Harborough Hustle Podcast

in [00:00:00]:

Hello. I’m your podcast host, Martin Robson. Harborough Hustle proudly sponsors local charities. Check us out on marketharboroughbiznetwork.co.uk/podcast where you can find a transcript of today’s podcast, all the links that are mentioned, posts that you can share on social media to spread the word, and everything you need to know if you’d like to help our local charities find out more about our lovely sponsors. Today, I’m going to be speaking to Gemma from Maha Magazine. And just before we get into that conversation, let’s hear from our lovely sponsor.

Martin [00:00:40]

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Welcome to this episode of Harborough Hustle, where I’m delighted to be chatting with Gemma from Maha Magazine. Hi, Gemma.

Gemma [00:01:18]:

Hello, Martin. Thank you for having me.

Martin [00:01:21]:

Delighted that you’re here. How how are you feeling today?

Gemma [00:01:24]:

Good. Really good. Thank you. It’s a it’s it’s a lovely morning. Yesterday was awful, and now all I can see is bright sunshine out the window. So good. Good night.

Martin [00:01:32]:

It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? Because the first thing I’ve done this morning is is pull all the blinds down so the lighting’s okay and and lock the sunshine out. I’m like, alright. There we go. Anyway, so first question as as ever is just a kind of overview. Tell us a little bit Yourself, what you do, just a kind of nutshell version. Obviously, we’re gonna dive in deeper as we get going. So a little bit about who you are, where you live, What do you like doing outside of work?

Gemma [00:02:01]:

Well so I am here to talk about Maha Magazine, which is, a local magazine for Market Harborough and the surrounding areas. So, clearly, I live in Market Harborough because it would be crazy if I lived in Liverpool and did a a magazine about Market Harborough. And we set it up nearly 5 years ago now. So 5 years ago, we were planning it, and then we launched it in January, 2019. And, yeah, that is basically what I’m here to talk about today, but then the other half of my job is that I am a writer, and I write books for children. So, yeah, that’s me. We can talk about that a little bit later on. I’ve got a few samples to show you what I do as well.

Martin [00:02:48]:

Fantastic. Cool. Yeah. Well, we’ll definitely dive into, Maha Magazine and, Learn a bit more about it. But, just focusing on on you for a second, how did you get started with with doing that or the whole business that you’re in?

Gemma [00:03:03]:

So I trained as a a journalist. So I did a journalism degree, and then after that, moved into magazines. So, my very, very first job was, on Barbie Magazine, which is, you know, it’s not exactly The Economist, But it went it suited me, and it got me into publishing. And I thought, well, this had been a great first job, and it Turned out that I absolutely loved children’s publishing and loved writing for children and creating things for children. So I basically did that for about 8 or 9 years and rose up to be the editor of quite a few magazines. I was the sort of group editor of of a few magazines before I had my children. And when I went on maternity leave, it was easier to do books Then magazines because magazines are very sort of ad hoc. You kinda have to be there all the time, whereas books, you can write in your own time.

Gemma [00:04:00]:

And I was very lucky because I was given quite a few book commissions to write, and that’s what I did. So my daughter’s 12 now, and, So I’ve been doing that for sort of nearly 12, 13 years, but there was always something in the back of my head, all this knowledge and all these skills I’d learned as a magazine editor that I wasn’t using. So when we moved to Market Harbour, which was 7, 8 years ago now, we So we looked at the magazines that were around, and they didn’t tally up with the version of Market Harbour that we saw. So we saw this amazing town that had all these amazing shops and cafes and farm shops and bakeries and all these Some incredible things that as as sort of snobs that moved up from London didn’t think Market Harborough would have, and, of of course, it does. It’s a beautiful place. And so we thought, well, we could create a magazine for Harbour.

Martin [00:04:56]:

Okay. Sounds like a a good idea. I’m really interested in the the magazine market because somebody told me, very recently that NME, has come back into print. So that was kinda like the the magazine I read, you know, when I was in my teenage years, all the music, etcetera.

Gemma [00:05:13]:

Yep. Me too.

Martin [00:05:14]:

Excellent. So I remember there was, like, Santa, it was smash hits. It was more on the poppy stuff, but Enemy was was kind of, you know, my scene. But, You know, years years years ago, it it just went purely digital, as it makes it more difficult for magazines. And just within the last couple of months, I’m told it’s it’s It’s either come back or it’s coming back into print. Yeah. Why do you think that that’s happening in the magazine world, and is it typical?

Gemma [00:05:39]:

It’s not typical, but I think it is, it’s indicative of the way people look at print. So what happened a few years ago, Especially with, like, the advent of Kindle and, obviously, the Internet and everything, the print went down in popularity because people thought, well, We don’t need to spend all this money printing when we can put all the content online, and that doesn’t cost anything. So a a lot of people have said to me when I’m sort of struggling without Getting advertising to print the magazine, they said, oh, why don’t you put it online? That’s not what we wanted to do. We have seen that print It’s a really it’s a growing trend. Now people want physical media, and I think you can see it with the The growth of vinyl as well. Vinyl is coming very much back into fashion. My daughter, who is 12, has asked for a vinyl player for Christmas. So physical media in all sort of aspects is coming back into into fashion, and that is true of magazines as well.

Gemma [00:06:37]:

I mean, There’s a beautiful shop in Rushton Lakes called Magazine Heaven. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there.

Martin [00:06:42]:

No. I I’ll be honest with you. Anything that’s got Anything like a shopping center or a shopping outlet, I try to avoid if I possibly could.

Gemma [00:06:51]:

Well, if you ever go past there, if you ever just need to stop and have a wee, Definitely pop in because it is just it’s a this shop is literally, as it says, magazine heaven, and it’s just got all these beautiful print publications from around the world. And it’s I think people want print, and, certainly, people who we’ve spoken to have said because of the feel of the magazine and the way it, you know, the way it looks, It’s not glossy or throwaway, and that was intentional when we started the magazine. It was something people want, and people keep them and collect them and put them on their coffee table or in their guest Stream. So I think that’s that is probably why the NME is coming back because they’ve seen that people like print. I’ve seen it on, So I used to go down to London every day before, being freelance, and I’ve noticed that when I sort of, like, maybe 2, 3 years ago, everybody was just on their phones. And I’ve noticed people are sort of going back into books, and magazines are coming they’re creeping back, but quality rather than throwaway.

Martin [00:07:48]:

It’s really interesting, isn’t it? You know? That, that that kind of change from inconvenience. And then After a while of having all that convenience, suddenly realizing like many things, you don’t realize what you’re missing until you haven’t got it anymore.

Gemma [00:08:03]:

Yeah. And then

Martin [00:08:04]:

you suddenly think but there’s definitely that that whole tactile element to to us as a species, really, isn’t there, that that, makes those things, you know, something that you wanna aspire to having back. I really, kind of pleased that your your daughter it’s like, oh, I want a record player. Alright. Fantastic.

Gemma [00:08:23]:

I think it will. You have to blame Taylor Swift, I’m afraid, because she’s brought out all these different vinyls in different colors, and I think she can obviously, well, the people the very clever people around her, I should say, have spotted this trend. And it’s collectible, and it’s, you know, it’s nice to have. It’s not Just a way of listening to music like it was when vinyl first came out. It’s collectible, and it’s nice. And yeah.

Martin [00:08:45]:

Yeah. Yeah. No. I do understand the the the latest, Texas Greatest Hits. And they have probably more greatest hits albums than actual albums now, I think. It’s available in about Ten or 12 different formats packaging for the collectible bit, including, from my point of view, weirdly, on cassette. I can see the I can see the attraction of vinyl. I’m not convinced by cassette, but there we go.

Gemma [00:09:09]:

It is novelty. It’s vintage, which is awful to say. But yeah.

Martin [00:09:15]:

Anyway, let’s get back and talk a little bit about you. So one of the things I always ask is is Is this something that people don’t think about enough, you know, when they’re dealing with, for example, creating a magazine or or dealing with a magazine company that, you know, in general, people just don’t consider, as much as perhaps they they might.

Gemma [00:09:37]:

I wouldn’t say I don’t think I can think of anything With the magazine industry as a whole, but I think with our magazine, I think people might have the impression, if they don’t know the story behind it, that It’s a bigger operation than it is because, we often get people sort of asking for our different departments, And there aren’t different departments. We it is literally myself, I do the advertising and the production, not the advertising. Sorry. I do the editorial and the production. We have Zoe who does our advertising, but literally on a part time. She’s not a full time Member of staff, she’s not even well, member of staff, she’s also a freelancer. And then my husband does the artwork for it as a kind of part time. He has his own full time job, and then he designs it part time.

Gemma [00:10:25]:

So I think people don’t understand kind of how much control we have over it, and I think that’s a really Good thing. We don’t have a lot of shareholders to impress or we can basically do whatever we want, and that is a real opportunity, I think, for people who want to be involved in our magazine because they can they can shape it how they want it to be. So if you were to want to be involved or have a feature in the magazine. It’s a real sort of collaborative process, and, we’re very independent. And we can Sort of prescribe our own editorial, really.

Martin [00:11:01]:

It’s yeah. That it’s interesting, actually, because it it comes through our letterbox, and it does have that feel of, quality. You know, it’s different from some of the other, you know, trade ad advertisement, Magazines that are quite flimsy, you know, and and obviously designed for a purpose. Yeah. This feels more like something, you know, you would go in and buy. So and it’s interesting that you can create that impression with a relatively small operation behind the scenes, in a printed media, because because again, I mean, that’s one of the beauty of, websites in the world that I live live in. You know, you can create A much bigger impression than, you know, what it actually takes to to run it. But, to see that you can do it in a physical media as well is is Really interesting stuff.

Martin [00:11:53]:

So

Gemma [00:11:54]:

Yeah. And it’s good to hear that because that’s exactly what we wanted to do. There are I mean, like you said, there there are magazines out there that already serve a purpose. And there was no point going up against them because they have big companies behind them with hundreds of 1,000 of pounds to to pump into it, Whereas we knew that whatever we created needed to be different. Otherwise, what would be the point of doing it? And people have really latched onto that, so that’s That’s good to

Martin [00:12:19]:

hear. And, I mean, just talking about that 100 of 1,000 of pounds, which I’m gonna assume that that you don’t have. Is it, purely advertised funding?

Gemma [00:12:31]:

Yes. Exactly. That’s it. I mean, when we first started talking about it, So we’d we’d sort of talked about it on and off for a while, and then I was training for a marathon walk, which that makes me sound more sporty than I am. You thought it was a charity thing. And on one of these training walks, my husband came along with me, and I said, oh, I’ve got this idea. And It was literally all we could talk about throughout the whole walk, and, like, 5 miles had gone past we didn’t even realize because we were talking about this idea so much. And the idea that we had was that if we didn’t get enough advertising to pay for the printing on the first one, we wouldn’t go to print.

Gemma [00:13:09]:

And that’s always been our Ethos and our our kind of benchmark is that if we don’t get enough printing to print enough money to pay for the printing and to pay for our time and to make it worth it, we don’t go Right. And luckily, every issue, we’ve managed to you know, people have wanted to be on board. So we’re either doing something right or very, very lucky.

Martin [00:13:31]:

Well, to to be fair, I mean, you generally need a little bit of both, don’t you? But, I I tend to find that the second one doesn’t come unless you got the first one sorted. Yeah. You know? You obviously are doing something right.

Gemma [00:13:46]:

Well, we can keep doing it as long as As people want it, that’s that’s our our aim. And we really we just we love doing it because they’re just you know? Someone said to me the other day, well, haven’t you run out of stories yet? And absolutely not. There’s always new things happening or there’s companies that have been around for ages and we haven’t even come across So, yeah, we’ll keep going.

Martin [00:14:07]:

Yeah. Great. No. I mean, I do know from I mean, I’m not local to to Market Harborough, But it’s incredible how many businesses there are tucked away.

Gemma [00:14:16]:

Mhmm.

Martin [00:14:17]:

You know, particularly if you go out well, both in the center down the little alleyways, you’ve got some lovely little, local shops and things. But then, you know, on on the the trading estates out on Rockingham Road, there’s literally hundreds of of businesses out there that Don’t have much of a profile within the town itself necessarily. Yeah. So, yeah, lots of opportunities. Is there anything that that you looking back, you think, I wish I’d known that, that that before we started or early on in the journey. It would’ve helped.

Gemma [00:14:46]:

Oh, gosh. Far too many things to link. Obviously, I’m from, creative background. So writing is my background, and editing is my background. And so, obviously, I didn’t know anything about advertising. So we were literally the first few issues, we were going into companies, with nothing. We didn’t have any we didn’t have an issue to show them. We literally just an idea, and we just went from business to business saying, what do you think? Will you come on board? And I think I would have Told myself then to get somebody to help with the advertising earlier because that has helped Immeasurably.

Gemma [00:15:26]:

Just having somebody whose sole focus is that. So not my focus was always split between Trying to get advertisers and trying to create a nice magazine, which took a lot of time and was quite stressful. And now we have the wonderful Zoe who, as well as all the other little jobs that she does, she does this for us. She she’s always thinking, oh, that business might want to be involved or or they might want to do this, which is and then I obviously do that as well, and and Russell also does it. So the 3 of us together, it’s it’s A lot of, stress taken off.

Martin [00:16:00]:

Yeah. Yeah. And I must admit I mean, for me, personally, I first came across Mile Magazine via Zoe. So, yeah, she’s she’s clearly doing a good job.

Gemma [00:16:08]:

She’s a really good cheerleader, and the fact that she’s part of the Chamber of Commerce, And, she introduced me to, HBN as well. Yeah. She’s she’s great. She’s got a lot of fingers in lots of different pies.

Martin [00:16:20]:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s always good to know someone like that.

Gemma [00:16:22]:

Mhmm.

Martin [00:16:24]:

So did you have a a a mentor at any point in your journey or someone you looked up to and thought, Well, that’s, something either someone I aspire to or I really appreciate, you know, what they’re what they’re doing.

Gemma [00:16:38]:

No. So this question really sort of that flummoxed me a bit because when you think of magazine editors, They’re not the most inspiring people, and I’d only ever worked for big magazine companies that had sort of People above them, people above them. I didn’t know anybody who’d started a magazine from from scratch, really. So I wouldn’t say a mentor, but what I would want to talk about is the amount of help that we had when we first started from our friends and family. So the first few issues, we didn’t have a distribution company in place. So now we have a lovely distribution company who deliver over 2,000 magazines across market harbor and door to door, And they’re great, and that’s taken a huge weight off. But to begin with, it was our friends. So we would they and they were so forthcoming.

Gemma [00:17:29]:

They were Really up for it and really supportive. And they would take boxes and boxes of magazines, and they’d just sort of do their estate with the dog, Or they would go to a village and walk around the village and with their kids, and they turn it into an event. And, we’ve had a friend who did our website for us, and he still does Our website for us he works for Google, but he just does this on the side because they were just they were just behind the idea, and they liked the idea. And I think without all that support, we wouldn’t have been able to sort of get through the first 4, 5 issues of the magazine, become more established, and get So better processes in place. So rather than a mentor, I think it was like a village. So we had a bit of a village To to get us going. And it was all free and wonderful. So

Martin [00:18:17]:

That’s great great to hear, isn’t it? I mean, one of the things that people took, you know, I moved to market harbor from Istanbul. So there’s 20,000,000 people in there. Yeah. Slightly different. But, of course, I mean, in in a huge city, I mean, you mentioned London. I mean, you end up having little suburbs or, you know, little areas that that tend to be your patch rather than the entire city.

Gemma [00:18:40]:

Mhmm.

Martin [00:18:41]:

But still creating that kind of village community feel that you just talked about there, can sometimes be a challenge, so it’s it’s fantastic to hear you’ve got that there. You talked about distribution as well. So, obviously, it goes in in Harbour. Do do you get out to surrounding villages?

Gemma [00:18:59]:

Yes. So, we do Great Oxendom because my sister lives there, And, it’s quite easy to distribute around there, but we also we do try and cover, the lanktons. And Because we aren’t a huge operation and we only can only print a certain amount, we do try and rotate it around the area so that at least So most houses during the year, we publish 4 times a year, will, get a copy through the door, and that’s what we’re gonna carry on doing. If we Grow bigger, then we can print more, and we can cover more areas. But that’s what we’re doing at the moment.

Martin [00:19:36]:

Okay. Would you like to grow bigger?

Gemma [00:19:38]:

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it’s hard at the moment because, obviously, we started in 2019, and then we had a lovely year. Then we had COVID, which obviously affected a lot of people who were advertising in our magazine. They pulled their advertising because they were scared of, You know, they just won’t get any money in. And then we had the war in Ukraine, which, bizarrely, apparently, a lot of paper stock comes from that area. So the price of paper skyrocketed, which obviously hit our expansion plans quite a lot, And then, obviously, cost of living crisis, and that has affected small businesses sort of immeasurably. So, again, advertisers are very wary.

Gemma [00:20:20]:

So I think If those 3 things hadn’t happened, we’d probably have grown more. But I think the fact that we’re still going is and we’re still profitable is quite, Quite a testament in itself. Not quite sure how we did it.

Martin [00:20:33]:

Yeah. Absolutely. It is. I mean, yeah. I’ve seen clients of mine. I had a lot of clients in the wedding industry and, you know, obviously, COVID wasn’t very friendly to the the wedding industry.

Gemma [00:20:45]:

Yeah.

Martin [00:20:46]:

So that had a big impact. The same thing again. You know, they’ve obviously got to have a real back or or in many cases, sadly, go out of business. Mhmm. So Any business that’s managed to get through that, and that you say is still going, I mean, you’ve gotta give kudos to it.

Gemma [00:21:01]:

Yeah. I mean, we we, we took 1 issue out during, COVID just because I was homeschooling, and it was, Yeah. We won’t get there. All the advertisers have pulled out, and it was just too much. But we then managed to come back after that one. So we only missed 1 issue, and we haven’t stopped since. So fingers crossed, things will work.

Martin [00:21:21]:

Fingers crossed. Brilliant. I I asked you about, mentors in the early days. You know, like, well, being a, Magazine editors is not perhaps the most inspirational area. I think that’s what you said. Is there anybody, like, at present that you You you admire, and if so, why?

Gemma [00:21:38]:

Yes. So I would say I I don’t know if you’ve ever met her, but, Beth Lambert, who, is the brains and driving force behind Refill Revolution and the Eco Village. So I first met Beth when she when I interviewed her the magazine, and I think she just set up her Refill Revolution in the market. So for anybody who doesn’t know, it’s, zero waste Sort of grocers in effect. So she had you would go and you could get your rice and you could get your detergent and all in sort of, you know, Packaging free. So you’d bring your own little bottle or you’d bring your own Tupperware tub and fill it up. And from that, she’s grown the ecovillage In town, which I think is just called the village now, but it’s a lot of people know it as the ecovillage, which is, you know, sustainable. It’s Doing so many good things for Harbour, and, every time I speak to her, I feel energized.

Gemma [00:22:35]:

She’s one of those people who she fills your cup. I know there’s quite a sort of trendy thing to say at the moment, but you so you go I always go away from talking to her with A 1000000 ideas and so full of energy and, like, you know, you can do anything because that’s her you know, she’s a doer, and she’s Positive. And, yeah, I just think she’s great. I think what she has done and what she’s achieved is amazing.

Martin [00:22:59]:

That’s fantastic. Yeah. I actually use, The the village the the refill bits there, and, I’ve seen Beth, talk a couple of times at at different events. So, yeah, I do know what you mean. So, Yeah. Great shout out for for Beth Lambert there. Refill Revolution and, of course, the village ecovillage as was. Brilliant.

Martin [00:23:21]:

So you, anything you still want to learn?

Gemma [00:23:25]:

Lots of things. I think you learn Constantly, when you run your own business, you are because you have to think about everything. You’re you’re not relying on a line manager or a manager or a huge company. Yeah. You’re learning all the time, and that’s in both sides of my business, so both in the writing and in the in the magazine. I think you learn stuff. I learn stuff every single issue, to to then not do or to do again or to yeah. I think, yeah, you you always learn.

Gemma [00:23:55]:

If you’re not learning, then what’s the point?

Martin [00:23:58]:

Yeah. No. I couldn’t agree with you more. And I think there’s there’s far more opportunities nowadays, to access learning than than perhaps there was in the past. Yeah. That’s how I see it anyway. So just talking about learning and things, Confession time. Was there any, like, big mistake you’ve made in your in your business life? Do you learn anything from it?

Gemma [00:24:18]:

The biggest mistake We ever made was, that we had a Christmas issue that went out and splashed across the front. Beautiful issue is that It had, like, this lovely sort of paper cutout scene of father Christmas over a snowy landscape. It was really beautiful. And the strap line was ho ho Harbour, And we spelled harbor wrong. Yeah. We missed out an o or an r or something. So it was like harbruh Instead of harborer, it was it was just and we didn’t notice until we had all the magazines printed. And it was just And that that that was like, right.

Gemma [00:24:55]:

Okay. And I think that made us slow down a little bit more. We were kind of Panicking and and rushing things a little bit because things were getting quite overwhelming, and I think that mistake made us Slow our processes down a bit to make sure that that didn’t happen again. But we made a we We sort of made a joke out of it and said you know, we used it as a thing to say, everyone’s human. Everyone makes mistakes. Isn’t this funny? But it’s still a really nice magazine. So

Martin [00:25:25]:

Yeah. And I think that’s the thing to do. I mean, on one of the previous podcast episodes, I got the the name of the business wrong, which, could have been a bit disastrous. But, again, we just kind of turned it into a joke and and ended up saying the business name far more often than you would do on a normal, episode. So, you know, everybody comes out with it smiling.

Gemma [00:25:45]:

But I think that’s important. I think failure is very important, and I’m one thing I’m So trying to teach my own children is that it’s okay to fail, and I’m not sure that we possibly had that when we were growing up, That failure is actually a good thing because you learn from it, and it shows you that you don’t have to be perfect. So, Yeah. Great. Great to go.

Martin [00:26:06]:

It is a good message. I I used to work, in New York. And and in America, you notice that Failure is is absolutely an option. They’re like, hey. You failed. Okay. Get up. Start again.

Martin [00:26:18]:

What did you learn from it? Go again. But you’re right. You know, we were kind of brought up, you know, not to admit

Gemma [00:26:24]:

that No.

Martin [00:26:24]:

Because everybody makes some sort of exactly. Exactly. This particular, Podcast, I use a speech to text generator to create all the the transcript. It cannot spell hardware. I keep telling it, this is how you do it, and it goes, I’ve got it. And then the next time again. So, yeah, funny that that should be the thing you highlighted. Let’s flip it around.

Martin [00:26:46]:

What about proudest business moment?

Gemma [00:26:49]:

I think for for the magazine, the proudest moments are when we get feedback from businesses that we featured saying what an impact it has had. So one of our very early issues had Jared from Randalls, the sweet shop.

Martin [00:27:04]:

Mhmm.

Gemma [00:27:04]:

And this was back when he was above the, fishmongers in town. So he’s moved, and he’s moved again, opening his new shop this weekend. And he we did a feature on him, and he said that the day the weekend after it came out, He had 40 people through the door who’d never come in and said that they’d read it in the magazine. And then, You know, that which was brilliant. I mean, he’s so successful anyway, but he was so grateful that, like, newer people had seen it that didn’t even realize he was there. And then only, you know, a couple of issues back, we had Anne from In Heaven at Home, one really beautiful little gift shop at the top of the high street, who I would think everybody would know that she was there, but she phoned me up to say that, you know, they had a lot more people through the door the first week after the magazine was out just saying, we didn’t even know you were here. We didn’t know you sold such lovely things. They might have just walked past and not seen it.

Gemma [00:28:03]:

So that’s our proudest moments, when we get feedback from people saying that we’ve helped them and that what we’ve produced, especially if they’ve paid to be in the magazine, That that has paid off for them. That that’s really why we did it in the 1st place was to shout about all the good things in Harborough.

Martin [00:28:21]:

That’s fantastic. What a what a brilliant proud moment that’s also, you know, very relevant to to where we live, and, you know, the the business community that we’ve we’ve got here. So, yeah, I love that one. That’s really nice. So If, I mean, if you weren’t doing Mile Magazine, if you weren’t working in this industry, what do you think you’d be doing, or what would you like to have been doing?

Gemma [00:28:44]:

Do you know what? Ever since I was a a kid, I would, make books. So I made books for my dolls. I made book I used to collect trolls. Do you remember the trolls with the Mhmm. And I used to make books for them. Like, they weren’t they didn’t have any words in there, squiggles and pictures, but I used to make books for them. And I was always writing stories, and I was always writing. And, oh, you know, I used to watch The Turtles and want to be April O’Neil because she was a journalist.

Gemma [00:29:12]:

So I feel really, really lucky that I’ve been able do all the things I’d want to do. And whenever I get asked that question, I think, god, well, I’m doing I’m doing everything that I want to do, which is really, really lucky. It’s not lucky. You’re not meant to say lucky, are you? You’re meant to say I’ve worked very hard for it, but I’m also quite lucky. The but the other thing that I went to do when I was younger was I went I went to drama school for a week and quickly realized that that wasn’t for me. But, Thankfully, 20 years later, I’ve now got involved with the local theater, so I’m starting to do a bit more With them and, like, helping out behind the scenes and doing a bit of acting as well. So

Martin [00:29:56]:

yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. Yeah. I I love the fact that Harbour’s got a theater in there, and It’s a really nice size. See some great productions in there.

Gemma [00:30:02]:

Yeah. It’s brilliant.

Martin [00:30:05]:

Anything left on your bucket list?

Gemma [00:30:08]:

I do you know what? I really don’t like the term bucket list, and I don’t like the concept of a bucket list because I think I don’t know. I think it puts pressure on people to have to do certain things before they die. And if they haven’t, then you know? So I think you should just Live your life and be grateful for the things that you get to do. And if you get to do them, fine. If you don’t, then you don’t. Having said that, I would like to take my girls to New York at some point Because that’s where I went on my honeymoon, and I think that’s quite an achievable gene dream. So I’ll say that even though I don’t really like the idea of bucket list.

Martin [00:30:45]:

I’ll find a different way to word it. And one of the things we always ask the guests is if if they do happen to have a a hidden talent that perhaps people who know Gemma aren’t aware of. Anything that you can share?

Gemma [00:31:01]:

I think people who know me through the magazine would be surprised at the acting thing, and that that’s that was what I was gonna say was that When and and also people who sort of know me on the school run or just, you know, know me from around Harper were quite surprised when I got back into doing acting because I’m quite naturally introverted. So Coming to business networking was quite a hard thing for me because, you know, I had to go and lie down in a dark room afterwards because it was a lot of peopling and a lot of talking. But, yeah, for some reason, I absolutely love the theater and love being part of it and love the you know, even the backstageness of it all. So, Yeah. I think that might be quite surprising.

Martin [00:31:43]:

Yeah. No. That is interesting. I I can find certain parallels with that as well. My background’s all in IT, but then I did take some time out to retrain as an English teacher, which is how I ended up living abroad. But I’m not naturally out outroverted. Is that the right word? Whatever. That’s the one.

Gemma [00:32:04]:

I’m a load person. I shall help you.

Martin [00:32:07]:

Thank you. But but, again, you know, you kinda walk through the classroom door and then, you know, you you’ve you’ve got to Put on a show, so to speak. Absolutely. And when you’ve finished and come out, then, yeah, lying down in a dark group was the first They go, oh, we’ve got a couple of friends who are like, that’s brilliant. I’m really buzzing. I did that. And I’m like, I’m exhausted.

Gemma [00:32:26]:

Yeah. Absolutely. And it’s the same when I’m when, I do. I’ve I’ve done 2 plays so far, and it’s the same after I’ve done a play. Like, I will come home, and I literally have to sit and either just scroll through my phone or just watch something Vacuous on TV because I have to sort of come come down from it. But while I’m doing it, I love it. Yeah.

Martin [00:32:46]:

Alright. Brilliant. So, Maha Magazine. Let’s let’s get back there. How can we find out, more with online socials, etcetera, both Maha and yourself?

Gemma [00:32:58]:

So we are on Instagram, and we are on Facebook. There are 2 main ones, and we are on maha magazine.co.uk. UmAndyoucancontact us via email. You can give us a call. So we’re quite lucky at the moment that the magazine is both online to sort of read articles as you would sort of any any publication, but we’ve also got a flip through version so you can See what it looks like if you can’t pick up a a copy. We are all over town. We’re in the Ecovillage, we’re in the Garage Bakehouse. We’re in, Randalls.

Gemma [00:33:36]:

We’re in the deli. We’re all over all the basically, if you go into an independent shop In town, hopefully, you’ll find a copy of us. We’re also in the train station, so that’s something that we try and do every issue is to get at least Sort of 200 issues there. They go quite quickly, but we’ve had feedback from people sort of up in Sheffield and then down in London saying that they’ve Have found a copy on the train, so that’s quite good. So yeah. So if anybody likes the idea of being in the magazine. And they can either get in touch with me or they can get in touch with Zoe to talk about options. And because we are a small operation and we’re, You know, we are independent.

Gemma [00:34:14]:

Our rates are much, much lower than another magazine that might cover this area.

Martin [00:34:20]:

Okay. Brilliant. And, obviously, we’ll have a full transcript of this episode. We’ll have all of those those links that Gemma’s just mentioned, on the website for the podcast episode. So please do check that out, and then, go and check out Maha Magazine as well. Gemma’s been brilliant. Is there anything that I should have asked you, but I didn’t.

Gemma [00:34:41]:

No. I think we’ve had a lovely chat.

Martin [00:34:45]:

I’m glad you think so. I enjoyed it. Okay. Well, in that case, I’m just gonna give a a quick message for all our our listeners here. Really great to meet you, Gemma. Lets show some love for for Gemma by checking out all the show notes. Okay? The links to the website, socials, marketharboroughbiznetwork .co.uk/podcast. And even better, why not join in? Leave a comment, a question, suggestion.

Martin [00:35:14]:

We really appreciate how we can make this show, as useful as possible for you. And, hey, if you’d like to be on the show, then, also, there’s an application form on the website there. We also have sponsorship deals. There’s some really good early adopter ones available at the moment, so get in there quick.

Martin [00:35:39]:

Thanks again, Gemma. It’s been a a real blast, and, we will, hear you very soon. Thank you.