Subject: Digest for the period 5/4/2006 - 5/5/2006 Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 01:03:17 -0400 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. AHA National Conference Registration (Tumarkin) 2. RE: Points for Travel (mbobiak) 3. AHA Conference Continuing Education Credits (David Houseman) 4. Judging expenses, taxes, the law, you, and the BJCP (Ed Westemeier) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tumarkin Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 14:06:15 -0400 Subject: AHA National Conference Registration Hey y'all, It's getting very close to the early bird registration deadline. After May 15th the cost of registration for the AHA Conference in Orlando this June goes up, so register NOW. The website is: http://www.beertown.org/events/hbc/ And make your hotel registrations at the same time, which is really the purpose of this post. The Wyndham is doing something that hasn't been done at previous conferences - they are putting all the conference attendees' rooms together in a block. This is way cool and a big, big plus. But it gets even better. If you're coming as a larger group with your club or other friends, you can arrange to have all your rooms grouped together. Here's how... when you make your reservation, you'll get a confirmation number. Let your club members know that when they make their reservations, they can give the clerk your confirmation number & have them linked together. Not for billing, just for getting the rooms close together. If someone has already reserved their room, they can still call back and do this. That way, if they're making too much noise late at night in the next room, you'll know who it is, you can go over & drink their beer and then tell them to shut up. Mark Tumarkin Chair AHA Governing Committee 2006 NHC Speaker Coordinator Hogtown Brewers ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Webmail provided by InfoToGo.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mbobiak Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 21:02:39 GMT Subject: RE: Points for Travel I have been certified for about 18 months now and have been very actively trying to acrue experience points (point whoring if you will.) If I were to limit myself to competitions within 50 miles, there would be 1 or 2 competitions I could judge per year. I personally have no problem driving 200 miles to judge. By doing this I've been able to judge in 6 different competitions from PA to CT. Of course the time and money expended in that way detract from the time and money I can spend doing other things (fortunately I'm single and can "justify" spending time and money this way) but I would not wish to receive extra experience points for traveling to a distant competition. My take on the experience points is that you become a better beer judge by judging, not by driving or spending frequent flyer miles. To that end, giving away points to those who travel does not make them a better judge, it would only inflate judging rank. One thing I have noticed at some competitions, organizers who are aware that a judge or a group of judges has come from a great distance are likely to include that judge or a member of the group of judges in the BOS table. As the organizer of my club's competition last year, I went out of my way to select BOS judges from groups that came from CT as well as upstate NY to my competition on Long Island. I figure it's the least I can do to reward these people who have volunteered their time to judge beer. Atleast these individuals are earning their point, but a half a point for just showing up from out of town, that just seems silly to me. Matt Bobiak ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Houseman Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 18:32:24 -0400 Subject: AHA Conference Continuing Education Credits I hope everyone else is excited about attending the AHA Homebrew Conference in Orlando. If you are a BJCP judge and have yet to decide to attend, here is another reason to do so. The BJCP has been working with the AHA in formulating the technical sessions. I'm happy to report that most of the sessions will provide the attending judges with CEP (Continuing Education Program) credits that will count toward your non-judging experience point requirements for rank elevation. Just think, you get to learn something in a seminar, drink some beer and get BJCP credit for doing so! Can't beat that with a stick. Judges, remember to know or bring your BJCP ID number when you come; you must have that to receive CEP credit. See ya' there. David Houseman ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed Westemeier Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 19:18:21 -0400 Subject: Judging expenses, taxes, the law, you, and the BJCP It's probably not necessary, but just to be on the safe side, it seems wise to make an official statement due to the recent thread. The BJCP, as noted on our website, is a tax-exempt organization as determined by the Internal Revenue Service. This fact has nothing whatever to do with any BJCP member participating in a competition. The BJCP does not have any official sponsorship role in any competition, anywhere, ever. The competition organizer is the person responsible, and if he or she may enter into some kind of association with a charitable organization, that has no connection with the BJCP. Individual judges, who may be members of the BJCP, participate in competitions as individuals, not as agents of the BJCP. When you file your tax return, your BJCP membership is absolutely irrelevant. Whether you as an individual may or may not be able to make some sort of adjustment at tax time is something we don't know about, and we have absolutely no opinion on it. Free legal advice (and well worth the price): If you decide to take any kind of tax deduction for your expenses related to judging, you can't use BJCP membership as justification. If you try to involve us in any way, we will have our goons come to your house and convince you to change your mind (just kidding). Ed Westemeier BJCP Communication Director communication_director`at`bjcp.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Important Subscriber Information ***** To post a message to JudgeNet, send it to judge`at`synchro.com. Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments. Make sure you use a meaningful subject. Quote only as much material as is needed for context. To manage your subscription, go to http://synchro.com/judge/subscriptions.html or send an email to judge-request`at`synchro.com with the subject: help judge. JudgeNet is also available as an NNTP newsgroup, go to news://news.synchro.com/synchro.judge