By TONY NIVENS / Community Columnist

“I created Chelsea Central to bring Chelsea together,” said owner and host Cody Brasher, “to help neighbors learn about their neighbors, to introduce potential customers to the local businesses, to help worshipers learn about local church options.”

But ChelseaCentrAL.com is more than a podcast according to Brasher. It is “Your Hub for All Things Chelsea.”

“That is why we call it Chelsea CentrAL”, said Brasher. “To me it is a medium to help Chelsea connect.”

“Our sub-motto is ‘Listen, Learn, Connect,’” he said. “We create a podcast episode where you can listen to a guest’s story in their voice. It feels more personable that way. You feel you can get to know them better. You can learn about them and whatever they are passionate about. It may be a local business owner, a church pastor or someone you may pass on the street and otherwise wouldn’t know who they are. Then you can connect with them.”

Connecting with Chelsea is important to Brasher.

“Once you learn about the business maybe you want to become a patron. Maybe you will want to take your business to them instead of over the mountain,” Brasher smiled. “Whether I interview a business owner, pastor or non-profit leader, I am trying to connect them to the community and the community to them. But, I do believe in shopping local and supporting our local businesses.”

After the podcast comes connection through the ChelseaCentrAL.com website.

“After we introduce people on our podcast we post their contact information and the show notes about them on our Chelsea CentrAL website to give people a path to reach out and connect with them,” Brasher said. “As Chelsea has grown so much I won’t be able to introduce everybody, but I feel like we can help connect many and thereby make Chelsea a more tight-knit community.”

Brasher is up to 23 episodes now. When asked he did not want to choose a favorite podcast so far, but…

“The first podcast released was with the mayor, Tony Picklesimer. He was so gracious to give me the opportunity to interview him. I can’t imagine what he was thinking,” Brasher said, laughing. “I can tell you, the one I did with Kristi and David Ingram was the most moving, that whole situation with her battle with cancer. It was immediately a popular episode and a garnered a lot of downloads, which speaks to the family’s impact on the community.”

Brasher has plans to grow and better cover Chelsea.

“We recently added Leah Eagle as a freelance page writer and I have a vision for a local business directory and event calendar page to make us ‘a true one-stop-shop for all things Chelsea.’”

They are always looking for more people to introduce to Chelsea.

“If you know people in Chelsea with an interesting story and think we should have them on, send me their contact info. We have a contact page on Chelsea CentrAL. We will schedule something with them.”