title: Extending a package model
body: <p>I have installed Cmgmyr\Messenger, however, I need to extend the Thread model and potentially a couple of the others as my users table does not contain a <code>name</code> field. </p>
  
  <p>The method I need to extend is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/**
       * Generates a string of participant information
       *
       * @param null $userId
       * @param array $columns
       * @return string
       */
      public function participantsString($userId=null, $columns=['name'])
      {
          $selectString = $this-&gt;createSelectString($columns);
  
          $participantNames = $this-&gt;getConnection()-&gt;table('users')
              -&gt;join('participants', 'users.id', '=', 'participants.user_id')
              -&gt;where('participants.thread_id', $this-&gt;id)
              -&gt;select($this-&gt;getConnection()-&gt;raw($selectString));
  
          if ($userId !== null) {
              $participantNames-&gt;where('users.id', '!=', $userId);
          }
  
          $userNames = $participantNames-&gt;lists('users.name');
  
          return implode(', ', $userNames);
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Notice the users.name filed being called? This is what needs to be changed to username or even better users.firstname and users.lastname together. </p>
  
  <p>I need to extend it to the following structure:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Modules/
   - Email/
     - Models/
      - Thread.php
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How can I go about this? </p>