[eltharyon]

So I'm a new officer in my club, any words of wisdom that can be bestowed upon me?

One thing I was wondering, how to go about hitting up local shops/maybe breweries for "help"?

[tumarkin]

Learn to appreciate the "zen" of herding cats.

[jeffy]

What sort of "help" do you need from local shops and breweries?  Swag for raffles?  Ask and you shall receive.

In my opinion one of the most important things is to have a consistent meeting place.

[eltharyon]

Meeting place is covered, yeah I was thinking raffle prizes or competition prizes etc

[jeffy]

Although I don't really enjoy begging for swag, I have found that most beer related businesses are more than happy to contribute when asked.  The regional distributors have been good to us as well as local homebrew shops and microbreweries.  You will want to offer something in return, such as putting their logos on your web page and thanking them publicly somehow.

[theDarkSide]

Is this a new club or established?  When you say officer, do you mean President, VP, ?

Make sure to include everyone in your club meetings.  You don't want to newer members feeling left out.  Also have a little structure in the meeting rather than people just coming to drink beer.  Have a topic for discussion/education or a club brew and do a tasting to show how recipe is only part of the equation.

Oh yeah...have fun!

[bo]

Get a really big gavel.

[Kit B]

Get a really big gavel.

Best idea, ever.

[bo]

Get a really big gavel.

Best idea, ever.

Yeah, that's what I'm TALKING about!

[eltharyon]

Old club already well established.  But change of structure this year, added 2 more positions.  To make a total of 5, each of use have a range of responsibilities with overlap of each other. 

[dbeechum]

Hey, so I'll chime in here...

- Getting swag - it's surprisingly easy - just ask. Ask nicely, don't be pushy or act hurt if the answer back is no. Most places are happy to toss some merch and promotion into the pile. Be very clear with them what you expect togive them in return. (e.g., we'll talk you up, tell people how to find you, etc)

- On the club leadership wise, make sure those roles and responsiblities get well defined. Don't let things fall through the cracks.

- For the club, take some beer time with folks and brainstorm what people want from the club. More brewing? More competing? More education? More social time? Then do it.

[punatic]

Learn to appreciate the "zen" of herding cats.

Perfect!

[Jimmy K]

I have found that local breweries, pubs, and shops are usually very willing to donate prizes to my homebrew club. Good meeting locations definately help with attendance. Most of our meetings are at Dogfish Head's pub, and those meetings have the highest attendance. Since the pub is in a 'beach town' our summer meetings are at people houses and not usually as well attended.

[pedalbiker]

We are planning start something new when sampling member’s beers at meetings.  Rather just tasting all the beers at the end of the meeting, we are all going to sample each beer at the same time, the brewer will take a few minutes and talk about what and how they brewed their beer.  Should make for good discussion and also let the brewer take pride in their brew. 

[bob]

We usually do flights of 3 beers. Each person gets 3 - 9 oz. plastic cups, numbers them with a marker to keep everyone on the same beer, then the brewer discusses their beer. Sometimes we allow commercial beer as a reality check. The homebrews win that contest most of the time.
I have  made numbered identifying collars out of PVC pipe that fit around the neck of the bottle to keep the #1 beer in the #1 cup, and so on, as the bottles are passed around the table. Things get confusing after 3 flights, even at 2 ounce samples!

At the beginning of the meeting, everyone who brought something fills out a 3"x5" card with their name, beer name and exact type and whether its homebrewed or commercial. Beers that match the style of the month, say IPAs, are sorted according to the strength and complexity before the tasting begins, then the person running the meeting calls out the persons name and their beer name, a collar is put on the open bottle and passed around. Then the fun begins.
Bob
Yeast Coasters