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Can you elaborate on how using an Association Management Company works?
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I think the 2025 priorities are fine & you’ll be busy enough just getting the organization on its feet, solvent and functional. But I appreciated Amahl’s mentioning (Zymurgy Mar/Apr 25) of the widely varying state and local laws on homebrewing. I would like to see adding resources for lobbying for local changes in the priorities for future years.
Three cheers on what Shawna said.
You know, I didn’t even know what an AMC was until this whole thing started - that’s definitely in Julia’s world. But the long and the short of it - the AMC acts as the support staff for the Org - they answer the phones, deal with membership questions, “where’s my Zymurgy”, etc. A lot of the operations and logistics support that we had been getting from the BA (and the AHA staff previously when we had more than Julia!)
And legal issues are definitely in the giant document of “stuff we can tackle”
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Howdy Drew C. To carry out day to day operations and decouple from the Brewers Association the AHA (as any membership group requires) will need operation support which the BA currently/formerly provided. Association Management Companies specialize in this. We’ve been interviewing candidates since Fall of last year and are…close to being ready to hire. Look for annoucement on who in March.
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And I’d add that further staffing choices will be determined in the near future as well.
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DrGMG, thanks for being on the forum! Plans for the 2025 awards ceremony are still being finalized. Expect the awards, once again, to be different since we don’t unfortunately have Homebrew Con tied to it. That will be rectified in 2026. For 2025, it is likely attendance will be open to Final Round judges with limited additional spots available via tickets. Plus we will live steam the awards as they are annouced.
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Are there meeting minutes or a more comprehensive summary of what was discussed during the founding board strategic retreat on February 10-11? It would be nice to learn more details rather than just hear about bullet pointed highlights. Thanks.
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Someone definitely took notes!
Is there something in particular we can expand on? We did have a facilitator, an excellent professional in the association management space who also homebrews, that took most of the official notes as we went through the strategic priorities, organization direction as a 501c3, and other agenda items as bulleted.
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Thanks, Greg! Once we become an official 501c3, we’ll have a secretary that will take
minutes. Please let us know if there’s anything in particular we can expand on!
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I think this:
- Documented AHA’s year one strategic priorities with action items supporting these priorities pending:
- Organiziation Strength & Health
- Knowledge & Learning
- Community, Collaboration & Competition
For instance, what are the action items? Thanks.
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Those will be built out in the near future and require more discussion, goal setting, etc. There is a 30-day member comment period to close out first.
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Great question! As Julia mentioned, the focus of the meeting was to define the strategic pillars rather than dive into specific action plans. While we discussed many ideas related to member value and events under these priorities, we didn’t yet establish detailed KPIs or Key Result Areas.
Right now, the key action items are:
- Gathering member feedback on these priorities
- Julia hiring the AMC
- Aligning priorities with the AMC’s capacity
- Ensuring board availability to the AHA membership
This is an evolving process, and member input is a crucial step in shaping our next steps. I appreciate the engagement—keep the questions coming!
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Can you tell who amongst us have non-profit operations experience and who’s just a goofy brewer. 
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What kind of changes are you hoping to make?
Thanks, I work for a nonprofit myself so I’m very familiar with KPIs, strategic planning, etc. Appreciate the additional detail.
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You’re seeing a big one of them right now - more open communication. I strongly feel that a lot of membership concerns could be easily addressed or forestalled with a habit of being more communicative. Trade organizations have reasons and needs to play things close to the vest - a hobbyist org doesn’t.
Other changes I think we all hope to see - improve the AHA’s presence and support in terms of clubs, shops and brewers. More touch points, more volunteer energy, more reasons to go “oh yeah, the AHA does some cool ■■■■ (and I helped!)”.
And a biggie, but not terribly fun one - make sure we have our metrics of success dialed in to keep the org healthy and moving so we can keep doing fun ■■■■. It’s never a good read when you go from a conference of say 3500 to 1500, but in this convention and economic environment, that’s still a success to me - as long as we planned for it.
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This is HUGE!
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I’ll cheers to everything Drew said! We’re going into a whole era of the AHA. Making sure we have a sound financial foundation, we can focus on continuing to be a welcoming and vibrant community, cultivate educational resources,
and nurture the joy of homebrewing!
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What are strategies to keep the governing structure of AHA from becoming just another “Old Boys / Old Girls / Old Brewers Club”? I see a lot of the same names on advisory / governance / transition committees over the years, and I don’t doubt the dedication and wisdom of those people (including the founding board!), but how will AHA ensure that fresh voices can enter the mix?
This is not unique to AHA, by any means, but something I have been thinking about a lot lately. (and yes, I know that some of it is who raises their hand – but there is also a bit of an appearance that it’s not worth raising your hand if you’re not already on the inside; some of that may just be the way BA ran things, too!)
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