Why does Free the Hops need volunteers?
I had an example of that today. Free the Hops had a presence at 'Uncorked on the Green' at Ross Bridge. The event as a whole was projected to draw up to 3000 people to hear about wine, beer and food while being entertained with live music.
The beer tents were staffed by Free the Hops supporters. These are people from all walks of life: university students, young couples with children, professionals, and many more. All of these people willingly surrendered their Saturday afternoon - some at very short notice! - to help out by working hard for just under 3 hours pouring beer, talking beer, and talking Free the Hops. (Those of you who worked the brewfest will understand the work involved, even though it is also rewarding!)
To me, this is the non-profit spirit in action: willingly giving so that others can have a good time, while also educating those people about the cause.
Without volunteers, Free the Hops can achieve nothing. And I thank each and every person who came out to Ross Bridge this afternoon for making the event such a success for Free the Hops and the organizers.
Next steps for the ABV legislation
A common question I am asked when I am out and about is "when will the ABV bill come up for a vote again?".
The Alabama legislature is currently out of session, because the legislature in Alabama is a part-time body -- they're Constitutionally required to meet for no more than 30 "session days" a year. Those 30 days are usually spread out over a period of 4 months. The 2008 session ended on May 19. The next session doesn't start until February 3, 2009.
Although that may be disappointing for some to hear, the truth is that the "break" between the annual sessions gives us time to prepare -- raising money, spreading the word, and developing our lobbying strategy for the next session. It's also a nice break from all the politics. I don't know about you, but I prefer simply spreading beer culture in Alabama to participating in Montgomery politics. We're primarily a political lobbying organization for craft beer enthusiasts, but having the legislature out of session gives us an opportunity to hold events and teach people about good beer.
Raising money and spreading the word usually go hand in hand. The annual Magic City Brewfest is currently our biggest fundraiser and our most public event. However, we also throw smaller events (some that raise money, many that don't) throughout the year. These include beer tastings and beer dinners at local businesses, fundraising events, joint events with other organizations, and both public and member gatherings. These events, as well as chapter and statewide membership meetings, are usually posted on the FTH Calendar http://www.freethehops.org/calendar/.
Just a sample of events we are involved in -- the Birmingham Chapter joined the Alys Stevens Center and Reg's Coffee House to host a craft beer tasting at inter-ART-ive
http://alysstephens.uab.edu/lineup/specialevents/43242/.
In Huntsville, local FTH members got together to enjoy the Redstone Arsenal Oktoberfest http://www.redstonemwr.com/promo-events/oktoberfest.html, which supports that base's MWR program. Other events and gatherings are normally held somewhere in Alabama every month. These kind of events often require volunteers, and I'd like to once again encourage you to contact your local chapter organizers if you'd like to help (or just attend) our local events. Chapters are located in Birmingham, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and Mobile.
The ways we're preparing for our lobbying efforts in 2009 are a little less glamorous. Since this is a public blog, I won't go into all the details at this point, but we are working on literature and educational sessions with members of the legislature. We've also completed initial development of a web portal to educate our members and supporters about their state senator and representative, including their voting record on our legislation and their estimated level of support. We plan to release details of that web tool in a future newsletter.
So although we're in a legislative break, there's still plenty of opportunities to help out, have fun, and spread beer culture in your community. There's a lot of work to be done before we need to start again with the Montgomery politics!
Free the Hops!
Stuart Carter, President
Free the Hops | Alabamians for Specialty Beer
Magic City Brewfest 2008 final thoughts
Danner has published a very long synopsis of the good things and the not so good things at the brewfest website which is well worth a read. We are totally committed to making the Magic City Brewfest an event which all of Alabama can be proud of, and we are doing that by listening to you, the attendees of the event, and working to correct the problems that happen when running an event of this size.
Thank you all so much for making MCBF2008 such a great weekend!
Magic City Brewfest 2008
This is just a short post to say a huge THANK YOU to our event sponsors - the breweries and wholesalers, the food vendors - to the bands, and especially to our volunteers who gave up part of their weekend to come and work extremely hard to make sure every attendee had a great time.
Unfortunately we had problems with the crowds on the Saturday night, and it is especially disappointing that people who had paid tickets had problems getting in. This is something we are already looking into so that we can do it better next year. Those of you who braved the weather and still had fun on Sunday will have seen some of the changes already, so that Magic City Brewfest 2009 can be even bigger and better!
We were failed by the senate
Last year the Gourmet Beer Bill was given the "Shroud Award" for the "deadest bill of the session".
This year members and supporters of Free the Hops rallied around magnificently and carried out a sustained effort of education on the issues, such that every single legislator in the Alabama Legislature heard about Gourmet Beer and knew what the real issues were.
We were failed by the Senate. They spent the entire session in petty bickering, being too busy scoring political points to do the job we pay them to do. An entire legislative session squandered in point-scoring instead of dealing with the very grave legislative issues that were before them.
The senate didn't deal with the education budget. They didn't deal with removing the 4% grocery tax. They didn't deal with the smoking ban. They didn't deal with a bill to prevent large corporations avoiding paying Alabama taxes. They didn't deal with a bill to exempt the Federal Stimulus Check from Alabama taxation.
It is time for you, the people of Alabama, to feel outraged at this. The senators behaved in a way that brings shame on the state, and they need to learn that their actions have consequences on their own political careers.
Let me be blunt here: the issue is not that the senators failed to deal with Gourmet Beer. The issue is that they failed you, the people of Alabama - and that failure needs to be punished.
Call, email, or write your senator. Tell them how you feel about their dismal failure to achieve anything this year. Tell them how you feel about their poor representation of you on the national political field. Tell them how you feel about them confirming everyone's prejudices about our great state.
Tell them you will remember that all they achieved in 2007 was to vote themselves a huge pay rise.
Above all, tell them that in 2010 you will remember their failures in 2007 and 2008. And that voluntary failure is not acceptable.
Find your senator:
http://capwiz.com/state-al/dbq/zs.dbq
Monday May 19
For those who were listening in to the Senate audio last week, it will come as no surprise that we took the strategic decision to hold off on pressing the Gourmet Beer Bill. By the time the semi-filibuster was resolved, it was late in the evening and the Senators were all cranky, tired, and hungry.
In that kind of environment our Gourmet Beer Bill would not have had good odds.
Mark your calendars for Monday, May 19th. This is the last day of the legislative session. HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, will be on the calendar. Please call your senators over the next week, and very politely request them to support HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill. You can call them whether or not you have done so already. You could also ask your friends, co-workers, family, neighbours, anyone you know who is not anti-alcohol - they, too can call their senators.
If you have family and friends who are out of state, get them to call as well - their opinion, and the tourist dollars that backs their opinion, are just as important to the senators as you and your opinion are.
If we all pull together, if we all rally our connections and contacts, we can achieve the aim we have been working towards for the last three years - we can start to Free those Hops from the chains of the archaic 6% ABV law. Let the Alabama Senate hear your voices loud and clear - let them hear the message -
FREE THE HOPS!
It's Never Easy
What a crazy day yesterday. Events took an unforeseen turn and forced us to change plans on the fly. Not uncommon in politics.
To sum up, the first bill that the Senate addressed yesterday was the bill to remove the state sales tax on food and eliminate the state income tax deduction for federal income taxes paid. That bill failed a procedural vote by a narrow margin, leading its proponents to begin a filibuster.
In the midst of the filibuster, the Senate adopted a special order calendar consisting solely of 100 local bills. Under more favorable circumstances, there would have been no debate and no stalling on any bill, allowing them to work that calendar at a rate of less than one minute per bill. In such a scenario, that calendar would have been completed early in the day, with plenty of time left for many statewide bills.
But the food tax bill proponents continued to filibuster the first few bills of that calendar, initially taking up to 40 minutes to speak on each. While that was going on, negotiations were taking place off the floor. Those negotiations led to some sort of possible compromise agreement, which it seemed to me probably involved a proposed amendment to the food tax bill that would allow it to pass. BUT, it required some research on fiscal matters related to the amendment.
So, the bill proponents agreed to stop their standard filibuster tactics of speaking for 40 minutes on each bill in order to allow the local bill SO calendar to make some progress. But to buy time for the continued behind the scenes dealings, they took up a different measure: a sort of "half-filibuster" by which they asked each bill to be read at length. This stalled and allowed them time to do the research and finalize the compromise, but obviously took less than the 40 minutes per bill that would have been dragging things down if a full filibuster were happening.
Sometime mid to late evening, the compromise was obviously finalized and the food tax bill proponents finally stopped their half filibuster and allowed the local special order calendar to proceed at full speed. But by then the mess had drug on for hours and hours. They didn't finish the local bills until sometime around 8:00pm. By that point, some people were asking for a motion to adjourn. They were tired and hungry and sick of dealing with bills. Nevertheless, the Senate leadership was determined to adopt a calendar with some statewide bills and make some progress--yesterday was the last chance the legislature had to pass bills which would not require the Governor's signature to become law. They didn't want to miss their chance to get some bills through that might be vetoed by the Governor. They will have a chance to overturn any vetoes of yesterday's bills when the return for their final day on May 19th.
But our lobbyist decided that under those circumstances it was likely they wouldn't get through the entire calendar of statewide bills proposed by the Rules Committee, and he feared if we opted for a spot on that calendar we might not come up before the body adjourned. He therefore opted instead to wait for the final legislative day. It was critical strategic decision in a stressful environment, and it's why we are paying him good money. The Senate only made it through 5 of the 17 bills on the calendar adopted last night. We would not have been in the top 5.
So now, again, we wait. And the dynamic has changed a bit. We really wanted to pass yesterday for the reasons stated above. Passage yesterday would have allowed HB196 to become law even without Riley's signature. And/or a veto could have been overidden on the last day. If we pass on the last day, we must get Riley's signature.
So, in addition to continued calls to your Senators, I think it might be a good idea to start calling the Governor's office on behalf of the gourmet beer bill. As has been previously reported on this blog, Riley told us a couple years ago that he could see no reason not to sign a bill such as ours if it made it to his desk. But it's been a while... and we're not taking any chances.
The number for the Governor's office is (334) 242-7100. I'd suggest calling and saying that you expect HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, to pass on the final day of the 2008 session, and you would like to see him sign it into law. Simple as that.