of Public Facilities is the podcast that you're listening to off the cuff. Just a quick reminder. But to all our listeners, are you familiar about our upcoming Go Live date? And this is in regards to, you know, our 2026 opening day reservations. Uh, if you go to our actually our community use bridge, which is on our website and everything else, we'll make sure that it's public and everything like that. There is a huge article talking about big news. We've made some exciting updates to our 2026 opening day, go live reservation dates. And what's coming up is February 9th, 2026. We have it down as the second Monday in February.

Speaker 2

Yep.

Derek Ross

Basically, opening day to request school auditoriums for dates of use during the upcoming MCPS summer break. Opening day to reserve athletic fields and other outdoor facilities, meaning school tennis courts, outdoor basketball courts, and parking lots, all for dates of use March 15th through August 15th. So to give you a split, I just told you opening data request school auditoriums for dates of use during the upcoming MCPS summer break. Then we have the other one, which is opening day to reserve athletic fields and other outdoor facilities. That is for the dates of use March 15th through August 15th. I just wanted to repeat that because it may get a little bit too much into it, but I want to let people know that there is an important date coming up and it's coming up soon.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

If you're if you're not up to date or if you don't have actually, this is a good segue to get people to sign up for our alerts. Yeah, because I think I think one of the things that um we try really hard to make sure that the community gets uh information out. And there's some avenues here um that uh the community has access to that would give them uh maybe easier access to the information that we're sending out. Um so, like you said, yeah, we have blogger. Um I would even say like if you go on our website or on blogger, we'll likely have links on how

Stay Informed: Alerts, Blog, Website

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

to um sign up for our e-subscription uh and a whole bunch of like our um we have um alert Montgomery alerts. We have a whole bunch of stuff that uh we definitely want to get the community um to sign up for. So we'll start dropping that information um as it comes and we'll make sure that our uh uh website and blogger are updated. Um that way the community you know has all the information up to when I say updated, I mean like up to the day. Like we are working, like Derek and I, specifically the comms team, we work and we put things up same day if need be. Um if let's say this past weekend we had a snow, um, like a snow emergency closing, right? So so yeah, so like we we we really try to make sure that our website uh and our information is up to date, uh as up to date as it can be. So I mean, other than that, honestly, I would just say just keep checking in on us. Keep checking in. Check in in, check in, check back, website, listen to the podcast. We give you uh, you know, obviously we give you dates. I know we have another date coming up pending. We're gonna talk more about that probably the next um episode. And I'm just gonna very briefly throw in the next date to look forward to, which we will mention in the episode, uh episode seven, is going to be April 13th, um 2026, the second Monday

Future Dates And Libraries Tie-In

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

in April. That's gonna be opening day to reserve library meeting rooms for dates of uh use July 1st through December 31st. We will come back and say that again uh next episode and closer to the date. We don't want to, you know, give the community too much to kind of uh all at once, but all of that information and all of our um uh opening days, like Derek said, are on our blogger. So go check that out.

Derek Ross

Go check it out. Go check it out. Now, as we continue to talk about that stuff, and I know this is a Silver Springs Civic building at Veterans Plaza, take over. Miguel's back to you. We're back in the MS. You gave me these look like what do you mean by the way? No, no, no, I'm here. I'm actually we're back to you. So, Emily, I mean we do, I mean, Miguel actually's been answering a lot of questions. You could tell that Miguel's been in front of the microphone a lot. This is nothing, just just just nothing for you. Easy, easy. But we do have a few questions, though. We do have a few questions. I I I'll start off, Emily, but by all means, let's let's just give let's just bombard Miguel with just a whole bunch of stuff, everything. Just get hit him up. Miguel, question for you. What excitement or energy are you bringing to this team, this cuff team here?

Miguel Lozada

Whoa. Um well, I mean, um my personality, honestly, is is like this, right?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

It's great.

Miguel Lozada

I'm just gonna tell you the way I talk to you guys, you know, the way uh uh, you know, we interact, uh, even the way I deal with um you know customers and and and community members. Um I'm like this, you know. I'm not going to pretend um I'm a very excited person, happy person. Yeah. Uh, you know, of course, when it when it's time to be serious, we'll all be serious. Uh when it's business, it's business, right? Um, but I I'm not going to pretend, you know, put a suit and tie there and kind of like, you know, um supervising you guys and and like you guys have to do this and that. No, I mean I want them to have fun while they do what they need to do, right? Yeah. Uh and pretty much, you know, my approach when it comes to a team is like I'm there to remove roadblocks, right? I'm not there to um you know to to micromanage them. They are the one running the show, right? They my my team right now, they have been there uh before me, right? So they have been uh you know leading on on things, you know, on on on events, on reservations, uh on logistics, providing support to to um to the events, monitoring events. Um they are the ones doing the the actual um job, you know, with the direct job, boots on ground, right? And I'm there just to to remove roadblocks, make sure you know they can continue doing their performing their job um more efficiently, yeah, right? And and and not just for them, but also for the community, right? We

Ice Rink And Visit The Plaza

Miguel Lozada

we we always wanted to add value to what we do uh for the community. Nice. Wow, what what what kind you're giving out the perfect answer? What is going on?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

And I was gonna say, you know what?

Miguel Lozada

It was it wasn't practice. Hey, I mean, you guys are taking me by surprise.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

This is a little but you know what? Listen, let's give a quick little shout out to the staff over at SSCB.

Miguel Lozada

Yeah, and and you know what? I mean, uh as part of the shout-out, I want to name them, I want to recognize them. Um and and um I will invite every everyone that is um listening to this uh to go visit us and put faces on their names. Yes, and they'll be, you know, you can just stop by, say hi, uh, you know, grab a cup of coffee and and you know, chat with us. You're gonna have a you're gonna have a really nice time. But want to recognize them, um, you know, Sanjukta, um David, um Massiri, Marcia, um, Olafin, you know, even the security guard, um, each one of them, um, it's uh a key part of the whole operations in the building. Um Maria, um, I have Nathan and Dominique, uh the event monitor, so all of them. If I miss any, I don't think so. Um, but if I miss any, I'm sorry. Uh, but thank you all.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, we love you guys. You guys do an awesome, awesome job.

Derek Ross

It's it's so good there, Emily that Miguel immediately rolled out two workstations. I was like, all right, Miguel. It's like, you know, for us to come there, I was like, okay, okay. We already got the red carpet, we all sitting at the workstations. But it's great working out of the Civic Building, too. And it's great actually being a part of it, knowing everybody's name as well, too. Because when we walk into the building, it definitely feels like the family that, you know, the other family that we get the chance to visit on. So we're all for it. Miguel. I don't know. Emily, do we have any more questions? Miguel's been kind of rapid firing it. He's been doing actually way more than I thought. I'm actually impressed with Miguel. He ran the show.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

We told you it was the SECD of Silver Street Takeover. Wow, he's ready. Right? He's the new host. That's fine.

Miguel Lozada

Let me tell you something, right? I'm gonna throw this up in here. Um, this is your podcast, right? You guys are very used to lead the podcast, but we're gonna flip it. There's gonna be a flip and there's gonna be an episode, right, that somebody else is gonna interview you guys. Interesting. So um I'm just throwing that up in here, making a committee. I'm ready. And then we have to, you know, give it some colour and um you know, put it in perspective. But it's happening, right?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

I love it. Okay, I'm in here.

Derek Ross

All right, we we here, right? Looking for yeah, yeah, we right. Okay, see, see, see, well, Emily, I do know that we did have another

Closing Thoughts And Appreciation

Derek Ross

one of the Montgomery County Public Libraries. We had another kind of PSA.

Speaker 2

Yeah, we did.

Derek Ross

We do, we do have one more. We're gonna keep doing it because you know the support and the team and the effort and working with so many different departments and stuff like that. We gotta sprinkle it in. Should I do it or should you do it? Should I?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Should I just go ahead, Derek?

Derek Ross

Okay, okay. The way you said that was like, go ahead, Derek. Like, you're gonna dunk on me too for that too.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Listen, I already said I am gonna dunk on you again, and this time without mittens, because I don't need them because I'm snowed up. But you know, that's fine. Oh, that's fine. Because I think the last episode I said I was gonna dunk on you with mittens on, and you were like, oh, that's messed up.

Derek Ross

We need to do that. We need to put we need to put a picture on social media of playing basketball. Like we need to do something like that. But all right, we're getting ready to finish up the podcast, but you know, you know how we do. We're gonna try to sprinkle in whatever we can. But did you know Montgomery County Public Libraries is turning 75 and we're celebrating all year long from a new commemorative library card to special events and programs that 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 MCPL Eventslash 75 to learn more. I had to sprinkle that in there. I I had my library card. I'm not gonna lie, yeah, I go to it.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Listen, I think I said this last time. I'm like, I already got my card, but I'm gonna get that new one.

Derek Ross

You're gonna get that-oh, the new one?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

I'm gonna get that new one.

Derek Ross

Okay. Okay.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

It's cute.

Derek Ross

Okay.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

It's cute.

Derek Ross

All right, all right. We're gonna we're gonna do it. We're gonna take pictures of our new cars and we're gonna post them up. Okay, all right. We're gonna do that. We're gonna do that. All right, Emily, I guess we went over helpful resources. We went over everything. We've talked to Miguel so much. This is a Silver Spring Civic building at Veterans Plaza. I always throw Veterans Plaza in there just in case you didn't know that there's an outdoor part of that, just in case you didn't know.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Ice skating.

Miguel Lozada

As a reminder, yes, we have the ice um ice skating ring. Um, it's open. Uh, I encourage you guys to visit. Uh, our website is the link for their website. And if you wanna buy tickets online, uh do so. If not, just show up. Um, there's plenty, you know, there's plenty of um skates, um, and you're gonna have a lot of fun. I mean, I have brought my son um several times already, and you know, I enjoy going outside, even though it's cold. I enjoy going out to the plaza and seeing people, um, you know, having fun there, and and and and I tend to ask, you know, like to make sure people are happy and and trying to get some feedback. Nice.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Oh, yeah. Everybody go ice skating at Veterans Plaza, Silver Spring. Same thing. And then uh go ice skating at Veterans Plaza in Silver Spring. You know, like obviously. Obviously, what are you not doing? Why aren't you there right now? We ice skate there now. But here here's the thing. Listen, after you go ice skating, you know, you want to take a little break, go into Silver Spring Civic Building and go say hi to the crew. Yeah, go figure out, go plan your next event. Oh, yeah. You know, go do something, go do something, go plan a party. Oh and and get it through us because we're equitable. Yeah, we got fair prices. Yep, yep. Okay. Yeah, why not? Come and see us. See us.

Derek Ross

We're cool. I'm just throwing that out there. We're cool.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

We keep saying that we're cool, we're cool.

Derek Ross

We're cool, y'all. We're cool. But yes, yes, yes, yes. So we're getting ready to close out this podcast. I mean, we're as you can see, we're laughing a lot more because we have Miguel here. Miguel's you know what, Miguel? It's great to get to know you. I told you I was ready to mumbo. Yeah, oh yeah, we did. You were the first, we we did not bring it up, but Miguel did. We did.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

But you know what he did?

Derek Ross

He did.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

We already we did mumbo.

Derek Ross

We did, oh, we definitely mumbo.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

We mumbo. Yeah.

Derek Ross

I think I think we're good. I think we're good. So, I mean, are we doing another shout out? Or or we already did the Silver Spain Civic Building shout out. We did the shout-outs. Uh remember to subscribe. If you're listening to this podcast on whatever platform of your choosing, um hit that subscribe button wherever it's sitting at on your screen. I know it's there. I know the subscribe button is somewhere on the screen.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

I was gonna say, and I think I already bullied everybody to kind of uh click on that button. But if you didn't, hello? I said that like I don't know, 10 minutes ago. Did say that. You better subscribe. Go back before I come and yell at you.

Derek Ross

Exactly. We will find you. Anyway, the last few words. Uh Emily, you got any last few words?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

No, I'm just happy to be here. Yeah. I'm happy to be here. Uh I can't wait for the next one. We have a lot of cool stuff uh lined up for y'all. Um and I'm just excited. And please, please, please go on our site on February 9th and secure your spot, secure your field, secure your parking lot. Come on, let's get it.

Derek Ross

Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. I would love to end it on Miguel. So I would jump in here room. I don't really have any last few words. This was exciting. I think our podcast, as we continue to develop and grow together, we get more staff that are knowledgeable about what's going on, about these buildings, these facilities, these rules, these guidelines. We are going to always lean on the individuals. And we have Miguel here to kind of discuss Silver Spring Civic Building. Get the chance to get to know him a little bit. You know what? That's very important because a lot of what we're doing is so front-facing, so front-facing. But I don't have any more last words.

Miguel Lozada

Well, let's end it with Miguel.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Any closing words?

Miguel Lozada

No, I mean, I just want to make sure you guys um uh visit us. You know, go visit the Silver Spring Civic Building. Uh, go visit the plaza, have fun. Um, it's for you guys, it's for the community. Um, now that we have the ice ring, uh go have fun. Uh it is it is it is wonderful. It's a blast. And um go visit us, right? I mean, if if you don't know what you want, uh you barely have an idea, just go. Let us let us help you develop that idea so that we can um successfully put them, you know, build, help you build your vision and and successfully achieve um your event.

Speaker 2

Wow. Wow, wow.

Derek Ross

I love it. Well, they and you know what? I feel like uh we have nothing else to say. Miguel, Miguel, you know what? We're just gonna step away. We're just gonna give you the microphone for the next time. We're just gonna do it for you. We're gonna do it. But that is it, ladies and gentlemen. Everybody, our family, our friends, so many people have been chiming in, letting us know whether they're listening to us. So we just want people to know that we're appreciative. We're we all this experience has been fun. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Emily, we we good? We good?

unknown

We're good.

Derek Ross

We're good. Emily said we're good, we good. Bye, everybody.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Bye. See y'all later.

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