Chapter two.
Erik Cargill:I'm Erik Cargill.
Rachel Elnar:And I'm Rachel Elnar. And this is Cheers and Tiers.
Erik Cargill:Design leadership tales retold.
Rachel Elnar:Erik, today's guest is a design force with a BFA in biocommunications, a master's in medical science, and deep expertise in Visual Cognition. Part strategist, part curator, she's a champion for the audience, translating complex ideas into clear, compelling design. With a sharp eye for brand systems, knowledge transfer, and problem solving, she leads her team to craft smart strategic solutions. An award winning designer, lecturer, and dedicated AIGA leader, she's always learning, always questioning, and always pushing design forward. Please welcome Christine Johnson.
Kristine Johnson:Thank you.
Erik Cargill:Hey. Welcome, Kristine.
Kristine Johnson:Welcome. Thank you.
Erik Cargill:Let's talk about AIGA chapters that you were involved with. I I do know that you were involved with AIG's AIGA Seattle, but I don't know if you were involved in other chapters and what role you played.
Kristine Johnson:Yeah, so I was originally just a member of the Chicago chapter. That's how I became a member of AIGA back in the the the late nineteen nineties and then when I moved to Seattle. I joined the Seattle chapter and then eventually joined the the board as the sponsorship director from 2009 to about 02/2014. And then I did serve on the national selection committee as the chair for the national selection committee.
Erik Cargill:So Rachel, I followed Kristine as the sponsorship
Kristine Johnson:Director.
Erik Cargill:Director.
Kristine Johnson:I handed her the spirit Yes.
Erik Cargill:Did. And I I don't know how well I did, but, you know, she, she left a lot of resources and was very available, but, her ability to ask people for money was legendary. And I don't I I don't remember the quote, Kristine, so please correct me. Was it was it 5,000? Was it 15,000?
Erik Cargill:Was it 50,000 that you raised in a week?
Kristine Johnson:I don't know if how what I raised in a week, but I just know that when I came in as a sponsorship director, was only about $350 in the bank. Okay. And and I think when I left it, there was, I think, over $85,000 of liquid capital to use for the chapter. And so I think probably in a week is probably more in like the $20,000 But it was on a routine enough basis that we got a program. I think it was going from no systems to not just a systems with a program running that supported events and was tied to event program design.
Kristine Johnson:That it was tied to the value that it was creating for the community.
Erik Cargill:Absolutely incredible. And, you know, did you have a background in doing that? Had you done that before? Or was this something that you just kind of grabbed and was like, I'm gonna take this and make something out of it?
Kristine Johnson:Oh, no, pure terrified. We'll
Erik Cargill:be
Kristine Johnson:transparent, pure terrified. No background in it, but I think what I had was great mentors, actually within the board itself, and I think great collaboration with peers, and I think a strong enough community of designers here in Seattle that would open the door for coffee. Coffee led to either a conversation to a referral, or did you know let me connect you to I know how you can, and I think it's working the network, but also, I think Jeff Barlow was pivotal in mentorship and, sitting down and, doing mock interviews, dry runs, let's regame plan, re whiteboard it if it didn't work. I think they, not just a perpetual cheerleader, but a collaborator in the process to enable, I think, happened from a chemistry within the community. Yes, I probably had to do a little bit more of what they call the elbow grease, but I would say the impact from the work came from the chemistry of the board itself, not just from me.
Kristine Johnson:I was just a conduit, actually.
Erik Cargill:And who are some of the other characters on the board, if you can if you remember?
Kristine Johnson:I do. I think everybody remembers almost their entire board. I it's like it's it's, it becomes tattooed on your bones. Like, you'll take it with you. You know exactly who they were.
Kristine Johnson:So we had Sean Bolan and Dave Peacock were our education directors. We had Kevin Berger, I think Aaron Schurtz were doing a program a couple other people on the board. And then we had Jeff Barlow, was president. And then we had, I think just a really great cast that was constantly coming in, for junior members. And we had, I think Becky Gelder was our volunteer coordinator.
Kristine Johnson:We just, we had a nice large, like not super large, like, you know, eight to 10 people, enough to make it feel fluid, enough for discourse, enough for shouldering responsibilities, but also enough to create trust.
Erik Cargill:All very, you know, well known names in the Seattle area.
Kristine Johnson:And all those that I didn't mention, there are there were many others on the board too, so Of course. Put those out there.
Erik Cargill:Did you go to any leadership retreats?
Kristine Johnson:You know, I was trying to think about that. You you you mentioned in the questions. I know I for for sure wanted to. The one that's the most memorable for me was Minneapolis. The Minneapolis retreat.
Kristine Johnson:It was a fantastic one.
Erik Cargill:Do you remember what year that was?
Kristine Johnson:2011 is would be my guess, if I'm remembering correctly.
Rachel Elnar:Yeah. Why was it so memorable?
Kristine Johnson:I think great question. Content. Number one, content. For sure. The content was impactful.
Kristine Johnson:It's a jam packed series of days, that's for sure, but I think the tools that it enables you as a board member to understand not just your role on the board, but what you have the ability to do, the connections you can make with other other chapters that are doing similar struggles, but also making things happen in a way you hadn't thought of, sharing of frameworks, where someone was able to do something successfully and had a breakthrough, picking that up through hallway talk over coffee, like grabbing a cocktail with people you've never met, sharing the stories of trials, tribulations, successes, wins, and insights. I think just also hearing what's happening in their community, how they're diversifying their programming to meet the needs, where they're experimenting. I think the level of experimentation. So that year, just the connection through the content and I think activation for what the power of AIGA, where, where rubber hits the road.
Rachel Elnar:And is there anything specific? Is there any one specific that you remember that you had alignment with that you were able to maybe collaborate with afterwards?
Kristine Johnson:I think we'll just all of the content. I do the Boston chapter and the Seattle chapter were really similar in scale, size, community, membership, demographics, demographics, health metrics. So basically all of the business case was so tightly aligned. What we ended up doing is their sponsorship director and their programming director had created an integrated system. We actually ended up having a lot of follow-up calls to share our materials, email them back and forth, going through the wikis, and kind of structuring our programs somewhat similarly in the sense of like learning from each other and adapting.
Kristine Johnson:And I would say that knowledge share across the coasts, but from sister cities and some sensibilities, really I think, exposed thinking on both sides. We were able to learn from some of their more creative that they were doing and, programming that they were doing and they, they I think learned from some of the more business style, programming we were doing. We're a lot of doing business basics. We're a city of a lot of independent freelancers back then and a lot of small business owners and so our programming was somewhat mixed with business skills and techniques and they hadn't quite done that. So I think we were sharing back and forth a lot.
Kristine Johnson:Yeah.
Rachel Elnar:That's great. Any specific ideas or programs or events that you either shared with them or that you were inspired by them?
Kristine Johnson:I think we definitely shared, I think, our Business Basics Breakfast Series. It was a breakfast series that we specifically did that was before work hours that showed how we pulled from some of the leaders at the Seattle Frog studio. David Sherwin came and talked, and had, been running a lecture series and I think we got some, poster, a poster series from them that we did and curated and kind of did more of that creative expression and like that dialogue and discourse around design as a discipline. So I think that's what I remember us taking away.
Erik Cargill:Yeah, I love that. And then one of the programs that Seattle was very well known for was the the Into the Woods program.
Rachel Elnar:Yes.
Erik Cargill:Was that was that started during your time on the board? Was that before you?
Kristine Johnson:It was before it. It was well before me, for sure. And it was called Design Camp. I do believe, in the day. It actually, Jeff Barlow would know the story, well before me, but it was originally gonna, it was originally on, the Olympic, Peninsula.
Kristine Johnson:These tiny little cabins, very rustic, very rustic. And so they did that for a couple of years but then they had to give up the name for obvious reasons, can't compete with the name. So they changed it into the woods and then it moved from the Olympic Peninsula to the Cascades and moved over to Sleeping Lady. And it had been at Sleeping Lady one or two times before I joined the board. And I think my name is associated with, I think, four cycles of Into the Woods.
Erik Cargill:And you weren't by chance in the cycle that got kicked out of Sleeping Lady, were you? Were you?
Kristine Johnson:Was not that that was the one before me and I was the one that was required to ensure that that did not happen. I got us back in good graces by making sure that we were peacefully and respectfully using the facilities. No mattress burning, but we
Erik Cargill:did have
Kristine Johnson:shenanigans, that's for sure. Healthy shenanigans.
Erik Cargill:Anything that you can share?
Kristine Johnson:Well, were a couple of people who did get lost in the woods and had to sleep overnight before poor people. What? And it's not that complicated of a place to get lost. But I think it was it's dark. It's darkly lit.
Kristine Johnson:The pool is in the woods, and it's a it's a beautiful pool with this, you know, hot tub and rocks and waterfall, and you're there very late.
Rachel Elnar:And maybe some drinking. Yes.
Kristine Johnson:And drinks are involved. Drinks may have been involved. Yeah.
Erik Cargill:May may have been may or may not have been involved.
Kristine Johnson:Correct. Was a classic AIGA event. Yes.
Rachel Elnar:There you go. Well, when
Erik Cargill:you say classic AIGA event, I've
Rachel Elnar:been to many, a few leadership retreats, but I've not been to Into the Woods. Is it structured like a leadership retreat? What is it like?
Kristine Johnson:Oh, it is not structured like a leadership retreat, actually. What it's structured like is we would pull on the five different disciplines from different perspectives. So industrial design, architecture, experience design, traditional graphic design, and some other, you know, any kind of other disciplines. What you would do is this, stitch together the philosophy of sharing process and methods to expand, your thinking around how you could apply different ideas to your work. So it's around expanding perspectives around commonalities, challenges, exploration, experimentation, methods.
Kristine Johnson:So five, three keynotes two lower tiered speakers. So five full time stage speakers for an hour presentation each, quite in-depth, very intimate, about 120 attendees. And then, mixed within that would also be during the day, hands on craft based experiences. Digital was not allowed, was Kauai's called Into the Woods Unplug, reconnect to your core, re engage the creative, experimentation, dialogue, discourse, and experimentation. But it was really around exposing thinking and expanding yourself.
Rachel Elnar:That sounds outstanding. Oh,
Erik Cargill:fantastic. I wish I'd never went to one. I wish I had. I wish I had. I know people traveled from all over the country to come to and I'm drawing a blank now.
Erik Cargill:Who were some of the speakers that you can remember?
Kristine Johnson:You bet, we had Rusty, he ran the oh it's the architecture studio in Georgia, the experimental one, I'll have to think of the the something studio, the You'd have to ask me questions I wasn't prepared for.
Rachel Elnar:We'll put it on the screen, the photo, once
Kristine Johnson:you remember. Had so many, it was so many amazing speakers. Had Michael Beirut came out. For sure.
Erik Cargill:That's what I was thinking of. How could I have forgotten his name?
Kristine Johnson:Yeah. We had, Gail, who was the designer, is the, was the designer for the magazine covers. We had an architect, from, Detroit that had, was revitalizing the city in a new way, so thinking about the intersectionality of people and place, and how you can create experimentation through architecture. So we just had so many delightful people. We also had Alison from the WB, She was a Foley artist, so she creates sound.
Kristine Johnson:She showed how she and she created the sound of the Batman cape in the original Batman movie. So she actually showed how you do that. She showed how you can use different materials for experimentation and be fearless. So we just have, I think, really lovely speakers.
Erik Cargill:I wish we had something like that again.
Kristine Johnson:I'm up for it. Put me to work, Erik.
Erik Cargill:Put you to work. All right. Careful what you ask for. You're also involved with a program called AIGA Link, which you know oddly does not have ties directly to AIGA that I'm aware of. Can you talk about that a little bit and what that's all about?
Kristine Johnson:Yeah, I'm happy to talk about the LINC program. I've been a longtime volunteer, and I am a chair of the leadership team this year. The LINQ program started thirty years ago, and what its vision was is to link working professionals with youth in need for creative workshops, nine workshops a year, and it was founded by board members of the AIJ Seattle chapter who had identified a need of their, of the community that was going through difficult times. It was a time there was a lot of gang shootings and some challenges in the high schools. They needed creative outlets, so they created, the workshops, to give them expressive opportunities outside of the art classroom and to connect them into channeling their thoughts and feelings through art.
Kristine Johnson:Over the years, we've been sponsored by the Coyne Family Foundation, which is, started Com Arts Magazine. Yeah. Which is connection and, has been a part of the, under the AIJ Seattle, chapter for a while. We are two different organizations, but we do, create the connection, between the two, and we get a lot of volunteers.
Erik Cargill:I stand corrected.
Kristine Johnson:It's okay. But we're we're celebrating our third year this year, and it's been amazing. Thousands of students, we give scholarships away, about 20 to $25,000 of scholarships per year. And our students have went on to be filmmakers and professional designers and architects and doctors. It's just incredible what they what they do.
Rachel Elnar:So inspiring.
Kristine Johnson:Yeah. And I think there's a there's an, a link program in San Diego that I think came and, shares simila similarities to the model in Seattle.
Rachel Elnar:Is Seattle being mainly the one that holds it?
Kristine Johnson:Seattle founded it, founded the concept of it, and I think then the San Diego chapter modeled afterwards. And I think that there is another chapter maybe, outside of Atlanta that had attempted to do a link. I hope they're still going strong. If they need any resources or any tips, call us. We're always happy to share programming.
Kristine Johnson:And I know through COVID, we did a cross share with the San Diego, chapter, for their LINC program to cross share.
Rachel Elnar:Oh, that's wonderful.
Kristine Johnson:Yeah, it's amazing. Well, what was your favorite memory of being on the board? Well,
Erik Cargill:thank you for asking. You're That's a great question. My
Kristine Johnson:Did you leave the bank account in the same state that I gave it to you? Eric, come on.
Erik Cargill:I I don't think so.
Kristine Johnson:Oh, no.
Erik Cargill:I I tried my best. Listen, it it was that that particular I I had no experience doing that and and and cold calling people was not something I was good at. Now, being on the board and beholden to people that I had a lot of respect for and an organization that I had a lot of respect for, I felt supported. And so I used it as a learning experience, know, and every time I failed it was like, yeah, okay, well that didn't work, let's try something else. I mean, remember sitting down with a potential sponsor and asking for a lot of money, and they they balked just right off the bat, just almost walked out.
Erik Cargill:And I was like, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Did I do wrong here?
Erik Cargill:Help me out. What did I do wrong? Turns out it was the group from Hemlock which you established that relationship. I did. You you established that relationship and had a good relationship and I just didn't know, you know, when it came to figures I didn't know what the figures were.
Erik Cargill:Anyway, that's not important. The important thing was I learned a skill that I didn't have. I felt supported and it was terrifying and good all at the same time. So cold calls don't scare me much anymore or especially asking for money. Oh, yeah.
Erik Cargill:It doesn't there were very creative ways of doing that you know there was definitely creative ways. Connections with people that was huge I mean my network just I I had been in design for fifteen years before I got involved in AIGA. I mean, I knew what AIGA was. I just didn't think I belonged. Turned out I was completely wrong about that too.
Erik Cargill:And so yeah.
Rachel Elnar:I have to say something about when we used to solicit for money sponsorship back then, we had a wealth of sponsors. You brought up Hemlock. We had a wealth of printers, great paper companies. I mean, we were, as designers, we were supported from many different sides. Now I feel a little bit, I don't know.
Rachel Elnar:I feel bad for people who are looking for money. There are large lots of large companies. The Squarespace, they sponsor everybody. I mean, where is the local community who supports graphic designers? I feel like it's hard for me to find them, or they're just not as visible as they used to be.
Kristine Johnson:Agreed.
Erik Cargill:Yeah. Even just ten years ago, there were there were a lot of studios in Seattle that would that wanted to support. You know, hey, how can we help? They were contacting me. How can we help?
Erik Cargill:How can we help? And, a lot of those are gone now.
Rachel Elnar:Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. I think bringing back the community will help again for visibility, get people out, get people talking, the sharing of information. Christine, like you were talking about Yeah.
Rachel Elnar:Into the woods. This type of thing does not exist for young designers. Emerging designers just don't have the access to the resources like we used to?
Kristine Johnson:I think you can, and I think there's this reimagining of what it is as well, because I think their community is different than our community was. It doesn't mean that they don't have a community. I think it's where is their community would be very interesting to ask. They are reimagining what community is, and I think AIGA has huge opportunities to tap into what that could be, and bring what AIGA does best, which is its network and teaching young people what the opportunity of a network is. It's not networking.
Kristine Johnson:That's the facilitation of actually utilizing your network. But what is a network? Why is it valuable? And how does it help you gain what you need? But also how do you contribute?
Kristine Johnson:There's this like, this level of contribution to other people's networks, I think, which is what AIGA taught me. AIGA taught me I have to give and I also receive, but that level of personal performance, you, you, it's self teaching and the, and what you are able to perturb to gain comes back tenfold. So I think that, AIGA has huge opportunities to to kind of leverage that skill, in a different, I think a different era where networks are in different spaces. We just have to shine a light and find where they're at.
Rachel Elnar:Right. Good point. Good point.
Kristine Johnson:Same for same for funding. What is what is sponsorship? Has to be redefined. It's not just
Erik Cargill:yeah. Yeah, yeah, and I think, know, you talked, if I misquote you, I'm sorry, you mentioned earlier about, you know, sponsorship was meant to go towards different events that were planned, and I know that when I was on the board, we had a lot of events monthly, you know, whereas yeah. And we had
Kristine Johnson:You did.
Erik Cargill:And we yeah. And we had We
Kristine Johnson:had a lot.
Erik Cargill:We we had a lot. And that was that was difficult to to schedule for because a lot of a lot of sponsors Yeah. Just wanted to sponsor a thing. It's like, hey. I just I just wanna be able to sponsor this thing and and just kind of show up with their table and then and then leave.
Kristine Johnson:Yeah. But maybe you maybe you guys were ahead of your time because now
Erik Cargill:Well, Kristine?
Kristine Johnson:You ran
Erik Cargill:out of I I have the link thing. I have aid to the woods. I have I have a question. So this is
Rachel Elnar:the one that Christine has been asking me about. Yeah. For me, being able to connect with someone after after the event is over, after the dinner, and really kind of dive into the whys and why people have joined and why they are part of leadership or why they're really interested in their community, has brought me a lot more deeper relationships, stronger networks. And I was wondering if there was any, situation or anybody, any relationship that you had that you formed based on those after programming events during leadership retreats or in the woods or whatnot?
Kristine Johnson:Probably so many that I can't quite them all, but I will give probably my first real nod to Terry Marks. Recruited me into the LINK program, obviously, that's why I'm there, but I think it was the creating a connection around purpose. And I think he does that better than literally anybody I've ever met, and it's amazing. If you know him, you know what that feels like. And I think there's this passion, purpose, place, and he was really great at connecting those three around a paradigm of where he saw you had the opportunity to be yourself and to show up and really making that feel rewarding.
Kristine Johnson:And so I think for me that those after events is where you could really, like you said, have that deeper connection on the why. Like why are we doing this? To grow a network potentially, to find connections that get you somewhere on a ladder potentially, to give back to the community, potentially, but I think it's actually the connection of purpose, passion, and place, that really, did it.
Rachel Elnar:The three P's. I love
Kristine Johnson:The three P's.
Rachel Elnar:Easy to remember. Yeah. That's is great.
Erik Cargill:Well put.
Kristine Johnson:Just Exactly.
Erik Cargill:I just wanted to add another p in there.
Kristine Johnson:You go. But how about for you? Is there any is there one that stands out? Rachel, I'm curious.
Rachel Elnar:For me, I spent some time with Alan Chochinov at after Denver. It was after a I don't know. A a gathering, a social gathering, and we ended up at a bar. I really got to know his work and why he started being masters at SVA, understanding a little bit more about his interest in the students and why they go above and beyond and really go deeper into, their studies there. And at the time, my late husband and I, we were teaching typography and he wanted to bring us out and teach his packaging students, you know, the the nature of of typography, the importance of typography as jumping out from the shelf.
Rachel Elnar:And so, yeah, it was a great it was a great connection. It never happened. But, yeah, it was just there's no way that I would have had that time to talk to him during a facilitated talk or anything during the day. So I love those times.
Kristine Johnson:Yeah. The human connection where everybody is on an equal playing field, you're there for the same purpose, and names, titles, they all just melt away. Nice. Yeah.
Rachel Elnar:Yeah, especially with a beer in hand. I mean, also.
Kristine Johnson:And food. So much food. Can never The food. The food. Lots of food.
Kristine Johnson:Always food and
Erik Cargill:Let's see. There weren't pyramids. There weren't human pyramids in Minneapolis. Yes there was. There were?
Kristine Johnson:Always. You couldn't walk down a single hallway that somebody wasn't in some form of pyramid taking photos. You'd come out of rooms and there'd just be like spontaneous ones all the time. I feel like everybody had a pin, some form like, there's these pins that oars were going around. Everybody's got a drawer full of those little button pins, pyramids.
Rachel Elnar:Are you part of any pyramids?
Kristine Johnson:I think everybody is. They just you will only you only admit to the few.
Rachel Elnar:Okay. Got it.
Kristine Johnson:You're gonna be you're gonna be captured in a a ton of them, I'm sure. Yeah. How about you guys? Pyramids?
Erik Cargill:Yeah. Most of them most of them I don't remember.
Kristine Johnson:That's true.
Erik Cargill:Most of them I don't remember, you know, but I have seen photographic proof, so, you know, you know, to your point, they were so spontaneous and so often. It was it was like, yes. I was in a pyramid. Couldn't tell you where. Couldn't tell you which one, but I was in it.
Rachel Elnar:But I love that energy. The fact that we're going to collaborate. We're gonna do something even if it's a little bit dangerous or in five seconds before we hit the top floor, do it in an elevator.
Erik Cargill:In an elevator.
Rachel Elnar:I mean, the fact that it was such teamwork and it happened so quickly was it's
Kristine Johnson:Does anybody know who invented the concept of it for AIGA?
Rachel Elnar:Yes. Oh, you In 2008 in Omaha, Lauren Langfitt from Minneapolis. She said, Let's do a pyramid. And it just went on from there. That's where it started.
Rachel Elnar:Wow. So much fun. Was
Kristine Johnson:so excited. They were. Yeah.
Rachel Elnar:And again, just the metaphor of the pyramid, the fact that you're doing it cross chapter with people who you don't know, and you just have instant trust and a moment captured together where you can go, oh, you were in that pyramid or we were in this you know, just these moments created definitely pyramids were definitely remembered, especially the
Erik Cargill:ones that I fall off the top of those.
Rachel Elnar:So, yeah, they were dangerous.
Erik Cargill:Yeah. Those bruises that you get from from yeah. From failed pyramids, for sure.
Rachel Elnar:They were worth it. They were definitely worth it, I think. Would not remember that.
Kristine Johnson:It was great talking to you, Thank And
Rachel Elnar:learning so much, especially about the LINC program. I'm very interested to know more. Is there any documentation online or anything that we can find out more about it?
Kristine Johnson:Yeah. You can go to the linkprogram.org and check out the website and see kind of the active programming that's going on. We just had a workshop this last Saturday where we did sculpture and made clay clay pots and clay materials, which was fantastic. But it is an active and thriving program, so definitely check it out.
Erik Cargill:Absolutely. We will.
Kristine Johnson:Thank you. Really appreciate it. You too.
Erik Cargill:Good luck with the clients.
Kristine Johnson:Oh, gosh. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
Erik Cargill:Good to see you, Kristine. Thank you.
Kristine Johnson:Bye.
Erik Cargill:I will I will say, I you know, she's she's one of those people that I, I very much admire, and and she you know, what she does is very inspiring. I found myself, you know, with some stars in my eyes. I was kinda like, oh, I'm nervous.
Kristine Johnson:Really?
Erik Cargill:I'm nervous talking to Kristine.
Rachel Elnar:She is definitely a powerhouse.
Erik Cargill:You can tell just the way she presents herself. Yeah.
Rachel Elnar:In fact that she brought in that money, that was wonderful. And the fact that she continues to still do things for the community, I think, is quite admirable.
Erik Cargill:Very.
Kristine Johnson:Yeah.
Erik Cargill:Very.
Rachel Elnar:Cheers and Tiers. We'll be back next time with more design leadership tales retold.
Erik Cargill:Please subscribe, rate, review, and share this podcast with your creative community, design leaders, and friends.
Rachel Elnar:Cheers and Tiers Design Leadership Tales Retold is a production of chapter two and hosted by us, Rachel Elnar and Erik Cargill. This episode was produced and edited by Rachel Elnar. Podcast graphics by Erik Cargill. Animation by Verso Design and Megatoe Design.
Erik Cargill:The theme music track is Loose Ends by Silver Ships Plastic Oceans. Follow Cheers and Tiers on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube podcasts, or wherever you get your audio and video podcasts. Subscribe to our email list at cheers and tiers dot com so you don't miss an episode.