Proposed club expense, please vote, dues-paid members only

[JohnQ]

Having played too many RPGs, I can't help but think of myself slaving over a full boil wort, and suddenly glowing gold for a moment with "LEVEL UP" displayed across the screen of my universe.

Anything we can do to appear non-condescending is a plus. I remember feeling like I didn't understand this shit, and the sooner anyone could move past that and into confident (but not misguided) efforts of brewing, the better. Perhaps a vote on alternatives would be suitable, because frankly this is not rocket science. We should be emphasising the fact that we can help people to make better beer. Nothing else.

I totally agree, and the first bullet point is really the only line on the card that has the potential to convey either a sense of welcoming acceptance of any skill level or a sense of condescending snobbishness which we all know is not the case, we just need the words to convey it right.
I will ask my non beer drinking writers in the family and see how they respond, but the idea of a vote's not a bad one, I just think it should probably be between the 3 execs; you guys decide and let me know.
JW

PS, other than the one semi-contentious word or line...I'll run couple of different proofs for the meeting on Saturday, with and without the greyscale, maybe a couple of different colors on the text, perhaps even a couple of different stocks if possible, and then people can see what they think.

[JohnQ]

OK,
Writer #1 suggests changing up "Open to"...
Welcoming Home Brewers...
Regarding the at vs of, Writer#1 feels the real problem with the line is the words "skill levels"
As soon as there's a level there's an implicit judgment involved, so we need to take the level away from skill and make it experience levels.
That would make it "Welcoming Home Brewers of all experience levels"
That might be getting difficult for the poor typesetter to make it work, but Writer #1 doesn't care about that.  

The other approach may be to simply remove all reference to levels entirely...
So, maybe just "Welcoming all Home Brewers"

Then the typesetter comes up with...

"Welcoming Novice and Experienced Home Brewers"

Now if Writer #2 ever gets her sorry assed lazy self out of bed, we'll ask her, too.

JW

[brew]

First, this card looks fantastic...

While my preferences are not very strong one way or the other, I guess I would vote for  "Welcome to all Home Brewers" - however I would also be happy with either of the other options as well...

I love this logo - John, could I get a 72 dpi jpeg of it for the fcba.nb google account?

[Kyle]

John, you are working wonders here.

I completely agree that we want to project an image of helpfulness and avoid looking snobby.

I like the use of "experience"  rather than "skill level"

[JohnQ]

I'll get you a copy of the logo as soon as I've done the final tidying of it, no problemo.
I'm really starting to like the Welcome and the experience.
JW

[pliny]

John, you are working wonders here.

I completely agree that we want to project an image of helpfulness and avoid looking snobby.

I like the use of "experience"  rather than "skill level"

Agreed that the club doesn't want to come off as snobby on the business card.
For most people, the first thing they will do when they get the card is go see the site.
We then want them to subscribe by creating a username and then become a member.

Personnally, I think the topic in the forum labelled "Beer Recipes: Extract (Beginner)" is snobby.
There are all kinds of methods to brew and some people have been doing it the same way for years. Just because some folks are not all-grain doesn't mean they're beginners and they may change and they may not change.  
It's a numbers game. For example: give out 100 cards, 20 will go to the site and 7 might become members. We don't want to scare any potential new members once they've made it to the site.

5 cents.

[Kyle]

good point, lets drop the bracketed beginner and advanced words in the recipes forums

[Richard]

Kyle, you'll recall your choice of wording there was because you did a beginner's demo using extract. The intent wasn't to permanently tie "extract" to "beginner", but rather to draw in those people who attended the demo with promises of tractable brewing within their reach.

It's probably redundant now, though; I'll change it over.

[Kyle]

Richard is right, but, overall, it has been switched to avoid the possibility of snobishness.

[Gil Breau]

Should change All-grain to All Grain (WTF? I gotta GRIND this?)

[Richard]

Should change All-grain to All Grain (WTF? I gotta GRIND this?)

Had a friend of mine in disbelief the other day - he couldn't believe the effort we go to in pursuit of awesome beer

To me, it's not even that much effort now. Grinding takes a few minutes if you have the right tools for the job, and you're left with perfectly fresh non-slack grain. Hard to imagine doing it any other way, really.

JW: How we doing on the card front?

[JohnQ]

Had to change top line to make it fit.
Was going to print a few samples for this Saturday.

[Richard]

How about just "All" instead of "Novice & Experienced" ?

[JohnQ]

How about just "All" instead of "Novice & Experienced" ?

Other than messing up the flow of the text which looks great now, sure...You 3 can decide and let me know.

[Richard]

I'm just dicking around, it's fine.