SEMANTICS MATTER 2: CLARITY AND HONESTY

Given the recent announcement from the SCAA regarding the change to the USBC structure, its seems like to good time to revisit the "Superheat" the the UKBC staged two years ago. The original post follows as do the comments from the SCAE UK National Coordinator, Steve Leighton. The post is long but worth sticking with I feel as i think the comparison with the current USBC situation is again one of clarity and honesty. From this outsiders point of view, I'm an SCAE member and hoping to be Events Manager on the next SCAE UK board, the SCAA seems to have completely misjudged the desires and reactions from it's core audience, the baristas. 

By placing restrictions on who may or may not compete they run the risk of alienating the next generation of competitors, and potentially blunting their competitiveness on the world level. 

Lets move on - Semantics Matter 2: Clarity and Honesty

Unlike the last post, basically a list of words I dislike using in a service format, this post is inspired by a twitter conversation I got sucked into earlier today. Now, Twitter is great for marketing and pictures of kittens, but it's less useful for meaningful discourse, with that in mind, click Here for the conversation.

Now for a little clarity on my point of view,

The conversation about fees for this years UKBC's attracted my attention when i read this;

"it's actually free for SCAE members or £75 and this includes membership" @UKBC

I have a problem with this, as this is simply forced entry to the SCAE for competing Non-Members, with or without their volition, yet they are not willing to admit this.

The WBC rules do not state that you must be a member of any organisation to compete, so I can only assume that the UKBC rules have a clause in them to this effect. I assume as there are no rules available to view at this time, all links to the rules loop round to the SCAE UK website.

When pushed on this matter @UKBC simple repeated the above statement like a mantra. Now, whoever runs the @UKBC feed is just toeing what must be assumed to be the organisations equivalent of a "Company Line", so my issue is not with them, but with the SCAE UK themselves.

Be Honest, if being a member is a requirement of entry, say so, enshrine it in the rules.

Don't claim that the £75 fee includes free membership, especially as membership to the SCAE is quoted on their own membership pack as costing £65! Why the £10 increase? is that the fee for entry? Do existing members get a £10 discount on entry?

Whilst we're here, Lets pick at another thread, the Super Heats in Birmingham;

"the regional heats are being merged into one super heat that'll be held in Birmingham. Not too far north & very accessible." @UKBC

First up why does it being far north bother anyone, and isn't that subjective? I imagine the competitors in Cornwall would beg to differ, let alone those who may think its too far south? As for accessible, well I assume that this is based on major transport links, access to motorways, rail and airports? In which case the following cities are just are also very accessible: Manchester, Bristol, London, Leicester, Coventry, Leeds, Reading

All are near to at least 1 if not 2 of the major 4 Motorways (1/4/5/6) whilst having local airports with good internal connections, and being on a major network rail route. So, if Birmingham works logistically for the sponsors, or the venue, or the co-ordinators, just say so.

As to the motivation, finally a bit of clarity from the SCAE UK press release;

By bringing the heats together, we can steer competitors to the correct heats based on their current places of work, and thus bring prestige back to the title of regional heat winner in the UKBC. In addition, it is felt a joint event will be more efficiently organised with significantly greater scope to be able to generate a real buzz around more of a festival feel.

Prestige to regional titles? by not competing in the region? and let’s not even start on whether we need another festival. At least a logical reason follows that piece of marketing fluff, a joint event will be easier to organise, done.

See, being honest is easy isn't it?

What follows is the reply from Steve Leighton:

Firstly thank you for this post, it’s good that we are talking about it. I took over as the Temporary National Co-oordinator, temporary as no one volunteered to stand up and take on the role. I for one was approached and recoiled from it when I started to scratch the surface, But I was approached again but some members of the board to ask if I would stand and try and help, and I felt my time of throwing stones at the UK chapter had to come to an end and it was time for me to stand up and be counted.

So I've been in post just under two weeks ago, and have entered what is a little bit of a mess. The first decision I had to make was how we were going to put on a competition in such a short space of time. I have long hoped that the SCAE would do less heats. Anyone who has visited a regional heat of the competition will know that they are fairly depressing things, put on by hosts who foot the bill out of good will rather than any return, normally with little AV and even worse live streaming or events. Too many peoples good will has been worn out by hosting these, and our options were limited.

In an ideal world I think three well run heats would be amazing, one for the south (London / Reading, / Bristol / Cardiff / Southwest. One for the North so Glasgow / Carlisle / Edinburgh / Newcastle (although we all know Sunderland would be best). And then something in the middle. But we have time resources and energy for one. And the one in the middle seemed quite a good idea, after last years Midlands heat been held in the Lovely (but not midlands) city of Norwich, its nice to see it home.

Now I know this location is not ideal for everyone, in fact its probably the least ideal for everyone, but I think you can see why this is fair (and its nothing to do with me being able to get home every night). But we plan to make the heat fun, great AV, Livestreming and a video of each competitor at the end of the event, every competitor so they can share, so they can see how they can improve and for the lucky 20 we can see what their up against in the semi finals at London coffee week. 

It also means we can roll out the always over subscribed brewers cup to more people, and we are trying to plan if we can doing the same with the VERY popular cupping challenge. Plans are also afoot to do a Tamper Tantrum at the event (although this is in early negotiations) this could be a great addition to the super heat.

As I said I had to make this decision on on day 2 with the amazing VOLUNTEER committee, and had to make the Decision for the first time ever to pay for a venue. Its either great idea or I’m going to get beat up, but I have made that decision.

So the membership thing. Firstly I have handled this badly (already making mistakes). To be a member is £65 or €75. For this you will become a barista member of the SCAE, and next year will also become a member of the Barista Guild of Europe. Entry fees in the UK have for a long time been too low. To compete in the US competition is many times this. But we should not forget this is an SCAE competition thats been supported and developed by the SCAE. I think its reasonable to expect the participants to be part of the organisation. Comps don’t just happen, rules regs judges and sponsors have to be found.

Its a Europe wide policy from the 1st of January that anyone involved in (Judges, Baristas even idiots who stand for National Coordinator) will have to be a member. Now for someone like me who has been a member for 11-12 years, its nice that a barista competing in my company will get free entry where I have previously had to pay on top (and yes I will benefit from this). But what it also does is that SCAE HQ will send half of that money back to the chapter to do events. My role until after London coffee week is to make a competition happen, I have little other focus on my mind. The day after the UKBC winner is announced I start work on events for people other than Baristas (don’t worry we still love Baristas but I think the UK barista will be well served by Barista guild UKBC latter art, CIGS, Brewers cup, Cupping and the lovely ibrik). I want to bring the whole chapter together with fun events that are not just around competition season.

But I beg you to get behind the super heat, get behind the London coffee festival, and get behind what I promise is a new committee with goals of transparency, openness and fairness to everyone. I also beg you to get involved, let me know we need as much help as you can muster.

But also most of you know how to contact me (my details are all over the Has Bean website, I am always happy to field any questions of problems to do with anything SCAE (I gave up relationship counselling I wasn’t very good at that) .

Sorry for long reply, I did check with Mat before posting this, I will also post on the SCAE UK website just so its clear why we are doing what we are doing, and long for your feedback