National Homebrewing Competition

[Goose]

I wanted  to share with the SAAZ members with regard to the $9 fee for entries that make it to the Second Round of the National Homebrewing Competition (NHC).  My apologies, as this is a bit long, but I needed the space to try to address this issue.

John Moorehead posted  the reason for the addition of a $9 final round entry fee on the AHA Forum in November, 2019.  It was also posted on a page of the homebrewersassociation.org website, was also addressed in Gary Glass’ “From the Glass” column in the J/F 2020 issue of Zymurgy, and in e-mails sent to members.  I know a lot of SAAZ people either may not know about or use the AHA Forum so they may not have heard or read about the change until they registered for the 2020 competition.  It was mentioned in a text message discussion with Larry, that it could have been possible that the fee could have incorporated the costs for the final round into an overall increase in the first round entry fee.  However, there was a fee increase in 2019 and from my interpretation during one of our recent monthly conference calls, Gary Glass and John Moorehead felt that another one this year would have probably generated more flak than the $9 final round fee and would have been less fair to those whose entries do not advance to the finals.

Believe me, as a GC member, I am aware that there are not a lot people that not happy with the higher costs of the NHC nor the increased costs of Homebrew Con, especially the $20 resort fee for the conference hotel in Nashville and share your concerns.  I agree that the resort fee is a bit out of line but the AHA negotiates for the hotel and conference center and the GC has really no input on this.  Plus, the fee also gives you access to a shuttle, free WiFi, and other amenities.  We had a lengthy discussion on Tuesday’s conference call about this. In the same way the AHA sets the fee schedule for the NHC and although we can provide some input, they are the ones that make the decisions based on economics and budget.  As a part of the discussion, I asked him about the estimated cost of catering for the final round to feed the judges and stewards this year and he gave me the figure of between $12K and $15K which is for both breakfast and lunch this year.  Obviously, there are other expenses that come into play in the final round as rental of conference room space for the judging sessions, etc. and the final round fee will only defray part of these expenses  Furthermore, there are additional categories added to the first and final rounds that require more judges.  We are looking into the possibility of maybe adding an addition sponsor for the final round to help defray the costs of this round of the competition.

That said, this morning I followed up with the AHA.  I suggested that they publish reasons for things like the final round fee in Zymurgy (both online and in print) so that there is a bit more transparency to the membership as to why the need the additional fees.  John Moorehead responded that there was quite a bit of website, published, and email notice, as noted above.

This is the best I can do to try to help at the present time.  I hope that SAAZ members understand this.  I would be willing to call in from FL at the next SAAZ meeting to discuss this, in more detail and hopefully will have more information to share.  That said, it will have to be before out 9 PM conference call and should probably be the first thing in the meeting so that I can be prepared for the conference call (get computer set up, etc.).

Hope this helps further explain things a bit.  I wish I could have been at the Tuesday meeting to talk a bit more about this and answer questions and address complaints, but the GC call obviously takes priority especially since we use a webex video conferencing platform now for the call.

……………..Goose

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