Month Club Meeting Minutes
By Mark Tumarkin

We held the January meeting on the regular last Friday of the month. It felt good to get the holidaze behind us and get back on our regular meeting schedule. The January meeting was held at Sue & Wayne Smith's house. Thanks for playing host (and letting us play in the beer cooler!). We had a larger than normal turnout for this meeting, including a number of new folks, both guests & potential new members. Sorry, I didn't write down names so you'll just have to meet them next time around and remember their names for yourself.

The February meeting will be at the Williams place out in the wilds of Newberry. That way, we'll be sure that Dave attends. This is especially important since he'll be doing the presentation. His tentative topic is Mashin' da Grain, though he refuses to commit to that completely. I guess we'll just have to wait & see what the topic will be. March's meeting will be at Jeff & Amy's house (ya gotta love when a new member foolishly agrees to play host to this horde). Sue will be doing the presentation. She hasn't come up with a topic either, but promises it won't be on Brown Ales again. The May meeting will be at Nancy & Craig's, with Craig giving a presentation on the various types of Wheat beers.

As has been typical of his term as Primary Fermenter, Ziggy blew through the business in quickly, getting to the main order of business …. Beer. The main order of business was Ziggy's resignation and the election of officers. It was an interesting process to watch, certainly not typical of the usual election process. Well, I won't try to describe it, you sorta had to be there. When the dust settled. Wayne was re-elected Treasurer (making his title of Treasurer for Life look more secure). Mark was re-elected Secretary. Sue is now our new Secondary Fermenter, and Richard Pushaw foolishly left the room for a moment, resulting in his being made our Primary Fermenter.

After the elections, the Richards announce the next Beer Dinner. This upcoming food fest will be held sometime in May (details to be announced later). The theme this time will be Cajun Creole cuisine. I suppose we'll have to import tubs of cold Dixie Blackened Voodoo lager to go along with that. It's a bit of a tight schedule to brew & lager your own, but maybe a pepper beer or a blackwater swamp ale might be just the ticket. I'm sure this will be as much of a success as the previous dinners.

The other main topic of business was the Medieval Faire. Many of us had come to the meeting more or less directly after setting up the booth for the Faire. The booth came together very well, with Richard acting as construction foreman. The beer arrived later than expected, forcing us to hurry through the quality control portion of setup, but never fear…. We tasted enough to be sure we'd serve no beer to our customer that was sub-standard. We discussed the procedures, policies, and customer service attitudes that have become the basis of successful Faires in the past. The Faire is our big fund raiser for the year, and virtually the entire club works together to ensure its' success. This year looks to be another in a continuing tradition of fun & profitable Faires.

After that, Brad gave a presentation on the Beers of the Midwest. Well, presentation may be a bit of an exaggeration, let's just say he presented us with a lot of very interesting beers to try. The majority of them were new to most of us, but there were also a few old favorites like Goose Island Pale Ale or Three Floyd's Alpha King. Most of us called it a night early and headed home to rest up for the next two days at the Medieval Faire.

Back to February 2003 front page