Off the CUPF: Community Use of Public Facilities

Opening Day, the Rush, the Reservation, and the Community Buzz!!

• Derek Ross and Emily Brewster-McCarthy • Season 2 • Episode 8

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0:00 | 20:22

We're back with another conversation regarding Opening Day Reservations!! In this episode, Communications and Outreach Specialist, Derek Ross and Community Relations & Special Projects, Emily Brewster-McCarthy will be joined by Operations Analyst, Heather Fine. Listen as Heather explains the role of Core Services and the Priority and High-Volume Processes.  Are you ready for Monday, May 4th? Here's a friendly reminder, opening day to reserve Auditoriums and Indoor School facilities is coming up soon. Of course, we can't forget about Government Building Meeting Rooms. Click to Learn more about our upcoming reservation dates. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast!

A transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2420072/19035136-opening-day-the-rush-the-reservation-and-the-community-buzz/transcript

Connect with Off the CUPF

Thanks for listening!!

Welcome To Off The Cuff

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Welcome to Off the Cup, a community use of public facilities podcast, a 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 Cup. Emily, are you ready to get started? Absolutely, I'm ready to get started. You stop by Mambo? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm ready to Mambo. Well, well, well, here we are. Here we are, back again with Off the CUPF Community Use of Public Facilities. And you know what? You know, I feel like I'm just getting straight into it. Emily, I'm feeling good. But how are you doing, Emily?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

I'm feeling great. I'm feeling great. I'm actually really excited because we have a special guest. We do have a special guest. We do, we do.

Derek Ross

We're gonna act like the special guest is not in the room with us. We're just gonna act like that. But we are actually on site at Wheaton.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, we're at headquarters today.

Highs And Lows Warm Up

Derek Ross

Where heck goes, HQ? Is that what it's like? HQ sound sound a professional trying to sound government. But yeah, HQ, HQ. But did you want to go into highs and lows?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, so uh I'll I'll uh introduce our special guest uh in a little bit, but for now I'm gonna do hi. My highs is you know, I'm feeling great today. Okay, when is it? When am I not feeling great? I was about to say you always say that.

Derek Ross

You always say that.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

My low, actually, I do have a low today. Uh before coming in, uh I had to fill up my tank, uh, my my gas tank. And that was uh, you know, it's a little pricey.

Derek Ross

A little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Yeah, I don't I don't even want to think about that. I don't even want to think about that. Uh well, I don't even know if I want to even talk about the gas portion of it because quite honestly, we're here, so we gotta have to get here somehow. Using not unless we you know ride our bikes and stuff like that. But highs and lows, I'm okay. I'm okay. It's been a lot going on personally, but you know what? I'm not gonna get too deep into it, but it's been a lot of reflection, a lot of moments, a lot of stuff like that. But the entertainment that comes from being here and enjoying this CUPF atmosphere, community use public facilities, just throwing that out there again, just to let you know that. But just to let you know that everything is cool, highs and lows, lows, uh, you know, really can't say highs, really don't know. But jokingly, everything is cool. You know, the weather's getting better, everything's fine, I'm feeling good. We do have a special guest, and I think that that's what makes it so unique is when we have guests. CUPF guests. Yes. All the guests, every guest, but yes, but Emily, let's let's let's stop. Let's get into it.

Meet Heather And Her Mindset

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

So I'm gonna do an intro to her and then she can go ahead and do her highs and lows. But today we have a subject matter expert, team leader, OG CUPF staff, Heather. Congratulations and joining us on this podcast. Welcome. We're so happy to have you here. Um, we would love to hear your highs and lows.

Heather Fine

Hi, thank you guys. I'm happy to be here. Um, so I have a lot, right? Uh, but I kind of want to touch on a high based off of what Derek said, right? By not knowing and then everything like that. Um I live my life in a state of being on a high because I like to remind myself when things get tough, somebody wishes they had the problems that you do. Right. So um that's where I stay. That's why I keep staying in like a high moment because somebody wishes they were in that spot that you're finding difficult. Um my low is that I just got back from family vacation. And you wish you were still leave. And I wish I had saved the leave. No, I'm just kidding. Uh I came back to a lot of work and a lot of a lot of moving parts, but I'm I'm happy to be here. So I guess that would be my low, is that I came back to a lot, but that's okay.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Okay, so we have you here, right? Uh, and we brought you on to talk about some something really exciting that's coming up, right? On May 4th. Um, we have our opening day of uh auditoriums and indoor spaces for school facilities for the summer, starting at the end of the school year, to make that clear, um, and government buildings uh from July 1st to December 31st. Um, Heather, you have some experience with auditoriums. Could you share a little bit about some of the things that our customers may need to know regarding preparing for their reservation? Uh and we came up with something called BYOS. Maybe you want to talk a little bit about that. Um, the mic is yours.

Planning Without Walkthroughs

Heather Fine

Thanks, Emily. So uh the auditoriums are opening for dates of use during the next school year, right? Um so you'll have plenty of time to get those requests in. That's gonna be anywhere from September through June of next year, right? So anytime during the school year, you can go ahead and submit those requests at that point. Um I would encourage everybody to remember that our walkthroughs were discontinued in October of 2024 at School Spaces, and that was out of an abundance of caution for the safety and security of staff, students, and our user groups, right? So we no longer host those walkthroughs, but what CUPF has really been doing is improving our internal resources to help customers plan. So that's gonna be our 360 tours that are on our website that we're still looking to update and getting those ready to go. We're also collecting all of our information as far as like what kind of equipment is available and how much of that equipment is available at the different locations. And then I've also been really successful in partnering with MCPS to get seating charts. That's one of the biggest things our groups are asking for is seating charts for those spaces. So we're trying to supplement the best way that we can. Um, BYOS, right? Bring your own supplies. So we just ask that you keep in mind that while these auditoriums are wonderful event spaces and the staff that works at these events are incredible, they are limited in what kind of equipment is available in the space because they are public schools. So if you're looking to have really technical, uh a really technical show with special lighting or sound or things like that, you may need to supplement with your own. So bring your own supplies. So part of that is when we reach out and start communicating about your event, just let us know what you're envisioning fully so that we can help point you in the right direction.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Woof, did you just hear that? That is a wealth of knowledge and information.

Derek Ross

Why are we here? Yeah, right.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Heather, this is your show now. I love this. I like that. I like that. So this is exactly uh the the type of um, what do I want to say, the type of representation that we want on our podcast, right? We want we want you guys, our listeners, to hear from our staff directly and the experts uh in this subject matter. And we have Heather, which is uh we literally come to Heather for so many things. She's so helpful. Um, we have so many staff uh on board here at headquarters and over um in Silver Spring as well that are so dedicated to our customers uh and just doing the best customer service and quality assurance uh that we can. Um and actually, I think we have a little did you know that Heather is going to uh uh share with us. Um we want to give her a little bit of a spotlight uh in a little bit. But Derek, is there anything that you would like to share with us? I don't want to lose you in the past of me and Heather talking.

Derek Ross

Well, I'm here singing in the background. Uh I'm here. Um I I think what's uh I like about it the most is that as we get the chance to sit here with Heather, I realize that I don't really use AI. I just talk to Heather.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Oh yeah. Uh that's it. Heather is our AI AI expert.

BYOS For Sound And Lights

Derek Ross

We don't we don't need to do all of that stuff. We just call Heather, we talk to core services, we just make sure we get all the information going. So what we're trying to tell you is that now that we have Heather here, you know, go ahead and listen. It's cool. We're listening, we're enjoying this, we're enjoying this. So we we I'm I'm gonna step back. I'm gonna step back because Heather, this is you, this is your show.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

All right, so Heather, did you want to do your did you know? And you know what I would love is if you could do it in your customer service voice. Because you know how we love doing that on our show. I need you guys to close your eyes though. All right, ready? All right, we're closing. Don't look at me. We're closing your eyes right now, though. We're not looking.

Heather Fine

Did you know? Every CUPF reservation is carefully reviewed by a staff person for adherence to the facility use license agreement or FULA, and to ensure that proper accommodations can be met. Our team can be reached at any time by phone 240-777-2725 or by email at CUPF at Montgomery County MD.gov.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

And that, folks, was Heather, and this is why she does what she does, because that was great. That was perfect. I love that. This is exactly what our team is about.

Derek Ross

So I'm actually a little upset. You mean to tell me Heather's had this talent the whole time? The whole time. And now we well, we got it today. We got it today.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Amen.

Derek Ross

Okay, okay. Heather, you you didn't okay, Heather. We got it now. We got it now. We done figured you out. We done figured it out. Community, we have Heather here. And Heather's doing an amazing job. And just to let you know, this is episode eight. We're trying to get into it. This is the title is opening day the rush, the reservations, and the community buzz. And why not not have one of the most knowledgeable people here? Absolutely. We have a lot of people at CUPF that are knowledgeable about tons of stuff, but we just so happen to have Heather with us today.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, so I mean, we're gonna break it down. We gave uh our listeners a lot of information just now. So, you know, we'll we'll go back to kind of like the light uh part of our podcast to just kind of share and get to know a little bit because we know that that's important to you guys to see us as the actual humans behind and the faces behind the work that we do. So uh let's let's talk a little bit about what else is going on at CUPF. Uh we have some other stuff that's upcoming. Uh we have some more opening days, and we'll make sure that we get some other folks on here to talk about those things. But now that we have um the expert on uh on auditoriums here, uh, and um actually she's one of our team leads, which we're really proud of her and we're excited uh that we have somebody like Heather on our team. We have a lot more people that are just as committed and have just as much information. Um and so just call us, like Heather uh mentioned in the Did You Know that she just did, which was amazing.

Derek Ross

Amazing.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Um, and email us. And we do take walk-ins uh still to our headquarters office. So if you have a question, you can walk into our office right now. Um and yeah, we'll we'll see where that uh where that will take you and where that will lead you.

Derek Ross

Absolutely.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Um is there anything else that we wanted to talk about in terms of auditoriums? Anything important or anything important about the upcoming reservation day?

Did You Know Your Reservation Is Reviewed

Derek Ross

Well, I know the upcoming reservation day, but we were just gonna just we should just rapid fire Heather. Just throw with six stuff out there. Just just whatever we come up with, but I noticed something that I asked before, and Heather, I know we've talked about it, but this whole FULA stuff, this whole guide book, and that's f what facility use license agreement stuff. Can't can't is it do do we need to know more about that? Is that important for the community to know, Heather? Can can you explain that a little bit?

Heather Fine

So the facility use license agreement or FULA is a separate document from the user guidebook, but they work hand in hand. Um our user guidebook tells you all of the do's and do-nots that we have learned for community use in spaces, right? Where our FULA is the legal governing document. So everything's kind of written in what I like to call legally. We are government, so it has to be in writing or it just doesn't exist. Um both of these documents are mentioned in all reservation applications and submissions. As I have read and agreed to, there's a checkbox on the reservations. And you can click on that, it'll take you to the documents so that you can read through them. And then if you have any questions about them, you can always give our office a call. We're more than happy to help to explain what you can and can't do in these spaces. We love community use, it's uh it's what we do. We want you to utilize these spaces, we want the community to be using them. So we want to help facilitate that use in the best way possible. And if that means that we have to spend an afternoon discussing wonderful legalese with you, we're down, right?

FULA And The User Guidebook

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

And this is exactly what we mean when we have a dedicated uh staff and team of people at our office that are willing to uh walk you through this entire process to make sure that you get the proper uh way and use of community use facil uh of public facilities. Um and yeah, just reach out to us, please. We're good people, we have fun, we help. We help our customers out, and we really uh we're about equity, right? We're about making sure that these spaces are available and accessible. Um so yes, like what Heather was saying and Absolutely, absolutely Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Derek Ross

Hit us up. I'm I'm uh you know what? What I mean, while we're here and we're talking about, I mean, there's really too much. I mean, we have the auditoriums. Um, Heather, opportunity. If did you want to say anything about indoor school facilities as well? Are you good with that?

Heather Fine

Or should we so with using indoor school facilities, we've highlighted I I am a longtime listener to the podcast. So I will say okay, yes. We love a fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you want it now. Um a lot of ideas with what to use in the spaces, but there's also a lot of uh already established ideas of what to use, and there's still space for those to happen. So uh not only auditoriums, but I also oversee the high volume processing for the core services. So that's gonna be our large groups like our sports leagues or our weekly um religion assembly cultural groups that come in, either doing uh classes or you know, having their assemblies like church services and things like that. And there's still space for those kinds of programs to grow. So if you're interested in starting um to get into the high volume process and become either a league or a cultural school or perhaps a church in these spaces, we're here to help. We want to get you in, we want to get you scheduled, and we want to help make those dreams for you as successful as possible. So uh there's a lot, right? Like um, if you can think about it, we can figure out a way to make it happen. That's pretty much uh what I'm saying.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Okay, you guys heard it here first. Yeah, I'm about to say that. You know, basically, if you have an idea, you might as well call us to see if we can accommodate you, and we will try to accommodate you the best way that we can. Absolutely. Um as long as it follows the guidebook and the fool.

Indoor Facilities And High Volume Groups

Heather Fine

And we're wonderful about referring you to places that can help if it's something that we can't do. So there's a lot of knowledgeable people, core services. I'm gonna keep shouting them out because that's my those are my people, right? Um you know, they're wonderful and dedicated to what they do and and they love our customers, they love our community. So we will definitely help you however we can. Um and even if that means we can't see it from start to finish, like we're gonna help make sure that you get to where you need to be.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yes, and you know what? You couldn't have said it any better. I think this is exactly what we do here at CUPF. And we have first hand account here from Heather, who is one of the team leads on our on in the core staff, like on the core team.

Derek Ross

Um and if we wanted to, you know what, Emily, I'm gonna take this time to throw throw flowers. And if anybody doesn't know what throwing flowers means, just giving appreciation, you know, showing some appreciation. Heather has been out there doing outreach with us too.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

She has.

Derek Ross

Heather has done a lot of things. Matter of fact, I don't know what Heather doesn't do because she's been so much involved with CUPF that it's kind of impressive because we've been able to do a lot. And I wanted to tell you, Heather, thank you. I appreciate you. Appreciate you being out there. We sat out there in the sun listening to music while we're doing outreach under the tent. While I'm saying the sun because the sun was out that day, you know, but it was hot, but we we made it work. Put it like that. And being out there with Heather, being out there with Emily is always a great opportunity from communications and outreach, right here in Wheaton, Maryland. I can't remember. What was it for? TGI Friday or whatever.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

I think it was one of the events, the concert event series.

Derek Ross

Wow, I felt like that was long ago. Uh, anyway, but you know, they're coming up again. But yes, so thank you, Heather. Thank you so much for all that you do. If I don't say it enough, because I mean we see each other, but if I don't say it enough, thank you.

Heather Fine

Oh man, you're gonna give me way too much of an ego boost. This is what we're careful. I'd be unreasonable for the rest of the day, Derek. Take it, take it, absorb it. Don't tell me nothing.

Derek Ross

Take it, absorb it. It's yours, it's yours. We we gotta show credit. Gotta give love, gotta give love.

Team Shoutouts Outreach And Closing

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Yeah, I will I will second that, third that, fourth that, and fifth that. Uh, we love you. You're wonderful. Uh we always uh come to you as a subject matter expert. Um, this is something, and this is not to say that like obviously Heather cannot get every call, right? Um, and we have other staff, but internally, like we know who to go to. And this is this is our girl. This is a whole Renaissance woman here, and we love every second that we get to uh spend with her and that we get to work with her uh and the rest of our team. So please reach out um whenever you have any event that you want to plan, if you want to use a space, whether that's an auditorium, classroom, like uh um APR, gym, outdoor facility, court, parking lot, whatever you want. Reach out to us, uh, even if you just have an idea, and we might be able to walk you through uh the best place uh to permit to run your event and make it a huge success.

Derek Ross

Absolutely. Um Emily, you want to tell the listeners who who are they listening to?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Oh, you are listening to Off the CUPF, a Community Use Podcast. And please like and subscribe. Like, of course. And I had to say that because my daughter will yell at me if I don't say it every episode. So like and subscribe, you guys.

Derek Ross

Yep, they're gonna let us know. They're gonna let us know. I mean, looking at the time, I I just want to keep Heather here forever, but you know, we are technically working. You know, I guess I guess we're working, we're doing things. And Heather, thank you for taking the time to join the podcast with us, too. I know you appreciate that. Heather's busy. So the fact that we were able to get Heather here, that's how you big it up. Heather, Heather's so busy. She is we were able to finally get we've been trying to get Heather on here for like eight years. No, no, no, no. Not eight years, not at all. Eight hundred years, but thank you, Heather. Heather, Heather, we would like to close it out, but would you like to say anything?

Heather Fine

Well, thank you guys for having me. I like I said, I'm a longtime listener, so I've been lurking and listening. Uh I'm happy to be here. Um, I'd love to come back whenever you're ready. Um, I said it. I said it. Um and I do again want to give a shout out to core services staff because I think I think they're the kind of unsung heroes in a large part of what we do here. And I think that they're wonderful and they they deserve all the accolades as well. Um they make my job as a team lead very easy. Um, and I hope that I at least try to make theirs easy. So thank you to core services all the way from management down, everybody. You know, it's a team effort and they do a wonderful job.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Thanks, Core Services.

Derek Ross

We love you guys. Core services. Getting a shout-out from Heather. Yes, Emily, how how how are we closing? Do you gonna you got some words or anything like that?

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Or I think we're good. Honestly, I think this is one of these episodes where you know we have some really good information. I think the listeners, obviously, you guys are hearing us, and I think this is just where we wrap up. Yeah, we're gonna do that. I think this is good. We have some new episodes coming forth. Please look forward to that. Uh yeah, what else do we got going on?

Derek Ross

I'll probably say what the outreach stuff. Like when we talk about outreach, what is it, Taste of Wheaton? Yeah, we have a couple events coming up.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

You guys will see us out and about. Uh, and then we have another episode coming up uh that's going to surround Wheaton facilities.

Derek Ross

Of course, of course.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

So we'll talk a little bit more about that the next time.

Derek Ross

But for now, for now, I think we're good. Yeah. I I got I got nothing. We had Heather on here, we got the information. I think we're good to go. I think that's a wrap.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

That is a wrap.

Derek Ross

All right then. Thank you, everybody.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Thank you guys. We'll see you guys next time.

Announcer

Bye.

Emily Brewster-McCarthy

Bye.

Announcer

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