Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Friday, November 8th, 2024.
Have your host James D. Mail off here.
In part two today at 430, we're going to speak with our good friend Meredith Gleckler,
executive director of the Central Wisconsin or Wisconsin Rapids Area Commission and visitors
Bureau.
Looking forward to talking with her, looking forward to this conversation all week in with
us right now.
Our friend Phil Hartley from Quality Plus Printing, Phil of course joins us weekly Wednesdays
on our morning show with our wicked awesome word of Wednesday.
You hear Quality Plus printing mentioned sponsoring playmakers three days a week or big fans
of our friends over at Quality Plus and love having guys in, especially with where we're
going to put our focus today.
First off Phil, how you doing today?
Yeah, doing really well.
Sun's out.
Life's good.
Yeah.
Nice, nice fall day.
Beautiful day out there.
Confused with the seasons over the last couple of weeks and what season we're in?
Yeah.
But it feels like fall today.
I think we got a reminder for people.
I think we got a good way for people to remember what season it is and that is season
of giving, talking about that, Phil.
There you go.
Segway.
A master of Segway.
Let's tell everybody, especially those that might not know up there, what season are
giving it, Phil?
Sure.
Thanks for bringing that up, James.
Just a few years ago, when I first bought Quality Plus Printing, it would have been three
years in August now, amazing time.
But I turned to Tracy Biolo, who's our tremendous graphic designer and said, you know, we do a
lot of good work.
We get a lot of business from local businesses and local organizations.
How do we find a way to get back?
You know, there's just a small businesses, well, there's about eight of us in there now,
but there was only like three or four at the beginning.
And how do we get back?
And I was on the board for many years for the United Way, and I know the job Terry and
her crew does over there.
So I thought, well, it'd be great if we could get back to them, which is a small company.
So pledging wouldn't be a lot, but what else could we do?
So Tracy had this idea in her back pocket for several years, I think.
And she said, Phil, I've been looking at designing a coloring book.
So that's a great fit, you know, it's a great fit for the holidays and a great fit would
be able to get back.
And so her and I went back and forth with the ideas behind it and what we could do with
it.
And I thought, well, it could be an excellent fundraiser for the United Way.
And so we were blessed to have many good customers and many good businesses like this one in
our community that when I reached out, wanted to be involved.
And so right off the bat, we did it the first year and probably had a dozen or so
launches, but we were able to raise well over $4,000 for the United Way with these coloring
books.
That's just amazing, right?
So not only local businesses donating, but businesses that we deal with, you know,
Johnson, who we have contracts with for our printing, right?
They donated the clicks, as we call them, the costs for printing for this.
We get most of our paper from come to called Midland, another with local representatives,
but it's who we order our paper from.
And they donated a lot of the paper along with my job at the mill for many years.
I lost, of course, when the mill went away, but there's still good people over there
working in certain sections of the mill.
And they still processed paper.
Well, Belarus would have, as it is now, donated paper as well.
And they still are doing that.
And so those behind the scenes people donated, but also a lot of local business people,
retailer and service industries donated to it.
So when we added up the whole bill, the whole amount that we got donated was over $4,000.
And we made 1,000 books that first year, coloring books, Tracy designs them, they're beautiful.
And we just got them out to boys and girls club, local, different people, therapies plus,
different people that work with children all the time.
A lot of this is domed out, again, is another one I should have said, the donated paper
for this, right?
And they have all three years because they're doing it this year too.
They take books because they go out into schools over Christmas time and read with the kids.
And so we got some the domed out to use to hand out.
So that first year, about 1,000, but we ran out, to be honest.
And people were asking for more.
So last year, and then this year, we're going to print over 2,000.
And last year, we upped our game, too, and handed them all out to Wisconsin Rapids, Christmas
parade.
Yeah.
And to almost 900 kids.
I want to talk about this year's coloring book, Phil, but first, I want to take some
of that data that you just gave us, because one, amazing, just amazing.
There's a lot of things you said in that that really stand out, certainly the money donated
to the United Way, which we all know goes right back into our community.
Right.
So that is an investment in our community right there and helping the United Way do that
good work.
It's also noteworthy, too, that I want to bring attention to this whenever I can, because
for one, I think we're so close to it, we might not see it always.
And two, I think we've almost, in some kind of fun way, we've almost normalized this.
But I've lived a lot of places, everybody.
I've moved around a lot.
Me and Phil have both moved in a lot of places.
I've never seen a community like this.
I've never lived in a community like this.
I've never been around an area that is so good at putting into causes and finding a great
balance of doing that, spreading the wealth, if you will, of being able to do these things.
I want to talk about two real key parts of this conversation and the season of giving
in these coloring books.
First of all, there is the business side of this.
There's the PR side of this, if you will.
There are people out there right now getting paid a lot of money to do marketing.
And I can shave you a lot of money right now.
Attach yourself to things like this.
You just heard in this brief conversation we've already had, Phil mentioned a number
of businesses.
Nobody paid him to do that.
Nobody paid me for any of this or anything.
That's free advertising.
Right there, you're already getting more bang for your buck.
You cannot put a price on attaching yourself to projects like this, the feel good of it,
what it means for your community.
There is no price tag you can put on.
I want to create this kind of PR.
How much will it cost me?
Nobody could tell you.
You can't buy that kind of stuff.
The idea of doing those things, as well as seeing your name attached to these projects
that the community sees, non-stop, so not only seeing your business, but it's seeing
you attached to something very important and puts back into our community.
So all that needs to be said, I think it is certainly a part of where we can reach
people out there, wallet, but I want to reach your heart.
I want to reach your soul because when you're a part of these things, it feels good.
And that's something that I think we lose sight of sometimes.
It's worth doing sometimes that feels good and it really means something to be a part
of something like this, Phil.
You just so intelligently explained my thought process because we're on the same wavelength
there.
No, when I do advertising for quality plus printing, I look for ways that it means more than
just getting my name out there, but it's helping something or a cause or something like
that.
And so that's what this is all about, too.
And I deeply believe in my soul that what you give, you get back, and I don't go into
the sinking that.
You know what I mean?
No, I don't.
I'm going to sink in.
How do I help some other people out and how do we get the word out, you know, but what
we do at the same time as a marketing person, you know, but that's the way to go.
I think I don't do, I don't advertise just to advertise, to say for all your printing
needs or whatever.
You know, I want to do something that has a hook behind it, it has a meaning behind it
that people are going to, you know, can take home and believe in.
And that's what this is.
And these companies give, and they're all people, for the most part, I know, and trust,
and know, believe in this community.
And so when I reach out to them, you know, the key is to reach out to them, first of all,
because so many of them want to help the community, like you're just talking about.
And if you ask them and you have a way, an avenue to do it, I think, no, it's going
to work like this coloring book that there's meat behind it for lack of better words.
Tracey Biola was behind it, one of the, you know, highest integrity people in hard worker
and very creative people you want to meet in this community, that's going behind this.
And so these companies are, which are all tremendous companies that are backing this coloring
book, know that.
And, you know, people know who Terry Johns is in this community, people know what the
United Way does, if they don't call Terry, she'll tell you, and they're a hard working
crew over there.
And I'm very, very lit up with passion that this can help them.
Anything different, certainly make you more copies.
That's fantastic.
And really exciting to hear anything different about this year's coloring book that stands
out to you.
Well, Tracey doesn't, on the lighter side, Tracey doesn't do a new design every year.
I mean, it has the same bright colors and everything, but this is, yeah, it's so good.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah, it's awesome.
You don't have to take jeans in there.
You don't have to take jeans in there.
You don't have to take jeans in there.
You don't have to take jeans in there.
And so I don't forget, if you do want one of these, we're going to print them probably
next week because we're waiting for a few more sponsors to come in that I know we're
going to come in.
And so we can make sure they're on the back of this, and we put all the sponsors logos
on the back and mentioned them like we're talking about, and I'll put them out in social
media as well.
But, so we're going to print this early next week.
So if you do want to copy and you haven't got one, please come to us, you know what I mean?
And we'll have extra at the shop for like a better way to say you can get one.
As long as we're on the subject, if I am a business, and I would like to still be a
part of it, can I be?
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
So my goal is to have this wrapped up by next Wednesday, right?
So we've got a few more days, and then we get all the sponsors in so we can start printing
it late next week.
And we want to have it ready for the parade, and then, you know, to give over the holidays
to people like the Boys and Girls Club, like we talked about, that use a bunch of them.
So yeah, please get a hold of us over at Quality Plus Printing, and again, I'm Phil Tracey
McKenna, who manages the phones over there, and just give us a shout out and say, I want
to be a part of this, we'll call you right back if I'm not there.
We'll give you the information on how to do that before we wrap up this show.
And certainly once these are published, they're out there.
We'll be letting you know how you can get one.
We'll be promoting it non-stop on our morning show.
We cannot wait for these to hit the community.
They're going to be great.
Yeah.
No doubt, and we'll usually bring over, I bring over a set of copies over here, obviously,
as well.
So if you live over on this side of town, and you want to come get it, right?
James and come talk to me to James and Seth and the crew here in Pam.
Yeah, we'll have some copies here for you, too, because you guys have been a tremendous
help with getting the word out about this, and I truly appreciate it.
This is such a great thing.
It just feels good to even talk about, let alone to be a part, a small part of and everything.
So we're very excited about these, and looking forward to them, but as excited as we are,
as much as we're looking forward to them, the kids, we didn't even come close to how excited
they are for this.
Yeah.
I'm really going to love these.
If you're out there, and you do get some of these, and I hope you do, if you get pictures
of some of your children or people having fun with them, please share them with us, because
we'll share it out in social media, share it with James here, and when we can spread
the word about how these are going, and like the Boys and Girls Club has a big Christmas
party every year.
And I mentioned them a lot, but we bring over like 200 of these things to them, and they
give them out, and we'll get some crayons to go with them, as well, and they have a
big party in hand.
And they said the kids will get lit up, so I'm really happy about that.
It's a great example of a good use of these, but yeah, to get them out in the hands of
children over Christmas time, and it's about our goal is so.
We're speaking with Phil Hartley from Quality Plus Printing, and you know that voice, and
you know, feel pretty well by now, because Phil also joins us every Wednesday in the
morning, on our morning show, with our Wicked Awesome Word of Wednesday, one of the sponsorship
things that Quality Plus does with us, and we love hanging out with you and talk with
you on Wednesdays and encourage everybody to come around for that.
As I mentioned before, sponsor of Playmakers, I'd like to shout you guys out whenever we
get a chance at it.
Being able to talk sports that you and I both know how much we love, and this community
loves to be able to do.
There's very few live sports call-in shows anymore.
We're partially able to do that, and thanks to you guys.
And I also wanted to bring up WAM Incorporated, Phil, because one of the other things that
I think that you have done very smart over there is kind of, you know, finding different
ways to spend the business and find other avenues in the said business of printing.
And WAM Incorporated, I think, has done that while at the same time, finding a great way
to highlight our individuals in our community.
Yeah, thanks.
You know, we haven't talked about before, a bunch of great customers in this community,
and so when they come to us and say, do you do this, do you do this, can you do this?
And for the most part, we can, but there's a few things that we, you know, like printing
on the peril.
And I had that question asked me enough times, and I said, okay, that's enough, getting
asked that question, because I don't say it still very well.
You know you're asked a question a lot when you would start a new business, just a little
question.
Yeah.
So we got that question so many times that I said, okay, let's get a look into this and
how it's going to work and what's the possibilities of doing this.
And luckily, I had some friends that were doing it in their basement for fun, bungee's,
and I talked to them and said, we can make this bigger, would you want to come over if
I create some space, some workspace over at Quality Plus Printing, and yeah, they jumped
in.
And so we've been slowly by slowly ramping it up, and we keep getting more orders, which
is awesome, without really spreading the word too hard.
I'm trying to make sure we can do this correctly and right before the business model, before
it.
Smart because Quality Plus Printing is humming.
So, you know, I needed more to do.
Right.
So here we go.
A little bit of room on your plate.
Let's go ahead and fill in.
There we go.
So, no, it's been awesome, and we're very happy to be able to print on a pair, all types
of a pair, many different ways we can do it.
We have some examples at the shop, if you want to come in and see, but I'm very happy
to do local companies, and that's what I thought, you know, we, again, that was great customers,
I'm just telling them, hey, we know we print these things for you, we could also do this
and then we're getting orders because of it.
So, and we're a blast, we have a context at Lincoln and an assumption in some of the
different schools in Acusa, and that have come to us and said, you know, could we could
you do this project.
So, slowly but surely, it's growing, and it's doing really well, so I'm really proud of
it.
The way I'm thinking, of course, what could awesome media is my LLC that owns Quality
Plus Printing.
It's a mean, New England term, so that's where it comes from.
What could awesome mean is really good, in case you didn't know.
Just to clarify that out.
So we could also medium way, and that superhero theme came out of that, and no, it's been fantastic.
My whole family has gotten involved in it and made it grow, so happy to take it on and
we're even growing into more things, I can be sort of a coaster guy here.
Yeah.
Yeah, we can do those.
Right.
We've got a little laser guy that I'm still learning about that can print on the coasters
and wood and notebooks and personalized, personalized pretty much anything, so not a little
chapter that we're messing with to see how that will go, but it's been fantastic.
And again, thanks to all of our customers for making it that way.
I want to touch on that a little bit more in a second, but I do want to mention that
one of the other things the way I'm incorporated is done is have this great feature where we're
looking for hometown heroes.
Yeah, please keep them coming.
Hopefully, it's a long process.
I try to do it at least monthly and it's taking more than a month in some cases.
So I apologize out there, but we have another one lined up here, hopefully, within the next
week or two.
Yeah, so we'll get to where it'll be, but yeah, please, if you have someone, people out
there that are doing more than one of those, one of those we could also more just called
Lan-Yap.
That was the first one I ever did, I think, because my former boss, David Sam's at the
mill, he was a Alabama boy, Lan-Yap means give more than expected, okay, it's a French
Give more than what people think.
And so if people out there doing Lan-Yap in our community, bring it on because we want
to hear about it.
And there are hundreds of them, obviously, that are going above and beyond what they need
to do.
What's expected of them to try to make this a better community that we live in, in extension,
a better, I don't know, county, better state, better world overall.
So if you have some of those people in your life and we get them a free t-shirt, get them
some mentions, I mean, the t-shirts are a small thing, but it's a neat thing to be
able to tell other people about some of the good stuff that's happening out there.
Let Phil or I know, we've read us on our social media platforms, you can direct messages
on Facebook or something, just a couple of sentences of this individual and why you think
they deserve to be highlighted, why they are a hometown here, or we love to hear that
we love to highlight our people out there.
Well, I think this is going to grow, and we just get to keep after it, and the more we
do, I'm sure the more people will be comfortable getting the word out about them.
Well, we'll do a slow grow on this one, because as Phil mentioned, he's got a lot, maybe
he didn't mention, I mentioned, you got a lot on your plate, understandable with all
the things that you do in the community, I didn't even get the chance to mention about
your work in tennis in the area and everything.
Yeah, that's a, that just ended.
Yeah, and it's a great season for you and the kids, great season.
We had a great timing, for the second year in a row, a doubles team of mine made it,
of assumptions made it down to state, and so the first time in many decades.
So yeah, that was really anything.
So local tennis is doing well, and local pick up all is doing well, as we see.
But the tennis team did awesome, and I'm very proud of those young ladies.
But it does take your time.
A couple of months, like doing a play, right, James?
It is your focus for a couple of months, and it was funny, as I thought, okay, it's
done.
I can do that.
But then last time it was a Glenn Miller band, which was awesome.
Great.
Over at the PAC, you know, and we had our tennis band for this week, and it's like, sooner
later, it's going to slow down.
It's such a busy time of year two, and then here comes the holidays, right?
And yeah, a lot of good things happen in our community.
And as we're wrapping up, Phil, speaking of being busy, I always like to find out or ask
you about, you know, future projects, or fun, interesting things you guys are working
on, because boy, out there, if you have an idea, bring it to Quality Plus.
They love working with you guys, and love being creative over there.
Yeah, we got a bunch of holiday projects coming up, we're getting people that, of course,
have holiday events coming.
So we do a lot of the posters, a lot of raffle tickets, things like that for a lot of different
people.
Assumption has a Royal Auction this weekend.
We did their programs for them, you know, things like that, special, really quick turns.
We specialize in that.
Tracy's fast and hard worker McKenna as well.
And we are able to turn things within a day or two sometimes for people.
So a lot of local program sports programs, the River Kings ramping up, we print their programs
and hand out the games.
So I'm always running over to the same other afters, same day, running over to the rank
or over to the ballpark, whether this thing's in, and that's what we can do that other
printers might not be able to, that they try to get somebody from Warsaw to do a point
to whatever, but I can run down the street with them, same day, and get them done.
Shout out to our postal service, they do amazing work at everything, you can't beat that
kind of stuff.
You know, you can't beat that, and that kind of like care, that kind of passion for what
you do, too, to where you're doing that with things.
Yeah, and that's part of the benefit package, talk about it, where is it we offer, we
can make things that our friends at Erko just called me this morning before I came here.
Can you bring this over for us to see, well, there I was at Erko before we came here, you
know, we can do that.
And they're a huge customer for us, and a great local business that gives back all the
time.
So am I going to go to the bat for them, or darn right, every time I can, you know, they've
been great to us and great to the community.
And for us, no job too big, too small.
You know what I mean?
We do onesies for people all the time, including the apparel, where people just bring, can
you do this one shirt for me, I need for my brother's birthday or whatever, yeah, we
can.
Can we do 500?
Yeah, we can, you know.
So it's just, we're learning, but in the same other parent world, we're able to turn
jobs within an hour, sometimes two hours, if we have to, if we have a, we have a couple
of big digital presses over there, and we'll make the time to make it happen, so bring
it on.
Yeah, bring it on.
If you can think it, they're going to try to do it over there, but they're going to
work with you on it.
And as you heard Phil mentioning earlier about the laser work and some of these things, they're
not only, you know, bringing in new ways and new techniques, but learning them themselves,
and this is something that is such a fun part of the creative process.
You know, if you can think it, bring it over there to Quality Plus Printing, Phil, thank
you so much for all the time today.
We cannot wait for these coloring books and a season of giving to really get going here
and appreciate the time and the effort you and your team put into this community.
Thanks, James.
Again, I'm so proud to be on this radio station with you, you know, we listened as much
as we can that the work you do and the rest of the crew here, exemplary.
And we're very lucky to have, you know, you guys in this community.
So thank you.
True team effort really is all of us to true team effort.
If, uh, join our friends over at Quality Plus Printing, they're at 3515 A Street South
right here in Wisconsin Rapids, gimmick calls, 715-423-740-423-74440, be sure to follow
them on social media.
That's a great follow, great way to keep up the day and all the good things that they
are doing.
And be sure to share, uh, their posts on your social media accounts.
You just never know who might see it that wouldn't otherwise.
Phil, we'll talk, uh, if not soon or Wednesday for sure.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Thanks, James.
We'll have more Midday Magazine coming up for you right here at 975 FM 1320 AM WFHR.
We are locally grown radio.
