you spoke, we listened...

​Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the 2019 Member Survey. In planning the direction of the club the board of directors decided to poll the members to get the sense of what works and what doesn’t.  34 of our 61 members completed the survey and all that responded will join or renew.  Their responses clearly identified the most enjoyable elements of our activities and have given us indications on how we can do even better.

​Below are some highlights, come to the meeting in January to dive deep into our plans for 2020.
 
Homebrew Sharing:
The beer sharing activity of our monthly meetings are clearly a big factor in their positive responses but they also indicated several improvements that we will incorporate in our future meetings.

First change will be to set up two sharing stations.  The comments about bar flies blocking will be minimized as access will allow not only for easier access to the brews but a less crowded space where members can seek out the brewers for evaluation and discussion of brews.  Indeed, one of the stations might be stocked with beers for which the brewers seek evaluation and improvement comments.

We will also do something about providing more prominent name tags to aid and encourage brewers to seek out those that provided the beers as well as introduce themselves to new members.  On that point over 50% of new members come because of contact with current members at the meetings and at the Sterling Pig, often during our board meetings.

BOMBing Runs:
Only about 20% of our members actually participate in the Bombing Runs, but attending and tasting result in them being our best supported meetings.  There are a number of detail meeting improvements identified to make these events even more successful.
 
Brewery Bus Trips:
Our trips are popular with about a third of our membership taking advantage, and again there are improvements identified to make them even more attractive.  They are expensive to host as we must rent a bus and driver for the day.  Also in the past they were considered a bonus for joining the club and we made them free to members.  One of the negatives was we hired school busses for midsummer trips.  Well A/C busses are even more expensive and in any case most members indicated they were prepared to pay for the trips. So given the enthusiasm and other constraints it was decided to host two bus trips, one in the Spring and another in the Fall.  We also took the advice to reduce the number of breweries visited to three with lunch at the middle one.
 
The Holiday Party:
This was once again a smash success with those who attended, and lessons learned should allow us to further improve this year’s event.
 
Brewing for Events:
Something that the senior/experienced brewers in our club enjoy but it is not well supported by the members.  Most commented on the limited time, limited scale to brew for donation and worrying about the quality of their beer.  Some people (most members?) don’t keg.  However there are a number of members who really enjoy these programs so we need to examine just how could make them work for them.
 
Topics for Meetings:
The members rated last year’s meeting presentations and rated possible topics for this year.  This will be the basis for this year’s program.