One year, seventy episodes … wow
I’m not sure I can quite believe it. This podcast - my podcast! - has just passed its first anniversary. My friend Georgy, whose professional experience in what’s now apparently the audio industry means she Knows A Lot About Podcasts, says this is good going, as most pods fizzle out quite soon after launch. Like Victorian families having loads of children to increase the chance of one or two surviving, many, many podcasts are begun but few make it to the one-year mark. So allow me a moment of quiet satisfaction?
Thank you, too, because without you and the Hello You family, I might not have reached the first anniversary. Your encouragement, enthusiasm, support and kind words, in public and private, have helped more than I can tell you. And when you put all this together, it’s perhaps no surprise that my mental health - which was the prompt for the very first episode - is way better now than it was a year ago. I have you, and meds, and Hello You to thank for that. I explain more in this episode.
So, to celebrate, I took the entire production and presentation team of Hello You out for coffee and cake.
One coffee and one cake, because the team is … me. And my little recorder, and as of this week, my latest hi-tech visual aid: an A4 whiteboard.
Sophisticated, huh?
Incidentally, if you want to travel back in time twelve months and listen to how - and more importantly, why - I started Hello You, this one-minute clip will give you a taste:
… or you can listen to all of Hello You 1 - it’s only twelve minutes - here.
On a bench at Shirehall
Before we go on, can I just say that I’m proud of this episode for a number of reasons. For one, it’s Properly Local. Apologies if you’re one of the ten percent of listeners who are outside the UK, let alone Shropshire - it’s very exciting to have you listening, and I’m thrilled you’re part of the Hello You family, but you might need to Google some of the local places, streets and buildings mentioned in this episode.
Another reason is, this episode bears out my belief that everybody has a story to tell.
You’ll hear stories about:
purple-lidded bin wars
trying a café outside your ‘cluster’ (great idea, going to try some new places)
surviving a brain aneurysm - ‘I felt this ‘pop’ inside my head’
zombies in the Riverside
becoming an ‘is what it is’ person
beans on toast
and this very wise observation, which is one of the ideas that drives how I make Hello You: If you give someone time, you can find out what they’re about, rather than just presuming
So, why was I sitting on a bench outside Shropshire Council’s Shirehall, on Shrewsbury’s Abbey Foregate? Because as of today, the few remaining people who’ve been working there will henceforth be working from other council locations, or from home. Listen to the episode to find out why.
Now I’ve got a sign …
… I need some other places to take it.
The ‘bench’ is a very simple device. I sit on a bench, or at a table, somewhere, and record random conversations which whoever joins me.
Where else should I go to do this?
If you can think of somewhere in Shrewsbury or Shropshire there’ll be some people around who might stop to chat, let me know where it is? I’ll put it in the Hello You production diary, I’ll stroll along and we’ll see what happens.
Bench ideas, comments on this or other episodes, anniversary congratulations, suggestions for topics to talk about or people I should be listening to, and more are always welcome. Email me jimallthetime@gmail.com or you can comment or leave a message using these convenient buttons here:
Sharing is hairy. No, caring. Sharing is caring. That’s it.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, or even just this email, you probably know someone else who’ll enjoy it, too. Be a good friend to me and to them, and share Hello You?
Why not post a link to it in your WhatsApp chat group? Or on Facebook? Send it to a chum or a colleague, or maybe you can renew a bond with a family member by discussing it?
The Hello You Sunday Supplement
Let’s face it, social media’s pretty much turned to shit, and news organisations are flinging AI-generated headlines at us in an attempt to hijack our eyeballs for five seconds.
Oh, you hadn’t noticed?
This means it’s harder to find interesting stuff to read. But I can help!
Every Sunday morning I send out the Hello You Sunday Supplement. Look, here’s the one I sent last weekend. It’s a Sunday-brunch smorgasbord of links to articles that I think you’ll find interesting, inspiring, quirky, thought-provoking or just downright batshit crazy. And it arrives in time for you to enjoy it with your Sunday-morning special-roast coffee, rooibos tea, hair of the dog, whatever.
To make sure you don’t miss it, just subscribe to my Substack! Click here:
You get the added bonus of an email telling you when every new episode of the podcast is out, as well, along with any other random stuff I might feel led by the Spirit to lay upon you, brothers, sisters and non-binary members of the Hello You congregation.
Thank you …
… for being there, whether this is your first Hello You experience or you’ve been a stalwart devotee for the last twelve months.
Please hit the ‘Like’ or little-heart buttons at the top and bottom of this email. Rate and review the podcast wherever you find it (incidentally, I’m now getting way more listens than I used to from Apple Podcasts, so even if you get this podcast via another platform, if you could go there and do the liking, rating, reviewing and recommending thing I’d be a very happy bunny indeed).
And tell your friends. For all the algorithms, word-of-mouth is still the most powerful endorsement possible.
Take care of yourself. Take care of the people around you … and I hope that they are taking care of you, too.
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