1996 Plans

by Charlie Webster

Greetings from the President!

As the first official act of the new administration, I’d like to sincerely thank the out-going officers (Harry, Paul, Bryan, and Bruce -- though he’s also incoming) for two years of service to the club.

I’d like to take this opportunity to present some of the plans that we have formulated for the club and its activities for 1996.

Recognizing that the club is in dire need of new members, I have made recruiting the number one priority for this year. To facilitate that task we will be creating publicity materials, developing closer ties with the local homebrew shops, enhancing our web home page, writing a mission statement for the club, and adding more structured activities to our meetings.

Because we are a small club and don’t have enough members to form working groups or committees, a certain amount of work on these projects will have to be conducted at meetings. That means more meeting time devoted to business. I hope that everyone understands that this infringement on the "beer drinking time" is necessary so that the club can continue as a "homebrewing club" rather than just as a "beer drinking club."

One way to meet and recruit new homebrewers is to attend the brewing classes that are conducted by the various shops and other organizations around the Bay Area. Bob Jones and I, and anyone else who wishes to contribute, will be working on a presentation that will show the new brewer the benefits of belonging to a club. We will be soliciting member’s stories of how they benefited from their membership in the Draught Board to include in this presentation.

Another recruitment tool that we are developing is a full-color recruiting poster to hang in the homebrew shops. Anyone with artistic talents is encouraged to contact Ken Koupal to contribute to this effort.

While I was thinking about our recruiting efforts, I occurred to me that the club had no written charter or statement of purpose. Any sales effort benefits from having clearly defined benefits and goals. So too should our club have a clear mission statement that defines our goals and the benefits of membership. We will be discussing, and hopefully writing, our mission statement at the January meeting.

As part of my effort to bring more structure to our meetings, we will be returning to "stewarded tasting" at the meetings. Under this system, which prevailed when I first joined the club, each beer for tasting is poured/passed around blind by the steward. We will taste, and score, each beer before discussing it. After each beer we will discuss the beer, without knowing who brewed it. I hope this system will elicit more constructive criticism of the beers presented each month, without fear of insulting anyone. Each month Ken will publish the AHA style guidelines for the month’s beer in the Draught Notice, and I will pass out printed Style Guide/Score sheets at the meeting so will have a reference with which to compare each beer.

In next month’s message I will discuss some of the activities that are planned for the year, and review the results of the new meeting format.

Until then, "We’ll drink no beer before it’s time. And I think it’s time now!"