Nothern California Homebrewers Festival

Letter #1 | Letter #2 | Letter #3 | Letter #4

Needed to cover a few bases.

#1. listserv: I've set up a couple of personal maillists, one with clubs that have responded to the recent letter about a Northern California Homebrewers Festival (NCHF), and one for all NorCal clubs (NCHC). I don't claim to be a friggin genius, but something I'd really like to see is a listserv for all the clubs. As a group, we are sadly lacking in communication. One of the things I hope to see out of the NCHF is a little more communication between the clubs. If any of you have a clue on how to set up a listserv, maybe we can get together and you can either show me the ropes, or I can stand the hell out of the way and have a beer or two while you do it.

#2. FEST DATE: There will be a formal letter going out in a day or so (maybe sooner) about the Fest Date. Over the weekend, the club met to work on some details. When the dust had settled and the wounds had been bandaged, we emerged with a new date. Mark your calendars.

Saturday, May 30, 1998

I know it's 4 months earlier than we planned. Here's why. 1. The club really wanted to do it in May all along. It's green, it's pretty, and we can have our summers to ourselves. 2. I didn't think we could pull it off in May, so I said Sep/Okt. 3. I had feedback from a speaker and homebrew shop owners suggesting that we were going to be doing this at the likely peak of the wine grape harvest, which put them in a bind for participating. 4. There's a few MadWinos in our group, and we didn't want to get screwed on the 1998 harvest. 5. The club unanimously agreed to "jump on any and all grenades" to make it happen in May. 6.It won't be brown and dusty, it'll be green and clean. 7. You can't predict the weather any better in Oktober than you can at the end of
May. 8. We'll have some kind of tent/pavilion anyway.

3. What the new date means (in no particular order):
a. Get brewing.
b. We'll get to drink a few award winning beers, because the AHA entry
deadline is May 15.
c. The Mad Brewers will be having smaller asses than normal in May,because we'll be working them off between now and then.
d. We'll probably move the organizational meeting up to Feb. 28, fromMar. 14. You guys will need to get tickets by then, if not sooner.
e. If you need more information for your February Meetings, respondASAP, and I'll do what I can to get it to you. This includes makingyour Feb. meeting, if you think it'll be a good idea. I can tell youwhat we have planned and answer questions. If I have a conflict ondates, I have a whole crew just looking for a grenade to jump on.

4. What it REALLY means:

What can I say. I got outvoted. Our timeframe says we have to givethe Clubs at least 3 months lead time for them to decide if they want to participate, and conduct ticket sales. The 3 month brewing window overlaps with that. As far as T-shirts and souvenier pint glasses go, we'll probably do those as presale order items (and this probably would have happened regardless of the date). We will have L, XL, 2XL (and 3XL, specially designed and tailored by Omar the Tentmaker of Hollywood). I guess it doesn't make that much difference after all,
other than the event ends up being in 4 months rather than in 8. It falls between Memorial Day and Summer Vacation, and it's after Mom's day.

5. As far as tickets go, here's what we envision. We want to get them to the clubs in advance of the event. There will be no tickets sold at the door. We have a few drop dead dates for merchandise/bands/site, which basically demand that we put out a big chunk of dinero within 2 weeks of the event. We'd like to get tickets sold by then, and if clubs need more tickets than their original estimate, we can take care of it prior to the 30th. But we're not going to be taking money at the gate. Tickets will be numbered, and clubs will be responsible for returning all tickets not sold. We'll have a sheet that corresponds to the ticket, so anybody who wants shirts or glasses can order and prepay them, and we'll have them done. We will make arrangements for the physical exchange, depending on where your club is from, and whether you have reps at the meetings.

6. We WILL be checking IDs, so everybody will be bringing one, right? Let your guys know about this in advance, if there's any question, because we're not going to screw up our insurance with underage drinkers.

7. We would definitely like to have at least one rep at the meetings. I think there will be two meetings, total; one on February 28, and one sometime in May, before the fest. I know that the Bakersfield contingent will attend the 1st one, so hopefully we'll see the Anderson and SLT boys as well. C'mon, you need to check out the site, so as toget a feel for the lay of the land.

OK, that's it for now. Geez, all I really wanted to do was test the mail list, and I end up sending out a book. There will be a letter to all clubs going out shortly, but this will bring you up to date on what's happened since last week about this time.

Finally, would each of you mind letting me know if this made it to you, and would you mind giving me your name, and confirm a current address and telephone number. I don't know if you got the snail mail directly or if it was forwarded, and I DID get three back as undeliverable - no such number/moved no forwarding, so I expect AHA's list isn't exactly current. Or accurate. They were Culinary Brewing Arts Assn - Sacto, Hetch Hetchy Hopheads and Fantastic Fermentations Brewers, if anybody has current info. Either way, I want to make sure that you guys are
getting this stuff.

And let me know if you have a clue on the listserv!

Thanks again, we'll keep you posted.

Cheers!

Dan Sullivan
Mad Brewers - Napa/Sonoma
(707) 258-9369


brewlawz@napanet.net

sully@drunkenbastards.org

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