General Business
On what turned out to be a very tropical day (including a few dramatic rainstorms), 36 members, 2 guests and 10 children (for a total of 48 persons) met at the lovely home of Dan & Terri. Luckily, they had the foresight to put up the club tent (and a couple other pop-up canopies), since we needed the shade before the business portion of the meeting and needed the shelter from the rain for the rest.
Treasurer’s report: 76 members, $1776.24 in the bank
Princess of Propaganda report: Cups: 26 remaining; Shirts: 7 remaining. We have covered the costs of the shirts but still need to sell 3 more cups to break even.
Budget review – Assuming the remaining 2014 expenses do not exceed budgeted values, we will finish the year with around $260.74 more than we started. (Note: this does not include the one-time expenses of reimbursing the BJCP exam costs). Any additional cups sales, t-shirts sales and 50/50 raffles will add to that. This entire budget surplus will be consumed by purchasing the AHA insurance (see Open floor notes below).
Future meetings:
- September 6th – Scott & Martha (Oatmeal Stout competition)
- October 11th – James & Joan (Munich Dunkel presentation)
- November 22nd – Justin & Carrie
- December – ??
Discussions
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Microfestivus – Harry provided an overview of the event. The official numbers (attendance and money raised) have not been released yet. The biggest complaint from the club membership was about the bathrooms. Bailie requested that, for next year, the judges get access to the VIP bathroom while judging to prevent undue delays.
- Learn to Homebrew Day – November 1st – Alex and Mike committed to brewing. Harry & Doug N. are tentatively penciled in as well
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Group brew at Chaos
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Dan, Chris S. and Dennis still need to come up with a recipe
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Each member will get 5 gallons of bitter wort and will add their own yeast, adjuncts (fruit, spice, herbs, sugar, flavorings), and/or dry hops to create a unique beer.
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This is just for fun to see how many different beers we can make from one wort.
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Dominion Cup – Paul provided a summary of judging for the Dominion Cup (homebrew competition put on by the Richmond club, the James Rivers Home Brewers). Paul was very impressed with the organization and efficiency to judge 555 entries in 24 categories. Paul also like the venue, Hardywood.
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Fixed meeting location – While at Dominion Cup judging, I spoke with James River president, Anna Shore. She attributes much of their growth in membership (around 150) to having their meetings at a fixed location (they meet the second Wednesday of each month at Mekong restaurant/bar). I discussed the possibility of having Blue 5 host our meetings with Blue 5 co-owner, Chris Coleman. Chris showed me (and Thom & Chris B) the newly opened White Room. He is interested in hosting us, but has to come up with a way to make some money off of it. He will talk to Chaz to come up with a proposal for us. We will consider this for December’s meeting.
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Open floor
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Bryan has volunteered to brew, at Big Lick Brewing Company, a batch of each of the club’s internal competition winners (as long as it is feasible on his system). So, the winner of Septembers oatmeal stout competition will have his/her recipe on tap at BLBC!
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Paul moved that we purchase the insurance from AHA at $3.50 per member. The vote was unanimous. It was discussed that this provides a different type of protection than incorporating and that we should do both.
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50/50 Raffle
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We were too busy seeking shelter from the rain to have a 50/50 raffle
