June 2020 Membership Update
/By Hylan Joseph
Recently, we had the SCA Board of Directors meeting. With this month’s memo, I’ve included what we sent to the Board that speaks to our status and where we are headed for the rest of the year.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic affecting business as usual, we are faced with some hard questions. One of our primary goals of creating more community events and face-to-face training opportunities has been made impossible for the time being. Our decision in this environment is to pivot and look at creating a guild that focuses on online engagement for now and the near future.
Our accomplishments to date for 2020 include:
There is a new home for the Coffee Technicians Guild Slack channel. It has been reformatted for greater customer value. With the move, the Slack channel is now exclusively managed by the CTG and the SCA, which adds more privacy and security for our members.
Pilot Community event: We piloted our first extended community-led event in Richmond, VA. With the results of this event, we were able to create a template and program that will enable local communities to host more expanded events if they choose to.
Pre-COVID Gearhead Events: The CTG hosted several local community-led events. The events were all well attended. Mostly by non-members interested in what the CTG is and does. We will continue to explore the opportunities of smaller-scale events.
We have implemented a Peer Review Committee Program for community-contributed content that is of a technical nature.
The CTG has hosted its first webinars, including “Adapting to Our Changing Business Environment with COVID-19” and “A Look Inside the CTG Extended Storage Procedure Checklist,” and participated in two SCA-organized “Ask an Expert” webinars as panel members, including one on food safety and one on mental health. We have several planned for Q3 and Q4 as well.
We have started to build the Manufacturer Outreach Program. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, several members of our board have had meetings with manufacturers to create partnerships with the goal of creating greater value for our constituents. The project continues unabated.
We have extended our social media presence by increasing our Facebook presence with daily posts, creating additional video content, and cross-posting with partners related to our industry.
We have started to work with the Barista Guild on creating value-based partnerships that will benefit both guilds. To date, this partnership has been in the form of content creation projects and working to create a channel on our slack platform for the Barista Guild.
In addition to these accomplishments, the Coffee Technicians Guild continues to partner with and support the CTechP education program.
For the year ahead, we will be focusing on increasing online and digital content and increasing our usage of webinars to engage members.
In June, we will have our Leadership Committee meeting. This meeting will be online for the first time and we are working with the SCA team to finesse this and make it as effective as possible. At this meeting, we will review our goals to date and adjust as needed.
We have a lot planned for the next year and there is the ever-present cloud of uncertainty due to COVID-19. As we move forward things may change but the Coffee Technicians Guild will adapt. We have a great team that is working to give our constituents greater value and a great community to be a member of.