For those looking for community within the media and podcasting landscape, WestfordCAT has the group for you.
The second Saturday of every month at noon, podcaster and entrepreneur Ande Lyons hosts the New England Podcasters Group in WestfordCAT’s studio. She is the group’s founder and the creator of the NEPG Community Pod Garden, a welcoming online space where indie podcasters can connect and share resources.
“Indie podcasters are fun, quirky and interesting … we needed a support group of our own,” Lyons said.
Lyons began podcasting in 2012, though she has been building businesses since 1992. Driven by her passion for fostering intergenerational relationships and community, Lyons founded the New England Podcasters Group in early 2024.
“I wanted to find a community and I went looking around for it,” Lyons said. “I wasn’t seeing anything that was resonating with me. I had a monthly pitch event for start-up founders in downtown Boston, and I thought, ‘well I’ll start my own [group].”
After connecting with current Board member Jack Wang, Lyons decided to hold her meetings at WestfordCAT. Today the New England Podcasters Group is a thriving, ever-growing network of podcasters connecting, collaborating, and amplifying each other’s voices, both in-person at the monthly studio meetup and online via the Community Pod Garden.
“WestfordCAT is a god-send,” Lyons said. “And it’s right off of 4-95, so anyone from New England can come down easily, whether you’re from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, or Maine.”
Lyons also assured that although it is called the ‘New England Podcasters’ even those outside of the New England area are welcome to join and participate.
However, New England Podcasters is not Lyons’ only podcasting experience. She also hosts a podcast called ‘Don’t Be Caged By Your Age,’ a positive aging podcast that features guests over the age of 65 with advice on entrepreneurship, technology, relationships and more.
“I saw a lot of gendered ageism in the tech industry, and I would hear at my own pitch events people say ‘you know you need to explain your businesses as if you were explaining it to your grandma,’ and I would just be furious,” Lyons said. “I was really tired of that bias. And I also felt like an imposter, because I was 65 and hearing all of this stuff.”
On her 66th birthday, Lyons posted a picture of herself posed next to a Route 66 sign and wrote a post critiquing ageism in the tech industry, which went viral.
“It [the post] was called ‘Don’t Be Caged By Your Age’ where I talked about aging out loud and proud, and how important that is. Especially in the tech industry, and for women in the tech industry. The comments were phenomenal.”
Lyons added, “I need to shine a light, and I need to help women especially, to age out loud and proud but to truly understand that anti-aging is the most profitable form of ageism. And we need to stop that crap. We cannot be a youth-centered society. We need to let women age.”
Going forward, Lyons hopes to attract more members to New England Podcasters and expand upon its diversity, as well as continue to build inter-generational communities.
“To help podcasters have a home, [and] to know that they have a community where they feel belonged and welcomed I would say is the number one feedback we receive from visitors,” Lyons said. “And that is what makes my heart sing with joy … for me personally, out of all the things I’ve built in my life, this has been the most rewarding … I’m so, so grateful that at the age of 70 I am doing something so meaningful.”
