Brainstorming Club Activities

[feldmann]

Hey everyone,

After the mash occur on Saturday I was thinking about a few of the things we talked about and I thought it might be helpful to have some of those things written down so everyone can see them and contribute. A lot of these ideas get presented every few meetings but never really get the steam to make it far enough to become a reality. I'd like to open the floor to anyone and everyone who has any thoughts or ideas on things they'd like to see happen. Feel free to critique or shit all over my ideas or present ones of your own.

Social Media
I've volunteered to help out with some of our social media. The executive member's already have a lot on their plate so I figured this is something I/we could easily help out with. If anyone would like to volunteer some info and pictures, I was thinking occasionally the social media pages could feature a member and their brewing process.

Pub/Brewery Night
Some newer members might feel a little hesitant to begin attending meetings at a strangers house, especially lately when we may only have 3-4 people attend a meeting. Once a month I propose we have a get together at a pub or local brewery. I think it would a little less intimidating for newer members, less pressure for someone to host and a good opportunity to support a local brewery. We could even schedule these for nights other than Saturday as to not interfere with regular meetings.

Meeting Presentations
This is something I've admired that a lot of other clubs do. Each meeting someone could present something they've done or created recently related to brewing. In my last club we had a meeting where everyone built stir plates. Everyone was given a list of parts to bring and the presenter walked everyone through how to build it and use it properly.

Barrel/Solera Project
I got the "barrel" rolling on this idea and let it slowly die so I'll take all the blame for that. I'm fairly sure our original source for the barrels isn't going to work anymore but I really liked this idea so I don't want to let it completely die. If anyone has any info and where we might get some barrels please let me know. @blisster I believe you said you might have something this fall?

Club Road Trip
This idea was brought up during the Mash Occur in the spring. We could rent a bus or a van and go down to Portland.

Keg Swap
Pretty straight forward, we have a sign up list and swap kegs with one another. This can be as complicated as we all brew a similar beer to see the difference or a free-for-all brew what ever you want.

[Two Wheeler]

Happy to see this discussion and where it goes!

[blisster]

Thanks Steve... I really like the idea about the meeting presentations, occasional pub/evening club meetings, and profiling (interested) club members for the social media account posting.   

... If anyone has any info and where we might get some barrels please let me know. @blisster I believe you said you might have something this fall?

About the barrels, I talked to the owner of a local wine making shops where they "age" their customers' wines in small 5/10Gal barrels...  Every fall they normally replace their small barrels with new ones but since the existing ones are still giving lots of character in wine, they weon't be replaced until around Spring now. 

I'm hoping we can source the old barrels or possibly add new ones to their order when they do replace them... Fingers crossed.

These barrels come new from this Ontario based distributor:
http://www.barrelimports.com/Home.html

They are quite expensive though..

[mikegraham]

All good ideas i would be in for a keg swap

[robcoombs]

The pub/brewery night is a great idea. I'm sure newbies would be a little more comfortable at a first meeting in a neutral location like that. I definitely plan on having a meeting at the brewery when things are up and running.

I really like the meeting presentations as well. They could take on a number of topics or have members make suggestions or even vote on what topics they would like to see covered.

With respect to the barrels. One consideration is size. The 5/10 gallon sizes are great for short term aging (ie a few months) so doing a stout or even a tart saison are good uses for that size. But the barrel contact to volume ratio is too high to use them for a solera in my opinion. The beer would likely become very heavy in oak character. For a solera a full barrel would work much better but obviously comes with those inconveniences as well. A dairy tank is an option as well. Again, this is just my opinion, take it for what its worth.

[feldmann]

I was also thinking we could do a "Collaberation" with the BrewNosers. Each club could brew a beer and then we swap half with one another.

[DanJ]

As a real Newbie (I joined about a week before the meeting), I have no problem with meetings being held at a private residence versus one of the breweries. The big thing for me is how much notice we receive.  I live in Miramichi, but I am more than willing to travel to Freddy for a weekend for something like this provided I haven't already committed to something and my work schedule provides for it. 

[feldmann]

Maybe we could have a calendar. That way out of towners know well in advance when we have meetings and where they are. Instead of just saying "every two weeks" it might help to be more prepared for holidays where we generally know we're going to cancel a meeting if they fall on the same weekend. We could also trial doing meetings every 3 weeks in the summer since attendance seems to drop off around that time.

I think it might help with hosting as well, someone could volunteer and plan in advance.

[Two Wheeler]

@feldmann runs our social media account for like 2 days and we get 4 new members reach out!!! 

We need to fix the log in problem... stay tuned.

[feldmann]

@feldmann runs our social media account for like 2 days and we get 4 new members reach out!!! 

We need to fix the log in problem... stay tuned.

Twitter is turning out to be a much bigger learning curve than I expected. #IsThisWhatBeingOldFeelsLike?

[Two Wheeler]

Haha yeah, I'm not big on the twitter, and I don't bother with Snapchat.

I'm a big fan of the pub night idea. There are a lot of places we could do that in town. Ale house and James Joyce immediately pop into my head, but we could also sit in one of the many tap rooms. It might be a good plan to have one meeting a month as a pub night, one meeting at someone's house. As for night of the week- through the week is typically easiest for me to pop out for an hour or two- how about anyone else?

The Facebook group is rocking- it's great that people actually seem to know what we do now. I love the idea of the member profiles. We can feature their gear, their styles, etc.

Keg Swap- this is a great idea

Public Competition- we've been kicking this idea around for after Christmas, to host a public competition to boost the visibility of the club. Still lots of logistics to work out here, but stay tuned.

Hammond River- I've had a chat with Shane and we're looking to head down to check out HRB's new facilities. Again- date and logistics to be determined, but it would be great to see the new spot and maybe collect some of our Saint John area members!

[feldmann]

I was thinking of doing the pub night for the James Joyce event on November 10th where they're having every brewery from NB on tap. My only reservations are that it could be a little busy.

[pliny]

A bit last minute - going to the Boxing Rock event tonight: https://www.facebook.com/events/2011071569125450/?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22bookmarks%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22bookmarks_menu%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22[]%22%7D%2C%7B%22surface%22%3A%22dashboard%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22calendar_tab_event%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22[]%22%7D]%2C%22ref%22%3A46%2C%22source%22%3A2%7D

[feldmann]

I wanted to post an update just to show people that I haven't completely forgotten and I'd like to see if anyone might have some additional feedback.

Social Media

I think we saw the biggest impact from this one. I've been a little busier lately so my involvement with it sort of faded a little bit, but I want to keep going with the momentum we had. I think a big thing limiting more social media involvement is that the club hasn't been super active lately, so there isn't much more for me to post besides local events/craft beer news, which is what the ACBB and a dozen other blogs do and I don't really want to encroach on since a lot of them do it well already. If you have anything you'd like to share or see on the social media just let me know.

Pub/Brewery Night

We gave this a try, see the specific thread if you're curious of the details. I'm going to look at setting up something similar again at a brewery in the new year by the end of this week.

Keg Swap

I'm planning on setting up the sign-up sheet after xmas (I didn't want to compete with the 12 beers of christmas)