Welcome to the Get Together. It's our show about ordinary people building extraordinary communities.

I'm your host, Billy Richardson. I'm a partner at People in Company and a coauthor of Get Together How to Build a Community with Your People. And I mean a quality get together correspondent and the VP of content, for matter, and T are a new media and community platform altogether.

This year, in each episode of this podcast, we interview everyday people who have built extraordinary communities about just how they did it. How did they get the first people to show up? How did they grow to hundreds, maybe even thousands more members today? Mia has brought us a remarkable interview. We're talking to Chris Turner, the founder of the Ring Finders, a group of volunteer sleuths who help people find lost rings and other valuables. The Ring Finders recently made headlines when they helped actor Jon Cryer find his wedding ring and he tweeted about it there, a global directory with close to 500 members in twenty two countries.

And unusually, they work on a reward basis, allowing people to pay what they think is worth it. Nia, I'm wondering what stood out to you from your conversation with Chris. Well, I love this conversation, and what surprised me the most about it was that the technology, which is the metal detectors and other tools of his trade, are really secondary to the human nature aspect of this work. To be a successful rangefinder, you have to be a detective.

And to that end, it's all about the questions, the backtracking and the context, even questions like were you drinking and how much can impact the outcome for this community? I learned that a common way for a drink to get, quote unquote lost is to be thrown by an angry spouse. And the number of drinks just might affect its trajectory, which had no idea. It was a really fascinating angle to think about. It was also so refreshing to meet a group of people who aren't in it necessarily for the money.

They're in it for the smiles. Chris said that over and over again, you either find someone smile or you're walking away from a smile. If you're not doing it right, he and the other ring binders do their absolute best to never walk away from a smile. Chris, who are you, a modern day superhero? I can't wait to meet Chris. Should we jump in? Let's do it.

You so, Chris, first thing I heard about the ring finders with seeing the incredible story of how you found Jon Cryer's wedding ring from Krier himself on Twitter. So before we get into the whole story of the ring finders, I just want to hear about this particular one and how it unfolded. It unfolded like every other story. It was a it was an email saying, could you help? I lost my ring. I replied back, Yes. Can you can you send me pictures of where you think you lost it?

He sent me a picture and I looked at the picture and it was a Google Earth picture and it was all concrete. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, how am I going to find this? It's concrete. Somebody would have found it already, but there was a little strip of grass that separated the two pathways. It was a cycling path and a pedestrian path. And there is three feet of grass that separated the pathways all along the pathway.

And that was my only chance. So I just replied back, saying, you've got probably less than a five percent chance of recovering your ring because where you've lost it. But I'll come out tomorrow morning and we'll have a look for it. And when I met John for the first time, I knew right away who he was.

I'm like, oh, the pressure's on. I knew there was a very slight chance of being able to recover his ring. We we went to the location. He showed me where he is walking. He was really close to the rail, close to the water. So there was a chance that the ring could have popped, fell and gone into the water. There's a huge chance you could just fell and laid on the concrete. There was such a slight chance that we go into the grass, the only place I could use my metal detector to find it.

And it was and it was three three feet wide, the grass area and probably one hundred yards long. He knew the specific area and even the grass. He only had like less than 50 percent of the grass to search because the side of the grass was pounded down where people were walking. So the only place you can gone for me to find it was where I found it right in the middle.

What kind of strategies to you employ to find rings?

Well, you have to be a good detective because our equipment's fantastic. We'll find them, especially recent losses. Even if it's been lost for twenty, thirty years, it doesn't matter. We have great equipment. The strategy is the questions. You have to ask the right questions or you can be walking away from a smile so many times. I'll get into an area like I had one the other week where I met the couple. The lady showed me where she was in the park and I'm listening to her story.

I'm looking at this area I'm going to search.

And I looked and I said, is there a chance it could be over here in this area? And she goes, No, there's not a chance. Guess where I found it in that area and that area. After doing this search where she believed the ring would be and I searched for like an hour, I started expanding my search further and I found it in the area that he said there was no chance to find it. So if you just go in and do a search and don't exhaust the area, you could be walking away from a smile.

So we you know, we do this. I have a group of detectorists members on our directory, close to five hundred now. And we all listen to the stories very carefully. And then we take it from there and we'll do everything we can to find what people have lost.

So you've been metal detecting for forty eight years, helping people find lost rings for over twenty six. Like what drew you to this past time? You know, it started when I was very young, when I was 12, I got my first metal detector and I just love looking for history and relic hunting. And then one day after my soccer career, I was living in L.A. I was walking down a beach and it was early in the morning. And this guy came charging at me, yelling and screaming for, boy, here we go.

And as he got closer, he's like, How can you help and say, Yeah, what's up, man? He's like, My wife and I grew up here last night. We lost our engagement ring and we've been here all night with flashlights. This is before computers. This is before, you know, cell phones. So I, I get up there, I find the ring within minutes and she's crying, he's tearing up. He's giving me everything he has in this wall.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I don't want your money. I go, I'm just happy to find. He goes, no, you're taking it. And they walked off and I thought, wow, that was crazy. And flashback a year later, living in Cancun, Mexico, same thing happened to me multiple times. I thought, OK, there's a service here. And that's when I created to it was called Lost Jewelry, dot com, Canadian spelling and jewelry.

And it was called finders. And I was doing this Vancouver before computers. It was slow. I had fliers and brochures up with the lifeguards and I get calls here and there.

And then flashback. Eleven years ago, a person from the Internet I've never met this day reached out and said, I love what you're doing in Vancouver. And have you thought of helping more people? And I said, well, that's a money thing. He goes, you build it, you design it and I'll pay for it. I'm like, really? I mean, it's off the Internet, right?

You really, really to pay for it. He's like, yeah, he goes, you go to it, you design it and I'll pay for it. So I built it the ring finders and he paid for it. He paid for it for the first three years. Corporate taxes, lawyers, programmers, designers, it wasn't cheap. And 11 years later, it's paying for itself. And he keeps telling me, put it back into the company, pay yourself.

It's like an angel investor. This guy's incredibly some Illinois. He's a silent partner and he just loves reading the stories and seeing the smiles. And you've never met him?

I've never met him. And not only that, when I go to pay him back, his original investment is percentages like, no, put it back in the company. So, yeah, it's pretty incredible.

You've got to be pinching yourself over that. It feels like it was meant to be. Well, you know what?

It's such a beautiful directory. And he saw the value in what we were doing, what I was doing here in Vancouver and saw a chance to help more people. And yeah, I do. I sit there and think, you know, that's it's incredible back story to how this directory came to life because finders in Vancouver was helping just people in Vancouver slowly. You know, right now, being a global directory with twenty two countries close to five hundred members, we're able to find a lot more smiles.

And I mean, I'm just so proud of the members on this directory. I'm like the grandfather. Every time a picture and a story comes in, I get to see it before I post it on our website. It's fantastic. It's a great feeling. Yeah.

I wanted to ask you how you grew to five hundred members. How did people find out about it and what kind of persona do you look to attract me?

It's a lot like what you're doing right now. It's stories that are being shared. Podcast's, thank you for your interest, by the way, on the refiner's.

And it's it sharing it with your your listeners that that's helped grow the rainforest where it is the the press. They they grabbed the concept quite quickly because we're so unusual. We're unlike any other company out there. I created a footprint many years ago on a reward basis. So I don't charge to find people's lost jewelry. I work on a reward basis and all I ask for is cover my gas to get to you if I don't find it. And ninety eight point ninety seven percent of my members have created foam into the same footprint.

And we all work on reward basis. So we leave it up to people to pay what it's worth to them when they can afford, which is so unusual on this day and age. And these these these members are all individual contractors that could structure their company any way they like, but they've fallen into the same footprint. They love the idea of working on a reward basis and just leaving it up to people to pay what they can afford.

It seems like, according to the testimonials on your website, like your members, they're not only valued for their detective skills, but also they seem like really kind, persistent, optimistic people like do you screen at all for those kinds of personality traits?

It's hard to I mean, it's hard to screen being where I'm located and just talking to somebody, but I do. I usually talk for close to an hour with members to get them on board with the directory stands for what it's about, how it works, and generally everybody who's ever joined has that same passion of wanting to help. If you've found a ring and returned it to somebody, you know how amazing that feels. I've been blessed to have over 600 recoveries now.

I think it's over 300 something on the directory plus prior to when I was doing this. So I'd experienced it over 600 times. You only have to experience once to see how amazing it makes someone you don't know feel and at the same time how good it makes you feel to return with someone's lost.

Can you describe that for me and for our listeners who want to experience that themselves? Oh, wow.

It's you know, you go in, you listen to the stories, you hear the panic. First of all, when I get a phone call, an email, you can just read the panic or hear the panic. And you want to you want to go in there and and help. You've got to listen to the stories we get in there. I had that lady I was telling you about the other day who had lost it in this area. When I found out she was just over the moon, she was so happy, so was her husband.

And like I say, every one of these rings has a beautiful story attached to it. And when those rings are lost, the stories end. And what I and my members and the director do is we help continue that story. So it's the greatest feeling when you put it back in someone's hand to see how good it makes them feel. It's it's addicting. It's it's like you want to continue to do this out of everything I've ever done. I I've played professional soccer.

I've my first acting gig was with Johnny Depp. I was trying acting when I was younger. And I've never done anything more rewarding that is felt because this feels and that's to help people.

I love that. Well, what are some of the roles that you have for your members?

Well, there's not much rules. I always tell my members when you're on a search and you're looking for something for someone, show them absolutely everything you find before you put in your pouch. So if you're out there looking for some of the lost time during the beach, you're inherently going to pick up pull tabs, bottle caps, bobby pins, nails, all kinds of pieces, iron. So you show them everything before you put in your power. To the end of the day, if you don't find it, you dump your posts, you show it to them, say, look, if your ring was here, I would have found it.

Now, there's reasons why we don't find what people have lost. And one of the most common reasons is people associate a lost ring by looking at their hand, realizing their rings gone. They freeze and they think, oh, my God, I've lost my ring. And this is where they think they've lost it.

It's very common at beaches and parks, so. That that that association doesn't necessarily mean they lost it where they're standing, they could have been lost its earlier hours earlier, it just happens to be look at their fingers up, something gone. Everything's gone. This is the area they put us in. That happens a lot. I had probably seven in a row where parents had lost their rings and playgrounds. And my question would be, OK, you lost the playground.

You know what makes you think you lost it there? While I was there for like an hour with my kids, I go, when did you realize something was missing there? Like the next day, a lot of them said the next day. And now there's a huge window from a playground to to realize that it's gone the next day. So I'll go to the playground. I do what I call a closer search. If it's there, I'll find it.

In all the cases, I never found anyone, any of the seven range, but I taught them. Now you know it's not here. Here's your next step. Where did you go after one person went to a department store? One person went to a gas station, somebody else went to a liquor store for I think it was three out of the seven. Got the rings back. They were they were in the lost and found and one found it in her washing machine.

So they some didn't even have it when they went to the park. So a lot of times if we don't find it, we'll tell the people, don't give up. Here's what you can do and we'll tell them to to do a police report, follow, lost and found. Because some people, the older generation, they don't know the Craigslist in how to post what they found. So they go to the police. It was always told to us, if you find something to turn to the police.

So the training the police lost and found would tell people to check the lost and found for the police department in their area will suggest that they post on Craigslist after we search for it if we don't find it, because there is a chance, but we warn them on certain scams to look out for. And then the other option is to post a lost poster in the area. Now, we've had people get the rings back that way. You have a story of a fine that you're really proud of.

That was like super hard. You never thought I was going to happen, to be honest with you.

I'm proud of everything I find because of the stories I can tell you. A man from Australia was here visiting the Rocky Mountains with his girlfriend, and she took off five of her rings, which were from her late husband, and she put it in the fall of her shirt while they were driving to the airport. And this in a winter time up up in Alberta, which a lot of snow. He pulled off to the side of the road because he wanted to take a picture of this one mountain called Castle Rock Mountain.

He jumped out of the car. I was taking pictures. She jumped out, forgetting she put those five rings in the fall of her shirt while she was moisturizes in her hands. And they get to the airport. She realizes she hasn't got a ring. She runs back to the rental car. The rings were gone. She she was inconsolable. She couldn't even talk the whole making our flight to Australia. He felt horrible because he invited her to come out here and go on the holidays.

So he flew back in the summertime. And from the pictures, he took a Castlerock mountain. He he got in his hands and knees on the side of the road in the dirt and grass and found two of the five rings, if you can believe it. Just with a fork. Just with a fork. That's how desperate this guy was. He goes back to Australia, presents her the two rings. She just loses it. So now he's like, OK, I got to find those other three.

He finds the ring finders. I didn't have any members in that area at that particular time. He said, would you drive 10 hours, 11 hours to meet me there? I said, absolutely. So I drove. He flew in from Australia for one day in the area. We got there and I found the three rings. He was incredible. They ended up getting married. It was a beautiful story that one sticks out in my mind. There's so many others there.

Like I say, they're all equally as important because the stories attached to how do you chronicle these stories?

I do videos I have to be close to, I guess, close to four hundred videos of recovering and returning rings. Plus, on our website, we have a place where we blog our stories. So there's all the blogs of our stories. All our members get to blog stories of their Journey of the rings. And they're wonderful. I love reading them.

I feel like this is the reality show that we need right now. Have you ever been approached to do something like that approach?

Many times, yeah. It's funny you say that because we're kind of in talks right now a little bit with the company that I know I would be proud to work with. It's a pretty big company. I want to say any names right now, but I've had many people approach me to do shows. I have not done one because I won't do something that isn't real. There's no need to to make a reality show on this company and glorify it and try to make it something that's not.

The stories are powerful. Everybody's running, like you say, has an amazing story. When those stories and we get to hear them, sometimes we don't find them, but a lot of times we do. So I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the integrity of myself and my director and its members. So I'm very particular and who I would work with and how it would be. And right now we're just in the beginning stages. So you might see a show?

I hope so. Selfishly, I hope so. Well, what is what is the attention that Jon Cryer's tweet stauss this story?

What what kind of attention has that brought to the community?

It was huge. You know, it takes something like that to make awareness. And, you know, we've been on Good Morning America prior to this. We've been on so many news stories because of the human interest stories behind the losses and seeing a smile. So we get a lot of attention prior to Jon Cryer. But this really it was like the home run on. And I even knew when I went out there, I thought, oh, jeez, I'd love to find this because I knew in the back of my mind there, this could open.

An opportunity for more people to know this beautiful directory is out there. So when I when I found it and when I recorded you see the video, I selfishly want to turn the camera off, said, hey, John, I'm sure you have followers. I, I don't follow him or anything like that. But I said, I'm sure you have followers. Would you mind sharing this on in your social media? And you say, yeah, I'll do a story, I'll do a story about my tweet about it.

He was so happy. I thought, okay, cool. I realized how hard that would hit because, you know, he tweeted it and within an hour, every news, every news station here did a story to get three stories on it. Like it was ridiculous how it went national here in Canada, every single newspaper throughout Canada. And I believe the US even got hit with a lot of stories. And I had members get in and are still getting what I call the Jon Cryer effect, where we're fighting rings because of the stories that have been done and people saying, hey, I lost my ring.

I had a lady right after the story call me and say I lost my ring three years ago. And, you know, we're walking in a forest. And I slipped and my husband slipped and we fell down a bit of this ravine and my ring went flying. So I went and found that after three years, members, like I say, have been feeling the effect across our directory. So it was fantastic. I was on the Tamron Hall show talking about it.

It was yeah. I think it it really it they seemed to be impressed at how long I'm not a tweet tweet kind of guy, but how long it lasted up on social media.

They're saying, you know, how's it feel to be the talk of the town for like five days? It's like, well, yeah, good. I you know, I love talking about this directly.

It makes me happy because the more people that hear it, the chances are the more stories that are going to be revealed to us and people asking for help. And that's what we're here for. And we just love every call. There's not a member who joins that doesn't want to get a call. We all wait for those calls. And when we get them, it's exciting because we know we have a chance to go and find someone, smile. So we're we're we're guilty of just loving what we do.

And I just I love for the girls.

And is there any sense of community among the members themselves, like are there meet ups? Do they get together in real life?

You know, we'd like to ah, we talk about it, but not with this. Caronna it's it's it's a different game now. I would every year, pretty much for three or four years, go up to the California coast and meet members and go with them and talk to them. We had a group of us from California get together and have a barbecue. I'd love to do that where we could have a big meeting and one one one place, California, Florida, somewhere, and just meet everybody and have a long weekend of just hunting, detecting and telling stories.

But until we figure out covid, that's not going to happen.

And until then, do you guys stay in touch through how do you how do you guys stay in touch?

Well, it's like I say, we're all independent contractors and we're there to help people. So I stay in touch by seeing the stories that are coming. So, you know, we have over seven thousand three hundred recoveries over close to eight point one million dollars in lost to recovery and return. So I kind of stay in touch with members by seeing their stories coming in. I've got to post all the pictures. I've got to post their their their stories on our website.

So that's how I sort of stay connected with them by seeing what they're doing. I'm open to members, members, call me, email me or text me any questions they have. I'm always there to help. I'm not somebody who just started a directory and and that's it. I'm a I'm also a terrorist that's out there helping people. So we a lot of people will share stories, talk about equipment, anything they want to talk about. I'm there to help and talk.

I've had a member in Washington, DC he found just to show you the different extremes, we not only find jewelry, we can find buried treasure on people's property. I had a member in Washington, DC, he found one hundred thousand dollars for the gold Krugerrand to one ounce Krugerrand, 60 of them that was buried, I believe, for thirty years. And the son remembered his father telling a story and he contacted my member and my member found that.

And, you know, it's it's a beautiful story. If you go to Washington, DC, his name's Brian. He his blog about it is like a book. It's amazing. He talks, he takes you right through the whole process of finding this guy is gold. And not only did he find it. When he found it, he left it in the hole. He didn't even take it out. Once he realized it was what he was looking for, he left it there so his son could be the first to touch it since his father, his late father had buried it.

So I guess it's pretty powerful stuff. And, yeah, we can find buried treasure, hidden treasure. There's so many different things. You know, I've been called up for hearing aids, false teeth, you name it. It's it's we could find it if it's made of metal.

What's the weirdest thing that you guys have found?

I can't speak for anybody else.

I'm sure everybody has weird things.

I found a tin can with a ponytail on at one time and I worked in this case and it was wrapped up in a cloth.

I'm thinking of myself reburied a Rolex or something like that. And I opened it up and there's a ponytail and I just I put it back in the can and put it back in the earth and walked away. I don't know what that was about, but it was kind of creepy.

That's the definition of random. I love that. Well, what didn't you know when you started this work that you now know about building a community?

What did I know? I guess how much work it is. It's a it's a lot of work.

I'm constantly on line. I'm constantly adding new members, you know, adding forums every day, deleting thousands of spam every day. But just extremely proud of how this continues to grow and how proud I am to see the smiles. I mean, how proud I am of the members that have joined to do exactly what I'm doing here in Vancouver, all across the United States, Canada, and like I say, twenty two countries. I'm just I'm extremely proud of watching this continue to grow.

And my goal is to see over a million smiles before I die. So, you know, the refiner's deserves to be a household name. That is the hardest part is we're not I mean, Jon Cryer. It definitely helps. If I get a show, it will definitely help. But more people need to know this because a survey was done many years ago. It was called a company called Ring Safe. And they say in America, four out of ten married men will lose their wedding band in their lifetime.

And I believe it was like something like 700 million married men. And it worked out to be like twenty two million lost the rings or twenty million lost rings. That's a lot of ring. That's just meant how many women are losing their rings as well. So you think this is happening every day? Somebody is losing the ring every day. I could probably stop work my personal job and do this full time if we were a household name. So my goal, my dream is to find a way to put this on the map where when anyone loses a ring, somebody goes call the ring finders.

That's what I'm that's what I'm working towards.

Now, hopefully we can help you with that just a little bit here. Well, I wish you I wish you could see my face throughout this interview. I've had, like, a huge smile the whole time because your your sort of generosity of spirit and your enthusiasm is totally infectious. If someone wants to get involved with the ring finders, what should they do?

If you want to get involved with the refurnish, go to our website. It's w w w got the ring fighters dot com and there's a join section on the topic. Just click on Join. It will talk you through it. There is membership fees to be on. We charge sixty five dollars per town or city that you want to join in and you're getting info book with tips, tricks, techniques, grid search videos and you get your own personal blog page.

We done this. So whoever joins gets their own profile page in their location where they can have themselves show up on our directory whenever somebody clicks in their location. So it's it's like having your personal website. And Google loves the ring finders were eleven years old. Now they rank is really high because we're doing all the right things. I teach people how to do their posts through blogs and how to use the correct keywords that are going to help more people find them.

So, yeah, just come down to our directory, click on Join if you've lost something. We have a search bar. We just type in your location and we'll find the nearest member to. That's fantastic, Chris, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to share? If anybody wants to check out my YouTube channel, it's the ring finders on YouTube and I have close to 100 videos of surprising people and it's it's pretty powerful.

I've got a way of surprising people. And seeing their original, you'll see exactly what it means to people, because I present in a way where they don't know I find it. So I'm a little tricky when I rebuild the recovery and I catch people off guard. And to see the reactions is it's beautiful. It really is. And you'll see why we're addicted to this and why we do what we do from just those videos. I know what I'm doing this afternoon at.

If you want to connect with Chris or join the ring finders, go to their website at the Ring Finders dot com. Their YouTube channel also has many terrific feel good videos that are fun to watch. You can find that at Turner's treasure team on YouTube.

Thank you to our team, Greg David, for his design work and Katie O'Connell for marketing this episode. You can find out more about the work I do with my partners, Kevin and Kai, as people and company helping organizations get clearer on who their most important communities are and how to build with those people by heading to our website, people and company. Also, if you want to start your own community or supercharge one, you're already a part of our handbook is here for you.

Visit, Get Together Book Dotcom to grab your copy. It's full of stories and learnings from conversations with community leaders like this one with Chris. And last thing, if you don't mind, please review us or click subscribe. It helps get our stories out to more folks. See you next time. Yes.