Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this January 14th, 2025.
Have your host, James J. Maylove here.
Welcome in to the studio.
Our good friends from the Heart of Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce.
We have promised back and with us marketing a communication director, are you doing promise?
I'm doing good.
Good to have you.
I'm doing good.
Happy New Year to you.
And we also want to welcome in a new friend of ours.
We have Kamenhofer in with us.
She is with the Heart of Wisconsin Leadership Class in program.
We'll be talking with her in just a little bit, but thanks for being here, Kamen.
Thank you.
And promise I want to kick things off right away with you talking about some upcoming events.
We have networking at night right around the corner.
Yeah, so we have networking at night on Monday, January 20th.
This time we are having it at Houdini's.
I'm pretty excited about that.
I like Houdini's a lot.
It's a great bar and they have great food.
So it's going to be from five to seven.
And this is one of those events that are open to members or future members.
So it's an opportunity for people to gather and network with other members within the
Heart of Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce and make new business connections and grow their
business in a more casual settings in a more laid back.
There's also going to be raffle prizes.
And I think he's going to put out some snacks too.
So I think he's going to do like chips and snacks and stuff like that.
So he is located on 2010 Chestnut Street in Wisconsin, Rapids.
And then again, that's at Houdini's, five to seven PM on January 20th, which is on Monday.
While these are a lot of fun, these events and everything, I want, especially to people
who haven't attended one yet, to check these out.
It's a great opportunity not only getting out of the house this time of year and we live
in Shaxx.
We go from one track to the next, doing the changes it up a little bit, gets you out there.
But one other thing that I noticed and I actually had somebody that attended one of these
a while back, talking about this, that there's not a lot of enough opportunities in life
right now for businesses to really be out there in the public.
And to have your business out there to represent that and to be involved with other people
that are working in maybe different businesses or similar businesses.
And just that opportunity to share information.
It's not an email back and forth, it's not a text chain or something.
It's just two people talking.
For one, that information can sometimes be a little more detailed and you can ask follow
questions that much faster.
But also just building those people's skills that I think that we can all use a little bit
of a refresher on from some times.
And then as I've heard from younger guests, it's very helpful for them, just that interacting,
getting more and more reps interacting with people.
Yeah.
I definitely agree.
We've been seeing an increase in attendance.
So if you're a business owner in the area or if you are thinking about starting a business,
definitely come in and check it out.
It's free to attend, but bring some business cards so you can do some networking.
And would also recommend anybody out there if you're a business and you would like to host
one of these.
I think that's a great idea.
Houdini's is a perfect spot and it's a great example of where this is a local establishment.
It's a bar.
It's been around a long time.
It's got its regulars.
I'm sure.
Why not have new regulars?
Why not bring in new people?
You're advertising your business with this event.
Also having a chance to host and show people what you can do as a business may be for future
events.
Speaking of hosting, so 2025 is pretty much booked.
We do have a couple of months left open for hosts.
I think it's July and October and December and then all of 2026 is available.
So we do have a bit of a wait list on there, but this is like getting high in demand from
the businesses and our members.
They want to host it because it does bring new faces to their businesses.
Actually, one from last year wanted to reach out and wanted to do it again this year.
So I might schedule her in for July.
So we'll see.
It'll be great.
It's great to hear.
It's great to hear that these are not only continuing through 2025, but just the popularity
of them.
Again, it's just a great opportunity for a community.
The business aspects of this, we've talked about quite a bit.
I think also just on a personal level, it's just great to be able to run into people and
just have these events to look forward to for that.
And one of the talk about the 77th Annual Meeting and Awards of Bank With right around
the corner, how is that going with a greatest radio announcer in Central Wisconsin?
How's that going?
How about just Wisconsin rapid?
So I don't know how specific I can get with this to where I can get in the award promise,
but that's where I'm going with it.
That's what I don't.
We don't have one of those awards originally.
Work out.
Work out.
So this event is our way of recognizing and awarding members in the community for their
achievements throughout the year.
So we have, you know, member of the year, large business of the year, small business of
the year, et cetera, et cetera.
We do have a business professional of the year.
So those nominations for those awards have been closed though.
So maybe for 2026, we can get you in there.
We'll look for that.
2026.
I'll work out by speech.
It's such a cool event.
We love events like this that not only celebrate our area, but celebrate individuals and businesses
in our area.
It's one of the cool things I think that being a part of the chamber does for you is not
only enhance your business and, you know, give you a bigger audience, but the idea of
being able to flip that and via thank you to that business or to that person for not
just the business that they're running, but putting it into their community.
Yeah.
Yeah, I definitely agree with that.
I've seen a lot of the great stuff that our members have done throughout the year and
I've seen some of the nominations so far and I'm super excited for those to get finalized
and we can start making the awards and start, you know, getting everything all prepped
and set up for that.
This year we are having it at Hotel Meade.
It's March 6 and a pre-registration is required because there's an RSVP that went out so you
have to select your menu, your food that you want to eat for the night.
So it's at Hotel Meade at March 6.
The doors will open at 5.
You do have to be pre-registered and get all that information back to us and I would
highly recommend that if you, like if anybody's going to attend, we're all dressing up this
year.
Put on your suit and put on your cocktail dress because that's the theme we're kind
of going for.
And I'm excited about that as well because there's not very many opportunities in town
where you can get all dressed up and, you know, have a night out with dinner and, you
know, a presentation and Hotel Meade's doing some really great things this year too.
So I'm pretty, I'm really excited about it.
I am one of the last people to go to when it comes to style.
I still dress like a teenager and I know it and I own that.
But I clean up all right.
And boy, it is a nice opportunity to be able to do that.
That you're so right about that.
We don't have enough opportunities to kind of just put on our fines and, you know, and
go out there.
It feels good, especially this time of year to be able to do that.
But it's also one of those things, again, where we were talking about with previous events
and almost anything we talk about promise.
Here is another network and opportunity.
Here is another chance to run into people you may not run into all the time while not
only celebrating our area and these businesses, but maybe doing a little business yourself.
Yep.
Is the chamber still taking anomalies?
Are you guys still taking names for these awards?
No, nominations have been closed for about two weeks now.
Yeah, so they're closed.
But we are still accepting sponsorships.
I know we have a few sponsorships left in our silver and bronze category.
And then we are also still accepting, you know, Raffle Basket donations for, and that's
a great way of getting your name out there as well.
Every single Raffle Basket we get, you can put your logo on merch in there, your business
card in there.
And another great thing that I've been seeing a lot recently too is a gift certificate
because in that kind of guarantees, somebody is going to come to your business eventually
at some point to reading that gift certificate.
So those are some things that you can participate in or you can attend it as well.
But if you are looking at wanting to sponsor or donate anything, you can reach out to
Lacey Alling.
She is our events and engagement director, and she can be directly contacted at 715-422-485-9.
And I'm sorry, I meant sponsorship opportunities, not nominees.
But that's great to hear that there are people can still be a part of the event in that
way.
And I should mention as well, all these events when we talk about have a Raffle, have
a Raffle, whatever you're doing, even if it's a little kid's lemonade stand, have a Raffle
attached to that thing and people are going to attend.
Just do well.
They do well.
And that's also a tip to any businesses out there as well.
Sponsoring those Raffle baskets, or as Promise mentioned, adding to those baskets only helps
enhance your business.
One of them also get into a couple of other random items that we have coming up and one
of them mentioned going back a little bit to another October member of the month it
looks like.
Or a different member.
Yeah, that's a table.
I thought it was a tie-up.
Yeah, January member of the month is.
That's what I thought.
Okay.
Yeah.
Wham Incorporated.
So Wham Incorporated is owned and operated by Phil Hartley.
He also owns Quality Plus Printing over on East Street there.
So he does a lot of like print printing and stuff.
So then he expanded on it and started printing on t-shirts and cups and a whole bunch of cool
things that he's got going on over there right now.
He does blankets, bags, there's just so many things that he can do.
One of the things that he did recently is he started what they call a swear shirt.
Yeah.
And I have one.
So hopefully it turns out the way I wanted it to but I'm pretty excited about the things
that he's doing over there because it's custom printed apparel.
So if you don't want to order some of that stuff online and have it, you know, be shipped
and then you have to send it back.
You can just go over to Quality Plus Printing and get something printed with the Wham Incorporated.
But he is located on 3515 East Street South where you can visit him online at qppprinting.com.
Yeah.
We are very, very familiar with Mr. Phil Hartley.
Phil joins us every Wednesday where they're wicked awesome, we're to Wednesday in our
morning show.
The Quality Plus Printing is a sponsor of our playmaker show that we have three days
of week as well.
And just in general, I think that most people know Phil.
But if you've been in the community for a week, you probably know Phil.
But while we talk a lot about Quality Plus Printing, Wham Incorporated is a very fun side
business that he is doing, one of the other cool things that they are doing there.
And we use this as an opportunity to let all the audience know.
We are looking for hometown heroes at Wham Incorporated.
If you can put together a couple sentences about somebody that you may know, that you think
deserves to be highlighted, get it to Phil in the gang.
You can direct message it to them on their Facebook pages or if you get it to me, I'll
make sure it gets to Phil.
And you can direct message me that way if you'd like.
And boom, just like that, they get, they're hero of the month and they get on a t-shirt
and they're doing some really fun, cool things with that.
Not only enhancing our community, but in, you know, highlighting some of these individuals.
But also, again, highlighting their business and giving another opportunity to get that
logo out there and get it into people's, in front of people's faces.
And another cool thing that they do when it's the swear shirt, I got one of those two.
It is great idea.
It's a great idea.
There's just so many fun things that they're doing over there, and while we have shared
a couple of ideas and a couple of thoughts, I know our audience, they get our creative group.
So they're going to throw a curveball at Phil and he wants it.
Encourage you to throw a curveball at Phil, encourage you to give them any kind of thoughts
or ideas you have.
If it can be done, they're going to figure it out.
Well, I was just going to say that actually, like if you have any idea and you don't know
where to go, he would be a great first stop because I'm sure they can figure something
out.
Yeah.
And it's something, too, that you're actually helping Phil in that regard, too, because
they want to expand in the sense of like learning and doing more.
And they know their stuff.
They've got some amazing people working over there.
And at the same time, I know that talking with Phil, they like to be challenged.
They like to have new things because that just sets the bar for them and shows what
that only they're capable of, but helps that team learn more and more about this industry
and printing in general.
If you can, if you can, hey, I'd like to put this on my mug.
I'd like to put this on my bed.
Go ahead and get them a try.
And a great choice.
Great choice way I'm incorporated.
Again, find out more about them at 3515 A Street South in Wisconsin Rapids and qpprinting.com
is the website.
Be sure to check that out as well.
They get a great Facebook page.
They got a great Facebook page.
Be sure to follow that page every once in a while.
They post a picture of that cute baby that is always great to have pop up in your time
for you.
That's a good one.
Promise.
Thank you so much for all that.
Appreciate it.
If you don't mind, I do want to talk with Cam and a little bit here and Cam and you
are with what kind of health department?
Yes.
I work for the WIC program specifically, so women and children within the health department.
Right away, I want to thank you so much for the work that you do with the department
and for our community.
We are gigantic fans over here of our health department.
We'd like to shout you guys out whenever we have a chance and appreciate the work that
you guys have not only been doing recently, but over the last handful of years, especially,
and know how difficult it's been in that industry.
I want to talk a little bit about the ACE leadership program and your participation in
that.
In particular, the diversity and inclusion session.
You had that gone a little while ago.
Yes.
Yes.
So we have sessions once a month that diversity and inclusion session was back in December.
So each session, we have a day-long presentations that we go through, and each session there
also is mid-state component to it as well.
Now they also have a credit going along with this program.
So Ted Melby is our presenter from mid-state.
He actually presented a little bit on conflict resolution as well as emotional intelligence
to work on furthering leadership skills in those areas.
So it's important to be able to resolve conflicts as a leader.
So having those skills and as far as the emotional intelligence component, just understanding
that everybody has different emotional intelligence.
And also we were able to look into our own skill set and just figure out where we are at with
our emotional intelligence.
So being aware of our own emotional awareness, managing one's emotions, having the empathy
and then also being able to coach other's emotions.
So those sessions are always very valuable in furthering leadership skills.
And I know that is new to this year, having those additional mid-state component.
So we also had sessions for several different cultures that we have in our community.
Kazua Tao spoke from the Southwood County Cultural Coalition, and she also spoke more specifically
to the Monculture.
So right now the Southwood County Cultural Coalition is working on a current project.
They're going to the Wisconsin Rapids Area Middle School and working with among youth
group, teaching six graders more about the Monculture and the new year.
And in 2025, they're hoping to expand to indigenous and Hispanic population as well.
So a lot of great work that they're doing in addition, she spoke more on the Monculture.
There was some really interesting points she made about Monculture that is important for
us as a community to just be aware of.
She spoke a little bit about how in the Monculture, they don't talk a lot about feelings.
Boys are sort of seen to, they shouldn't cry or show feelings.
So not much talked about, or it's more taboo as well, or there's stigma towards topics
like domestic violence or mental health.
So those topics can be harder for them to talk about, it's more taboo.
They spoke a little bit about eye contact, so being aware that they may or may not be
less comfortable having eye contact when communicating.
And then that handshakes are okay, but a hug or a tap might not be as okay in their
culture.
They spoke about how, especially a tap on the head can be very taboo because they're
connection to the spirit as to their head.
So just some really interesting information that I think it's important to be aware of
when working in the community.
They also had Yseneu Mesa and Fidel Perez that spoke about Hispanic culture.
So they spoke about kind of how their family is set up, big families, big household,
so multiple generations within a household.
They tend to take care of their parents, keep family close, very family oriented, a lot
of respect for their elders.
They also spoke about some different celebrations they have in their culture.
So Dia de Los Martos.
They have an altar for food and drink that they will have out to honor the dead.
They also talked about some of the other celebrations that they have that have been
Americanized.
So it was really interesting when they talked about that Cinco de Mayo is popular in the
very Americanized, Americanized as their actual independence day is on September 16th.
They talked a little bit about peñadas too, which was interesting how we have also Americanized
that.
So the meaning behind the peñada is the seven star points represents the seven deadly
sins.
They talked about the bright colors, representing temptation, the family guides the person
with a stick to get rid of the sins, and then the candy falling would represent the forgiveness
of sins.
So really big meaning behind a peñada, but then you think about in America it's just hit
a peñada and the candy falls, yeah.
So it's just really interesting when they talked about some of that as well.
Lastly, we also had a representative from the Hochunk tribe come and talk a little bit
about their tribe.
So it's actually divided up into 12 clans he spoke about.
They have each clan has certain responsibilities within the community.
So for example, they have a thunder clan, they are the leader of the chiefs, they have
a warrior clan, the people of war, Eagle clan, it's the projector of chiefs, Bear clan,
the sorcerers, police of tribe, Wolf clan, focused on safety and health of the community.
So I mean they have all sorts of clans that were responsible for different tasks in the
community.
We talked about that, and that was very interesting as well.
Just to learn more about that side of their culture.
So this session was great, we had a lot of lessons learned to just be aware of different
cultural differences in our community, since our community does have all these different
cultures in it.
It can be really helpful in my work in the WIC program as well, because I do work with
all sorts of different families from different cultures as well.
So it's helpful to build trust when you're working with families, building rapport.
Just having an idea of their background, and I mean, we're not going to know everything
about every culture and every person, but just understanding that everybody has differences
and being aware of that.
You know, first off, I got to say, you can just knock it out the park, that nice job.
Like that was great.
That was really good.
That was a couple of really good minutes of content.
We've only got about a minute or so left, but in that, I did want to touch on so many
of the things that you mentioned there, and not only how much that must be helpful in
your job, but I can't think of an industry where it couldn't be beneficial, and I can't
think of a life that wouldn't be benefited from it.
You know, when I first moved to this area, there weren't, and still isn't really a whole
lot of a Jewish population, and my mother and I are pretty much it.
And so in grade school and in high school, I should say, whenever Hanukkah came around,
I had to go up there and tell everybody what Hanukkah was.
I've been told over the years many times how much that is beneficial to people, whether
it's my Italian or my Egyptian heritage, sharing those things, not only, like, let's
people know more about those, but the thing that I hear from so many people is it helps
them think and appreciate their own culture, and in many ways, and want to look more into
that some ways too.
This is, all this helps create more empathy in our community too, in our society.
Empathy leads to understanding, which leads to a lot more, I think, conversation and just
interesting conversation.
All of that being said, this is very beneficial to your job in particular, and many are going
forward, I would think.
I can't think enough for all the notes you took on this, and the great details you gave
us on this.
And promise, this really speaks to why this program is so great and why so many people
out there are getting their people involved in it.
Yeah, I definitely agree.
I would myself am a graduate of this program, and I've found it to be very useful throughout
the years since I've been in it, and I love seeing how each group from year after
year is so diverse in there's different personalities, and they come together, and they work
on projects, and they make connections that way, and they grow their leadership skills,
and the connections that I made during my time, I still talk to those people and reach
out to them, and hey, what about this, what about that, and it's really great to feel
like you have a counterpart out there somewhere, even though they're not in the same office
as you.
Yeah, and regardless of how cultured you are or aren't, we all could learn more.
We all could have a little more empathy, and these classes will not only create some
of that, but as you mentioned there, and as we've talked about throughout this whole
conversation, is the other more opportunities for you to run into people, face-to-face conversations,
maybe make some new friends, along with business connections, and all of that.
Yeah, well, the great thing about this, I was teasing my boss, I said I wanted to take
it over again, because the accreditation with it now, so you get a college credit, and
it makes it more legitimate, and I want to be able to put that on my resume.
It's been a big thing at a mid-state about that.
And we encourage you, if you have any follow-up questions or want to know more, we encourage
you to go to the Chambers website, that is WisconsinRapidsChamber.com, WisconsinRapidsChamber.com.
Thank you both so much for being here, appreciate the time, and have a great day, you too.
Thanks, thank you.
Well, a more mid-day magazine coming up for you right here at 975 FM 1328, MWFHR.