Editing The Pen Addict 476/transcript (section)

== Relay FM Anniversary ==


'''Brad:''' It's like, Relay's birthday is the August 18th, I think. Correct. And then my birthday is the 21st, so we're always sharing them around the same time. And while I had big news for the big number that I was turning, you had some pretty big news, too.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. It's St. Jude time. So, we've done this every year for the last, this is our third year. So, from now all the way through to the end of September, Relay FM is joining together with our wonderful community and some, you know, publications and other shows around in our little industry here. to celebrate and raise money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And so, for our third consecutive year, we're going to be supporting the life-saving mission of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Their mission is finding cures, saving children. I don't know how you couldn't support that. Honestly, it's a simple one. And it's why it's so easy for us. Look, it is estimated that more than 400,000 children worldwide develop cancer every year. And nearly half of them are never diagnosed. In the United States, more than four out of five children survive cancer. But in many countries, that statistic is reversed. Most of the few of them are not diagnosed with cancer. And so, that is pretty harsh. Today, the most significant predictor of whether a child will survive cancer is where that child lives. Which is why, in March of 2018, St. Jude became the first and only World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Childhood Cancer. That's a big acronym. That's like, who? It's like a lot of Cs. World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Childhood Cancer. So, the goal of the WHO, Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer, is to raise the survival rate of six common childhood cancers to 60% by 2030. Wow. And this is something that St. Jude knows all about. Like, when St. Jude started, I think it was like 20% survival rate and now it's 80, I think is the figure there. Like, I want to double check that, but that's the kind of thing that they've been able to handle in the time that they've been around. Which, you know, it's what makes them such an incredible place.

'''Myke:''' And it's why, you know, like, obviously here at Real AFM, we have a link to them. You know, like, we have a very personal link through my co-founder, Stephen Hackett, with his son. And yeah, I just checked it. It was treatments at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer rate, survival rate from 20% to 80% since opening. But again, obviously, this is not a worldwide thing. And that's one of the great things about St. Jude is that they share what they learn worldwide freely for other institutions to learn from. So, this September, you can join Real AFM's efforts to raise the funds and awareness needed to treat and defeat childhood cancer. Donate at stjude.org slash Relay today. This year, any donor making a single gift of $100 or more will be able to claim an exclusive Real AFM sticker of thanks pack at the end of the campaign. So, this is a sticker of my face, a sticker of Stephen's face. These are stickers, by the way, that if you follow us on Twitter and Instagram, you'll see that we are covering our desks. Or, like, I'm covering my desk, Stephen's covering this, like, bookcase that sits behind him with each other's faces. Every $500 raised this year, there's another sticker that goes on to make our lives a little bit more tricky. But you can get those. Plus, there's a Relay FM, like, gold-branded, because we change all our branding to gold, because that's the color for childhood cancer awareness. So, there's a gold-branded Relay FM, and we also have some St. Jude stickers as well in there. So, that's for everybody donating $100 or more. We'll be able to get one of those. And also, the Relay FM podcast-a-thon for St. Jude will be happening on September 17th. We're going longer this year, from 12 to 8 p.m. Eastern Time. That's U.S. Eastern Time at twitch.tv slash Relay FM. So, you can tune in. You can help us hit all our fundraising goals. We've got a ton of wild stuff going on this year. One of the biggest goals we have this year is when we meet $176,000 raised, that will be $1 million over the three years that we've been running this campaign. So, let's cure childhood cancer together. Thank you so much if you do donate stjude.org slash Relay. Now, obviously, I'm telling you about it now. We want you to donate. Like, maybe you can donate today. But you might want to save your donation for next week. Or, you know, split your donation up, whatever you want to do. Because Brad's working on something. Brad, do you want to tell the Pan Addict listeners what you're cooking up?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, last year, I mean, let me just say this. I feel like St. Jude is part of our family at Relay FM. And that Relay FM is part of the St. Jude family. It's really, really important to us.

'''Myke:''' I know you're going to hear a lot about this. You'll hear a lot about it today. And you're going to hear a lot about it all the way until the end of September. But it's because it's important. Like, we keep talking about this because it's an incredibly important thing just in general. But also for all of us. Because we have seen the work that they do and how important that is.

'''Brad:''' Totally. Totally. So, last year, I wanted to figure out how to do something different to help promote the fundraising that we were doing. And with the lovely support of Mr. Jonathan Brooks, we were able to raffle off an Arushi Lamy Safari last year. So, you were able to donate. And that your donation, you know, allowed you like an equivalent amount in tickets to be entered into this raffle to win this pin. So, Jonathan Brooks has donated something this year. And I am going to level that up even more by having several products, including what Brooks sent. We'll have more information next week on that. But what I want to do for this year for the main raffle prize that we're going to do is to give away or raffle off, I should say, my Field Notes collection edition one through wherever I kind of stop my subscription. Somewhere around 40. So, really, what you want is like probably issues like one through 25.

'''Myke:''' One through 15.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, the grand prize this year is going to be my personal Field Notes collection.

'''Myke:''' The whole thing, by the way. With everything. So, one person is going to get all of them. Now, we are talking here sealed three packs.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? One sealed three pack of all, like one issue one through. The reason why we're not going to officially announce it is because I need to put the details in and see. Exactly where it ends. Like what the ending point is. Because if you wanted to pick it up, like everything else would be just something you could easily purchase if you wanted to continue the set. And also, I need the time to like really like get people involved to drive the information that we're going to have on this. So, I'll have more information on the blog by next week. We'll talk about it next week on the podcast once I have everything set up. If you participated last year, it's going to be similar. Basically, you would donate through the proper link. And this year, it's stjew.org slash relay. And then you would forward your receipt to a special email that I will have set up just for this. And then, you know, whatever the raffle ticket price is, you know, if you donate $100 and raffle tickets are $10, you would have 10 entries into the drawing. Yeah, and it's just worth mentioning.

'''Myke:''' So, you can donate whenever you want and that's great. But if you do want to go with this, we will announce it's start date. So, when Brad posts about it, that will be the start date. So, if you donate today, thank you. But you can't use that entry for this raffle. Right.

'''Brad:''' It's just something we have to do just for management. Like, I would love it if you'd go and donate today and donate next week. But if you're just going to donate once and you want to be involved in this raffle and being that you listen to the Panatic podcast, you might, you know, want a chance at something extra cool for something you're already doing. That's extra cool by donating to St. Jude's. Maybe wait till next week when we have the details out.

'''Myke:''' But totally up to you. It's like a raffle in the way of, like, the more you donate, the more entries that you receive, that kind of thing.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep. Exactly. So, we will have that. So, that'll be, this year we're going to have multiple prizes that I'm working on. So, again, the Field Notes collection. Grand prize. Grand prize. I have a very cool pen from Jonathan Brooks that he sent me that is going to be in there. And I have some ideas for some other things that I just need to finalize before we get to next week. And I should have everything detailed out and ready to rock next week. So, I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, Brad. Yeah. I've been waiting for this, right? We've talked about this for years. It's like, I got to, like, there's no need for me to keep this, right? It just sits there and looks pretty. Like, it's cool. And it's a way for me to help shine a light on something that I really believe in and do good with that type of thing. And I could not be more happy to do it.

'''Myke:''' So, go to stjude.org slash relay and you can find out more and you can donate. And we'll have more to talk about next week on this. Yep. I saw something on Instagram. Mm-hmm. Spoke Design Model 6. Mm-hmm. It's like you've got a soft launch going on right now, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I told the story about Brian and his, how Spoke got started. My partner, Brian Conte, when he started Spoke Design, he was making mechanical pencils. Basically making barrels for mechanical pencils. And he eventually made the Spoke Model 4, which is how I found him because I was like, I got to have this. And then we ended up talking more and we ended up going into a partnership together with Spoke Design. And Brian keeps just pumping out the designs. I think that, I feel like the mechanical pencils are his baby and then everything else I make him do with the pens. But the mechanical pencils are his baby. So, he's always fiddling, trying to make new additions of fountain pens. And because, honestly, because people love him. People love the ideas that he comes up with. So, this time, we have built around a Spoke Model 4 idea combined with a Spoke Pen idea to still have this large aluminum barrel with, essentially, the spokes cut out of them, for lack of a better term. And we've added a knurled grip on the barrel. And the reason why it's a soft launch is because, as you could imagine, Myke, seeing all of our products and all of our pens and all of our accessories and everything that goes with them. We like to do a lot of different colors. And this pencil is going to allow us the platform to mix and match the exterior barrel with the interior barrel sleeve and do some unique colors. Oh. Oh. To where, before, your pencil purchase was essentially fixed. You bought this color and that's what you got. This, I mean, you're still not, I don't know, you know, how much you're going to be able to pick and choose. But let's just say, there's going to be some more assembly involved with these pens because you're going to get to have the exterior barrel. Exterior barrel and interior barrel color be different. You know, in the beginning, we're just going to, you know, make a bunch of different colors and you can pick and choose what you like. And this is kind of how it's going to start. So, this is our first knurled grip pencil. We've also increased the diameter of the large size grip. So, we always have done two grip sizes. With the knurling, we'll actually have a, be able to have a larger 10 millimeter grip. Because it's a little bit, it's a little bit wider pencil. It's like an aesthetically and functionally better. Like, it's really, really good. So, yeah, this is just the start of what's going to be a new pen, pencil product line for the Model 6. And we're going to be able to play around with it a little bit more, like how we play around with the pens and the roadies and the icons.