Beer & Beards are on the Agenda Tonight!

Howdy!

Thanks to everyone for your continued enthusiasm and interest! We've now had three meetings and at least a dozen people at each.

It was a little disappointing that none of our female members showed up this week, but we persevered and made some progress toward some semblance of organization. Thanks to Katie, we had an example constitution to look at and an important question to answer: what is our mission?

The most important things that we felt the ABMC should provide are: camaraderie, an opportunity to improve the image of facial hair, the opportunity to enjoy good beer, and to give back to the community. We guys hashed this out for the better part of two hours, moving outside when the loud music and glittery lights got to be too much. We were lucky enough to have an expert join up with us on Thursday night; Logan has actually had a class on mission statement writing and helped guide our discussion with his expertise. For the enjoyment and edification of those who weren't present, here are several proposed mission statements that were drafted. Check out the Facebook page for discussion and voting on these.

1. With beards and beer, we strive to improve (promote) the public image of facial hair and give back to the community.
2. To enjoy and promote facial hair while (through) giving back to (bettering) the community.
3. To unite beard and mustache enthusiasts and to promote facial hair through community improvement (bettering the community).

As promised, I also had some official ABMC swag for our charter members.

Kristy Petty (owner of The Village) also stopped by and talked with the group for a bit. Kristy is pleased that we've become a fixture each month and is considering some kind of member discount for our monthly meetings. Perhaps we can claim this by showing our Beard Tokens?

Jim performs some chemical magic and highlights (but does not light) his impressive beard in the process.

Second Meeting & Progress

ABMC club held its second meeting on January 10. Though slightly less well-attended, we were happy to see new faces!

In addition to a boisterous game of Settlers of Catan, we took a few minutes to revisit the business of the club. Jon brought the World Beard and Moustache Association definition of a club for review, and the group voted to pursue a club structure that would satisfy these requirements:

Definition of a Club

1. Minimum of ten registered members.
2. Executive board consisting of president, vice president and secretary/treasurer.
3. Established bylaws stating the purpose of the club, the executive structure, member descriptions including qualification, fees and meeting structures.
4. Regular meetings a minimum of four times per year.
5. Registration with the government where it is required, naming the board members and announcing changes in the president and bylaws.
6. Annual general meeting with election of officers.
7. Membership fee.

For a club to qualify as a member of the WBMA, that club must have been established for at least two years, submit a “club statement” and meet four of the seven items listed above.

 In particular, we decided that items 1-4 were eminently doable. We also decided to wait until the club was better established before considering the issue of dues.

Two members volunteered to draft bylaws for review at a future meeting, and we also decided that we should add a position of historian to the executive board structure.

We determined that our regular meeting should remain on the first Thursday of the month at The Village Cafe, but that we also wanted to meet more often to socialize, so the members will post these hangouts to the Facebook page as they are scheduled.