A Mountain YMCA With Big Energy

A place can change you when it removes the noise and gives you something real to pay attention to. That’s why our conversation with Greg Hall at YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly stuck with us: he’s building conference and retreat experiences that feel less like “another event” and more like a reset for your brain and your relationships.

Greg shares his journey from growing up in northern Kentucky to becoming Vice President of Mission Impact at this international YMCA leadership development conference center in Black Mountain, NC. We talk about what it takes to make a group gathering truly memorable: mountain views that actually get used, facilitators who know how to spark connection, and intentional choices like having no televisions on campus. If you’ve ever planned a retreat, searched for a meeting venue in Western North Carolina, or wondered why some conferences feel transformative while others feel forgettable, you’ll hear practical ideas you can steal.

We also get into the heart of what Blue Ridge Assembly does year-round: hosting tens of thousands of students for outdoor education and team building. Greg explains programs on stream ecology, watershed management, erosion, communication, and resilience, plus confidence-building challenges like ropes courses and towers. Then we zoom out to the bigger community picture: how guests explore Black Mountain and Swannanoa, how bus schedules and small-town infrastructure collide in the summer, and why local conference centers like Montreat and Ridgecrest collaborate instead of competing.

If you care about leadership, outdoor learning, nonprofit work, or travel with purpose, hit play and come hang out with us. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a mountain reset, and leave a review. What would you want most from a retreat: quiet, challenge, or community?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Greg Hall.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yes, ma'am. Talk to me, Cheryl.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly. I just learned recently that the YMCA goes at the beginning of Blue Ridge Assembly, not at the end. I am really glad you're here today. But the reason not but I the reason I asked you is um I finally found someone who can match my energy. That's pretty rare. It's hard to find.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Got buckets of it.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

I know, and I love it. Um you and I are in rotary together, and so we meet every Wednesday morning at 11:30 to 1-ish. I don't know. Kind of changes, but it's approximately then. And let's see. Tell me what your story is and where you're from.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Sure. Boy, it's a great use of this three-hour podcaster. Sure. Uh but really I'm I've been a YMCA kid since I was a teenager. Uh, I lucked into a program director when I was about 11 or 12, who pulled me aside after day camp and asked me if I wanted to keep coming to the Y after summer camp. And I didn't have a lot of options. Never left. Sure. And so I joined a program called the Leaders Club Program, which was a volunteer teen development piece, basically free labor for the YMCA. And I grew up in this little small Y teaching gymnastics, teaching swim lessons, teaching judo, refereeing soccer, basketball, working at the front desk and handing out towels and basketballs, you name it. We did it. The YMCA at that time in this small town in Kentucky had three employees. All right, wait. So stop. Yes.

Northern Kentucky Roots And The Y

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I didn't ask your resume. I said, where are you from? So you're from Kentucky.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

From Kentucky. What part? Yes, northern Kentucky. What town?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

It's teeny tiny, but tell me.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Teeny Tiny Florence, Kentucky, whose claim to fame is the Florence Yall Water Tower. Okay. Everybody who's driven through Cincinnati has seen this. If you That's where I thought it was. If you fly into Cincinnati, you fly into property that my parents used to have.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

That's cool. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

So the Cincinnati airport is in northern Kentucky. Okay. That's where I'm from, Northern Kentucky.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah. So does Kentucky get the tax dollars, or does Cincinnati get the tax dollars?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yeah, no, Kentucky. That's good. Yeah, it's pretty great.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

That's good. That's the way the uh Chattanooga airport in Georgia was supposed to be. Anyway, I don't know how all that works, but anyway, and that wasn't the point. So so you grew up there. Yep. Were you raised by wolves? Did you have parents? What's the story?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

No, I'm pretty typical. I had a uh a loving set of parents, an older brother and sister that I couldn't stand, just like everybody. Sure. And so it was great. I grew up uh really in a small town in Kentucky, but across the river from Cincinnati. So I got the joy of following the Cincinnati Reds and the Cincinnati Bengals and eating skyline chili, but still really in northern.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Do you like it?

SPEAKER_01 3:18

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Okay. I'm from Atlanta and the varsity is there. Varsity. And the varsity is most people who didn't grow up there are like, ew. So I think sky, yeah, what do you have? What do you have? And I feel like Skyline Chili is your varsity. Like you grew up with it, so it was good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I I'll I'll yield that to you. That's true. I disagree, uh, but I'll yield to your point of view. I think the frosted O and onion rings at the varsity is a unique experience. FO is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

The FO is your fries better than the onion rings, but I don't like onion, I don't like onions.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So But a Skyline Chili is a unique Cincinnati thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Uh thing. Yeah. And there's a whole bunch of them.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Because onion rings are onion rings, and you know, chili dog is a chili dog, but skyline chili with the cheddar cheese and the onions and the beans and the spaghetti.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

The spaghetti is the part that I and I don't know why. That's rude. That's rude for me to go. Wait, the chocolate?

unknown 4:12

I get it.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

There's chocolate. Yeah. In it or on it, or what?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

There's cinnamon, chocolate. It's all sorts of secret ingredients based upon family.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Okay. That's interesting. I did not know all of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

See, my resume is much more interesting than Cincinnati Chili. No, it's not. It's not. I know. As soon as I said that, I was wrong.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Okay. So you've always worked for the Y forever. You've never had any other job.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, great question. The short answer is that's not true. I did step aside from the Y and become a consultant back to the Y.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Okay. So you checked from them, but not adjacent.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

It was adjacent. I traveled to all 50 states over the span of about eight years.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah. Been to all 50 states thanks to a little leadership consulting gig I did.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

That's really cool. And then where where was the last state? Was the last one you got to go to? Not most recent, but the last of the 50.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Oh, the last one I flew into was North Dakota.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

So you went to like Alaska and Hawaii before you went to North Dakota.

unknown 5:14

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah. It wasn't by choice. It's it's when the Y asked me to come, and so that's when I said yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Okay. So you moved here. You moved here with the Y from where la where did you live before here?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Charlotte.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Okay. So that's not a big move.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

It was it was a huge move, if you ask me, from the We can mute this for people that live in Charlotte, right? Because I wasn't a big fan of Charlotte. Love the Charlotte Y and I love some people, but Charlotte was a very good thing.

Mission Impact At Blue Ridge Assembly

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Well, I'm from Atlanta. It's the same thing. I'm I'm thrilled to not be in Atlanta. So I get that. But but I loved Atlanta when it was a kid. It was cool. Then now it's a whole different game. But anyway, focus. Sorry. Come on. Reel it back in, Cheryl. Okay. So here's the question.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

All this for our question.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Well, no. But you moved here. Tell me what you do. What is your job at YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Well, YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly being an international YMCA leadership development conference center. We host or or play host to conferences year-round. And my job as the vice president of Mission Impact is to do what I can and my team can to ensure that their experiences on the mountain are value added for whatever that means. So for example, you could go to a ukulele convention anywhere, right? You could go to Vegas or Miami for a ukulele convention. We try to make sure that if you come to Blue Ridge Assembly for your ukulele convention, what do we bring that maybe Miami doesn't or maybe Las Vegas doesn't? Things like we have a fantastic view of the Swannanoa Valley off our main hall, Eureka Hall. So we want to make sure we incorporate that into the conference. I have a very talented team of outdoor educators and challenge course and ropes course and group facilitators and communication specialists. So perhaps we interact with some of your sessions to make the experience a little bit better. And so we we don't have any televisions at Blue Ridge Assembly. If it were up to me, we wouldn't have Wi-Fi at Blue Ridge Assembly, but that might be a deal killer. But we don't have the distractions that you would have if you go to Vegas or Miami or any city for a conference. So my job as VP of Mission Impact is to add all those things into the adult conferences. But we also serve about 30,000 school kids throughout the year from Florida, from Charlotte, from Asheville, from you name it. And we try to add value to their daily program. So we're teaching them about stream ecology. We are teaching them now about watershed management and erosion. We're teaching them communication skills and mental health skills. We work a lot on the resilience side, not on the trauma side. Gotcha. So we focus pretty much on bringing an eighth grader or a high school senior from Raleigh who's maybe never seen a salamander in a creek, and we talk to them about the ecosystem that they're living in. That's cool. But then we may also put them, you know, 60 feet up in the air on an alpine tower or an Odyssey course and let them test, test their self-esteem and confidence and teamwork.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I just talked to somebody that you inner that you hired recently who's super excited about his new job. Great. And I see he was telling me all the things and he was super excited. He's not an overly uh outgoing guy, but he is so excited and he's like regurgitating all the cool stuff you have there. He was so excited about it. It's pretty cool. And he mentioned a ropes course.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah, I have a pretty good job. I was at a uh fundraiser this weekend and somebody was lamenting about their job and they had uh had to work on some spreadsheets and get them in under a deadline. And and they said, you know, you ever just have one of those kind of weeks? And I had to say, Yeah, I led three three mile hikes and I got to shoot a bow and arrow.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

That's right, rough week.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

So yeah, I'll take my job.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

You'll take your job. Yes. I feel sorry for people who don't love their job. I do, I really do. Well, but anyway, he mentioned the ropes car course, and I said, So, Jared, you're gonna get me on that ropes course. And he said, You probably ought to ask Mr. Greg because I don't know what the rules are yet. So, anyway, but he's super excited about it. And I did go to a conference there before I was uh working at the chamber. Yeah. And had really good food.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, you know, surprisingly, uh feeding for a thousand people, which is what our capacity is, it's it's surprisingly camp-like when it needs to be camp like. When we're serving 800 high school kids, sure, it's a whole lot of chicken tenders and and camping. We had really good food, though. But we we host the YMCA Hall of Fame event every year. And so these are folks who have dedicated their entire career of serving others. And so we induct four or five people into this Hall of Fame every year, and we do a white tablecloth dinner. Same kitchen, same cooks, but we do, you know, fillets and salmon and all the great things. I'm like, I'm not sure. But then we also have Taco Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Every Tuesday. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

I also have a friend, he's my mentor, my hero, uh, in Georgia. And he said, Oh, you're moving to Black Mountain, North Carolina. I said, Yes, sir. He said, I've been there when I was a kid. I went to FCA camp at Blue Ridge Assembly, and he said, My claim to fame is I got in trouble for playing cards and I had and I got caught by Tom Landry. Tom Landry caught me playing cards instead of being at chapel. And I had to go to chapel and sit next to him on the front row for the rest of camp. And he said, Don't throw me in that briar patch. He said, I had to sit with Tom Landry for a week. He's like, This is awesome. So anyway, but I that's that's the only thing I'd heard of Blue Ridge Assembly before I got here was about FCA camp being there. But then when I went and saw all the signs and all the the history on the walls in the I guess it was in the cafeteria I read about it, but anyway, that was really cool too.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, it's pretty neat. You think you mentioned Atlanta, you know, during the 60s, the Atlanta Falcons had their training camp at Blue Ridge Assembly. Billy Graham, of course, has a strong and long connection. There's so many little tidbits of famous stuff that's really great. You know, Sandra Bullock and 28 Days and all that stuff is really cool. But so is reading a comment card from an eight an eighth grade kid from Raleigh last week who said that they've never climbed up a ladder and they got, you know, they got all the way to the top of the Alpine Tower. So is a kid that, you know, comes to us with X, Y, or Z and after two days of programming with my team, says something opposite. That's really cool. Or an adult that says, Hey, I really enjoyed just sitting by the stream for a couple hours. I hadn't done that in years. So all that stuff is great. Yeah. I mean, the Sandra Bullock stuff and yeah, the Tom Landry and and all the great names, but well, you can add Parnick Jennings Jr.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

to that list, right? Parnick got caught by Tom Landry. So there you go. Um I don't know if I want to know the guy if he's a troublemaker like that. Oh, he is a troublemaker, but a good kind. He's like us.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

He's super awesome.

Visitors Heading Into Black Mountain

SPEAKER_00 12:38

I don't know that I would ever say he's pretty awesome. I like him. Okay, so normally all we talk about on this podcast is living here, working here, visiting here. Okay. So we've talked about working here. Okay. Do what do visitors to the Blue Ridge Assembly, you provide food, you provide shelter, do they ever come to Black Mountain or Swannanoa and do anything outside of your campus? What do they do?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Well, with you know, we have so many different kinds of conferences. There are those that will come to Blue Ridge, they will drive up our up road, they will park their car, and they are self-contained for the period of their stay. Those happen. We have a fair number, like Black Mountain Music Festival and some other things, where they're really given lots of free time. Maybe it's an afternoon, maybe it's the evenings. So they're able to uh get into town. A lot of times they're asking us, hey, our conference doesn't start till Tuesday. We're arriving on Monday. What's a good place to eat? You know, we get that a lot. Sure. And so we also get a fair amount of our checkout is 10 a.m. We're not flying out of Asheville until tonight. So what's a you know, what's a great way to spend the day in Black Mountain? Uh so we get a lot of that, but serving 50 or 60,000 people a year, I can't tell you the percentages, but we get a fair amount of of folks that just want to spend some time in the valley. Yeah. Usually Black Mountain, but I always have to throw a few folks over to Okie dokie's if you're looking for some good mac and cheese.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Among other things. Sure. I could eat there every day.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Sure. Yeah. You can now.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

I well Thursday through Sunday I can't.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

That's true. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah. No. I love them. Jody and Steve. So what else do they do? I know that a lot of people from Blue Ridge Assembly come to the visitor center, and it's it's almost comical because it's the same day that they show up. So there must be one day that's got an open. And it and it's hysterical because I've got the same volunteer every week on that day. And he's always like, Somebody's out here that I don't speak their language. What do I do? And I come up there and I figure out whatever it is they're looking for. But but they're all I almost always say, Are you at the Blue Ridges? Yes, yes, yes. You know, they can't really talk to you because I assume that's where they are. It's funny.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah. And typical visitor and tourist kind of things, their cycles, there's Wednesday arrivals and Sunday departures. You know, it's it's a little bit of that. Right. You know, we're not so dependent upon true tourism that we close, you know, like a restaurant would on a Monday, Tuesday. We don't go dark like that. Um, but for the most part, our groups are checking in midweek and leaving at the end of the weekends. The exception to that is during the summer. It's Saturday to Saturday to Saturday to Saturday to Saturday. I mean, kind of one group of 600, speaking of the FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes shows up on one Saturday. They stay till the following Saturday. And when they leave, the Conference on National Affairs shows up. So it's a fair amount. Living in the valley for us is a fair amount of making sure Engels knows that you're getting ready to have 45 buses of high school kids on a Saturday loading for a week. Yeah. Good. At the same time, all of our other neighboring conference centers have pickup and drop off on Saturdays.

Dogs Trails And Storm Cleanup

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Some people don't like the summer here because there are people who live here, they're like, there's so many people and the traffic's so bad. And I'm like, I'm from Atlanta. Don't talk to me about traffic. But but I love it. I I'm the girl who in the middle of the winter, when nobody's I I live in Montreat. And so and I live at the top of Montreat. Okay. And I can go a week without seeing a car go by my house unless it's the police car. So I am not a fan, but I love it when it's crowded and we're rock star busy. It's really fun. So so I appreciate when you have all those people here. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you have a family? You're raised, are you you're not raised by wolves. Do you are you raising any family or anything?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

No. Well, I would say that I'm raising a few thousand kids a year. There you go. I have some pretty heavy involvement with them. But no, my wife and I do not have kids. We've been married 20 gosh, eight years. We might have to edit that for accuracy, but I think it's 28 years.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

I won't tell her.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

And so just don't let her listen. She and I met uh at the YMCA in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Of course you did. Of course you did. Which one?

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Of course. The Ashford Dunwoody YMCA.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Oh fancy. Fancy schmancy one. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yes. A very, very different Y than I grew up in. But it was a great Y. And so, yes, I met her.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

She an Atlanta girl.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

She is. We need to talk about that offline sometimes. Eastside Morrow? No, not Morrow.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Monroe?

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Uh down near the airport. East East Lake. East Lake. But in that. Yeah. Forgive me. She's now I'm definitely getting in trouble. This podcast can never go out into the world.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Oh well. I don't know. I don't know. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah. No children.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

But uh so do you have any dogs, cats, hedgehogs? What are you?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

So English lab and a little terrier mutt. Two totally opposite kinds of creatures, but love them both.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Okay. So you take them places. I know this is a really pet-friendly area. Are you one of the ones that takes them to the restaurants? And no.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

No, I'm I'm not. I'm they're very social. I take them to Blue Ridge occasionally and hike if I'm going to be working on the trails, as I've been doing a lot. You know, the storm really wrecked havoc on our trails. And we cannot afford, you know, four or five hundred thousand dollars for professional trail rooming. So a lot of it is just friends and neighbors who want to pitch in on the trails. And so since our trails are closed and we're not open to the public, sunshine and twilight accompany me quite a bit. Sunshine and twilight. Sunshine actually carries the power bars. Oh. She's got a pack. So that's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

I'm assuming that's the giant dog. Yeah. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Don't it would be a small pack for a small bar. You could carry a power bar. A power bar. The electrolyte packet. That's right. Okay. Have to work on that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

All right. So your trails are not open to the public ever, or just not right now?

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah, not right now. YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly's trails throughout the year are reserved for the guests. Okay. What a lot of folks don't realize living in the valley is that we're responsible for kids. And just as you wouldn't go walking into a public school system just to go walk, we have at any given time hundreds of kids that are under our care and responsibility. And so just having folks walking around the campus is a little a little alerting in today's world.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

I understand. I get it. So I was there when I was at my conference there. I gotta remember. I remember I mean I remember a lot of it, but the thing that stands out is we built a tent with a blindfold on. Like I had on the blindfold and somebody else walked you through it. And they're telling you. And the thing that was crazy funny was that they were they they we had the we had the blindfold on, and I mean it was a disaster. I can't build a tent with a without a blindfold. So that was kind of that was a silly choice to be the one with the blindfold. But they said, Oh my gosh, there are bears. There were three bears, they were telling me all about these three bears. I'm like, I am not leaving my blindfold on with three. This was before I wasn't afraid of bears, you know, so before I realized that they really won't hurt you. Right. But it was a bunch of guys, and I thought they were anyway, but there really were bears there because they took pictures because I wasn't allowed to take off my blindfold, and I am a rule follower, so I didn't. But they're telling me about it, and I just decided they were just making stuff up just to scare me.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

They're not they were there and it was really cool. Bears are all over the place. It was fun. It's you know, it's you chat with folks like from New Orleans or the bayou or Florida, and they talk about alligators like they're no big deal. Like, oh, I was walking in dun dun dun dun an alligator. And then, you know, if you live in the mountains, you just you're alligator. Um it's like the bears are like that for us.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

You just I'd say they're like squirrels. Like we have we have squirrels at in Georgia, and it's not a big deal. They're everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

The bears are everywhere, not as prevalent as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

You know, I'm a pretty agreeable guy, but I've never had a squirrel break into my car.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Well, lock your door.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Will that keep a squirrel out?

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah.

unknown 20:55

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Good to know.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Yeah. They they they store their nuts there.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

But other than if I take a little nut note to myself now.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, be sure to lock your door so the squirrels don't get in.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

And it's a squirrel deterrent. You frighten me. Good to know.

Booking Groups From Reunions To Harpists

SPEAKER_00 21:07

You frighten me. So if a group wanted to go to Blue Ridge Assembly, how big of a group do you have to have to book?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Sure. You know, uh we can take family reunions. Part of our part of our plan years ago was to build smaller, more family-friendly lodgings. So we have Eureka Hall, which sleeps 400 people. He's huge. Not a whole lot of family reunions are 400 people. At least not I would want to go to.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Oh, yeah. Well, okay. And so But you could book one side of it or one floor or something, couldn't you?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

So we tried to really plan on saying, what do we have for 20 people? What do we have for uh 40 people? What do we have for 70 people? And so we've we've been blessed to be able to start staggering our cabins, cottages, lodges, halls.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

So a group can go there without any programming from you just as a place to stay.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Absolutely. We get a fair amount of church groups, we get a fair amount of affinity groups. Like one of the weirdest things was when the an affinity group would be a hobby group.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

So when Helene hit, we had a group of, I think, 65 harpists from all around, I know, from all Around sort of the region.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Of course you did. Harpists. Gotta get your harpes out of there.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

There's nothing more surreal than a hurricane and harpists. That was that was quite a Thursday night as the rain was coming. They were in, you know, they were having a harping.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

They were harping. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

And so there's no organization. It's just one person who is a passionate person in this community. They rent a lodge and then invite people. So that happens all the time.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

We have all sorts of men's groups and women's groups. And one of our camps is a group called Camp China, which is simply a group of parents who all have adopted kids from China. And they found each other and started coming to Blue Ridge. So any reason you have to gather is reason to come to Blue Ridge.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

And so if if somebody wanted to do that, they just figure it out. They should call you, they website you, they whatever. That's not really a verb, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Yeah. I will tell you that we've had some really great conversations with the folks in Black Mountain Parks in Iraq. We they are eager to find more spaces, and we're eager to find more people. And so Clinton and Colin and I could rattle off a bunch of names when I'm drawing a blank. But all the folks in the town are really engaged with me to see if we can find some great ways for our disc golf course to serve towns, for our Alpine Tower to serve residents and things like that. So more to come on that. That's good. That's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

I love that. I'm excited to hear more about that offline. All right. Well, that's actually cool. I didn't know that. I knew that um I found a disc golf course that was closing and they were getting rid of all of their their what are they called? Their golf holes. They're the things that baskets. Baskets. Okay. And I found them and they said, Do you know anybody who needs them? And I called them really quickly because I knew we'd lost it in the storm. And I wasn't they weren't fast enough responding. So I didn't get it. But I was super excited about it. And then I thought, well, Blue Ridge Assembly has it because I've seen them.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Yes.

How Conference Centers Coordinate Schedules

SPEAKER_00 24:42

All right. Tell me how you work with the other conference centers centers. Do y'all have any communication with the Montreat, the Christmount, the Ridgecrest, the other people? Do y'all do things together? Because I'm trying to plan something where you will.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

That's like my next step.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Sure. So, you know, in this, in this crazy world, there is an oh gosh, not an acronym. Anaconym. Thank you. A bunch of letters. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for drawing, helping me fill in the mental blank there. There is a Western North Carolina Conference Center Alliance. Wanaka or some some crazy thing like that. And so we all play pretty well in the same sandbox. Right. Because we all have different strengths and different weaknesses. And so most of the conference centers are not for profits. And so we understand the value of volunteer work and boards and all that sort of stuff. So a rising tide raises all the boats. It's not uncommon for us to have a group that comes to us or wants to come to us and we're already booked. I mean, some of our lodges are booked five years out. Right. So if you were to bring, say, you're a part of a harp group, a Cheryl in your own time, or ukulele group or harmonica team, you seem like harmonica partners.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

No, absolutely not a harmonica.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

So anyway, you could come to us. And if we were booked and couldn't take you, we would absolutely call our friends at Ridgecrest, or we would call Montreat or the Cove, or we even would canoe in all the area. Okay. Um so we definitely try to play nice with each other. And we definitely coordinate during the crazy summer schedules. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

If all the people show up in town.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

At one time.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

At one time. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

It would overload our small little infrastructure at at the exits. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

It's true. And we're getting a new exit. That's what they say. That's what they say. They've been saying it for 20 years, 25 years. But I think it's more realistic now. I think it's more so. That's what I've heard.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

I was part of a DOT exchange in Charlotte, and I was at the Y for 10 years. And I was part of Charettes when I when I started that YMCA. And they hadn't done the exit when I left.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

So well, that's one of the things that our our senator is working on is permitting timing. I went to a meeting with him last week. That's one of the things that the chamber does that people don't know is we do a lot of advocacy for small businesses and things like that. And so um I was at a meeting with him last week, and that was one of the things he said is a permit takes seven years through the DOT to get the permit approved. And then you have to start making the plans. You know, I'm like, oh my goodness, that's ridiculous. But anyway.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I have a phrase I keep at the top of my mind in almost every week it plays out change comes too fast for those that don't want it. Not fast enough for those that do.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Oh, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

It's about right. And it's exactly Did you create that or did you read that? No, I'm gonna take credit. That's a meme. That's not a bumper sticker. It is now that's a Greg Hall original. No one's has thought of that in all of the human history. No one's thought that for those that seek change, it comes too slowly. For those that do not want change, it comes too quickly. No one's ever thought of that phrase. But that's so true in that DOT thing that you were just talking about.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

For people that I just put that down.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Okay, it'll be a meme by this afternoon. Great.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

I'm gonna put you down for one donation to the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly because of my brilliance.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

All right. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

So anyway. So not true. But it is it, it's this it is that with the DOT. I mean, yeah. If you want that exit, it's taking forever. Yep. And if you live in the area that's gonna be impacted like that, you could hope it drags out forever.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

That's right. It would help y'all ultimately.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

But it would be a pain while they were doing it.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Well, and I mean the new Bo Jangles is a perfect example. They put that sign up and it couldn't come fast enough for me.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Okay. There you go. They are chambermaid. And yet Did you know that the guy who owns that lives here? Like he like lives in Black Mountain anyway? Sure. Before he even yeah. That doesn't happen often with like a corporate thing. So that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

It was.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

His name's Tony. He's a very nice man.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Great. I will have to I I've already frequented him. I'm helping him make his house payment every day. He's very grateful. Every day I go in there.

The Case For Helping Others

SPEAKER_00 29:08

He was telling me that the other day. Yeah. No. Well, good. Okay. So I'm glad to hear that everybody plays well in the sandbox. That's kind of one of the big things I wanted to find out.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Well, uh again, uh isn't it better if you help others?

SPEAKER_00 29:23

I mean one would think. It seems logical.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Well, I I'd love to have an intellectual conversation with somebody who feels the opposite. Somebody who thinks that it's good to ignore your fellow man. I'd like to have an interesting real conversation with somebody that truly believes you're better off being totally alone. I just don't think that's the case.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

I don't think it would be intellectual if you had it, because not because of you either. Yeah. Just saying.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

I just think we've got to pull together regardless of a once-in-a-lifetime storm, regardless of whether you're red or blue. Good gosh. I mean, why why not go along and get along?

SPEAKER_00 30:03

I know exactly.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

You know, I'm not so naive to say that it's always get to yes and it's always agreement. But my gosh, I mean, if you have a chance to help somebody, why not? It makes it it makes your day a little brighter. The old phrase, you know, takes as takes the same amount of muscles to smile as frown.

Closing Thoughts And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 30:24

I always heard the other way. It takes more to frown. Yeah, than to smile. You wouldn't Aww. Can we just stop there? That was perfect. Thanks for joining us on Exploring the Valley. Until next time, keep celebrating the pride of our community and discovering the magic of the mountains. In the meantime, you're free to move about the valley.