Membership Requests to Address the Board:   

• None

 
Call to Order – Joel Fleetwood
 
Roll Call: 
Joel Fleetwood, Chiles Cridlin, Cliff Davis, Randy Todd, Jeanne Titus, Thomas Gearheart, Paul Buob, David Qualls, Chalie Brinza
KCBS Office:  Rod Gray
Absent: 
 
Board Pledge:
Recognizing barbeque as America’s cuisine, the mission of the Kansas City Barbeque Society is to celebrate, teach, preserve, and promote barbeque as a culinary technique, sport and art form.
I accept my duties as a KCBS director to further the KCBS mission so that truth, justice, excellence in barbeque and the American way of life may be strengthened and preserved forever.
 
Consent Agenda:
            Notice concerning Committee Reports. Some committees do not meet monthly, If a report is presented, it will be included as an attachment to the Agenda.
 

• Minutes of previous BOD meeting
• Contest Report
• Sanctioning Committee
• Judging Committee
• Contest Representative Committee
• Rules Committee
• Foundation Committee
• Nominating Committee
• Workgroups:
  • Organizers Work Group
  • Backyard Work Group
  • Bylaws Work Group
  • Technology Workgroup

 
Discussion of any items removed from Consent Agenda:
 
Chief Executive Officer’s Report:
 

• CEO Report attached.
• The Board may take Actions based on Topics and Discussions from this report as New Business

 
 
Old Business:
 

• None.

 
New Business: 
 

• Discussion and Consideration of Engagement of Vieth Consulting for Backyard TOY software changes     
• Discussion and Consideration of engaging an additional contractor for modifications to the KCBS SCORE software
• Discussion and Consideration of Comment cards
• Discussion and Consideration of Judges that did not judge Turkey or drinks at the WI but had scores reflecting they did in the CBJ Portal.

 
Closed Session Agenda: 
Discussion of Legal, Financial, Personnel and Real Estate
 

• Discussion of Financial Report
• Discussion of Marketing and Events
• Discussion of Budget

 
Discussion of marketing and structure of the Team of the Year Program
Discussion of Marketing and promotion of Backyard programs
Discussion of Contest Representative incident Reports
 
After Closed Session:
The Board may take any necessary actions including Motions on any or all matters discussed in closed session
 
 
Board Comments
 
Adjourn or Suspend
 
 
 
Attachments and Reports
Contest Report 
 

Warrior BBQ's "THE GREAT HAWAIIAN SMOKEOUT" (ONE MEAT CHICKEN)	11/9/2024	Honolulu, HI
Warrior BBQ's "THE GREAT HAWAIIAN SMOKEOUT" (ONE MEAT PORK)	11/9/2024	Honolulu, HI
BBQ, Boots & Brew	4/11-12/2025	Perris, CA
Sugar Creek Casino's Sweet & Smoky BBQ Competition	8/16-17/2024	Hinton, OK
New Jersey KnoQ-out - CAMPGROUND BBQ SERIES (Day 1)	5/2-3/2025	Blairstown, NJ
New Jersey KnoQ-out - CAMPGROUND BBQ SERIES (Day 2)	5/3-4/2025	Blairstown, NJ
New Jersey KnoQ-out - CAMPGROUND BBQ SERIES (One Meat Chicken)	5/2/2025	Blairstown, NJ
New Jersey KnoQ-out - CAMPGROUND BBQ SERIES (One Meat Ribs)	5/3/2025	Blairstown, NJ
Southaven Springfest	4/25-26/2025	Southaven, MS
The Blaze of 47 BBQ Cookoff	7/19-20/2024	Salt Lake City, UT
Great River Threshers BBQ Contest (BACKYARD ONLY)	7/12-13/2024	Miles, IA
O'So Good BBQ Festival (BACKYARD ONLY) Day 1	5/2-3/2025	Oneonta, AL
O'So Good BBQ Festival (BACKYARD ONLY) Day 2	5/3-4/2025	Oneonta, AL
Smoking on the Swan	10/4-5/2024	Australia
Throttled Up BBQ Throwdown	9/28-29/2024	Canada
Smoke Over Tooky	9/27-28/2024	Contoocook, NH
Kickin' It Route 66 Barbecue Challenge (Day 1)	3/28-29/2025	St. Robert, MO
Kickin' It Route 66 Barbecue Challenge (Day 2)	3/29-30/2025	St. Robert, MO
Kickin' It Route 66 Barbecue Challenge (ONE MEAT RIBS)	3/28/2025	St. Robert, MO
Rib Double Dip (1) (ONE MEAT RIBS)	9/1/2024	Chillicothe, IL
Rib Double Dip (2) (ONE MEAT RIBS)	9/1/2024	Chillicothe, IL

 
 
 
Financial Report
 
To be reviewed in closed session before publication.
 
Sanctioning Committee
 
No Action Necessary for Meeting
 
 
Judging Committee
 
May 29, 2024
Attending were: Cliff Davis, Chair; Randy Todd, Vice Chair; and members Forest Bruce, Ron Keefover, and Kelly Wilde.
The group discussed two items brought forward by Cliff, including an edited version of the written judges’ meeting script that is read by the contest reps, and the ongoing review and edit of the PowerPoint script that is presented at the initial CBJ training classes.

The committee expects to have final versions of these to present to the KCBS Board in July, 2024.
 
Contest Representative Committee
 
All members were present and discussed:
Issues with audio recordings in the Rep Advisories – to be reviewed and updated
Table Population for Backyard and single meat contests – 3 tables
180 Stickers and pins – to be discussed with the Board of Directors at the June meeting
For states that have banned Styrofoam boxes, the bamboo boxes worked well at a recent event, but the stickers to cover the team number don’t stick as well as other boxes
 
Rules Committee
 
No Report
 
Foundation Committee
 
No Meeting held for May Due to KCBS World Invitational
Monthly Meeting times / dates
Continue with 4^th Monday of each month, 7PM Central Time.
Teams Meeting worked great!  Will continue with TEAMS going forward.
Scholarship awards review schedule
Emails have been sent to all applicants.  $9,000 in scholarships have been awarded, distributions will occur after KCBS receives recipient enrollment status in the early fall. The 2025 scholarships applications will open January 1^st, 2025
KCBS WI Pop-Up Shop
The weather was a challenge this year for sales, but overall, it was still very successful.  50/50 raffle reached $1100 with KCBS receiving $550.00; Cash sales totaled 1967.00; Credit card (after fees) $472.54. Total Net Receipts: $3539.54. 
A special thanks to the office staff for bringing the Foundation shop materials and the following vendors:  270 smokers, Atlanta BBQ Store, Bad Ass Mule, Baseball BBQ, Bear & Bartons, How to BBQ Right, LC BBQ, Man Meat; OG Bandits, Plowboys, Proud Souls, Rod Gray, Smoke N Magic, Smoking Ghost, T9 / The BBQ Superstore, Tuffy Stone and more!
A HUGE thank you to Bill and Mary Jones, without whom I would not have been able to compete and run this fundraiser at the same time.
Another HUGE shout-out to CBJ Harold Downey, the winner of the foundation 50/50 raffle who donated the money back to the Foundation.
2024 Smoker Sweepstakes discussion.
Ole Hickory Pits CTO sweepstakes is almost ready for launch.  We need to secure a surety bond for the state of NY before we begin.  Anticipating 30 days to complete, the bond process is in motion.
2024 Financial Planning
$50,000 has been transferred to higher interest rate CD’s for a term of 6 months with intentions on auto rollover unless we find a higher yielding option.  
Codicil inclusion on KCBS Website under Foundation tab.
Goal to start this effort after the KCBS WI
Explanation of what a Codicil is and how to create one with sample language.
 
 
Nominating Committee
 
No Report.
 
Organizer Work Group
KCBS Organizers Workgroup Meeting
6 pm cdt, May 28th 2024
Chair Randy Todd, Vice Chairs Charlie Brinza, Chiles Cridlin,  Members Noel Kay, Nancy Goldsmith, Julie Poe, Cindy Wells, Jim Palmer, Myron Berry, Laurie Tweten, Rhiannon  Dickerson, Joel Fleetwood 
Present Randy Todd, Chiles Cridlin, Cindy Wells, Julie Poe 
Purpose: The Organizer work group is established to research then recommend assistance for KCBS contest organizers to the KCBS Board of Directors for their consideration. 
Organizers workgroup vision 2024
To provide continual improvement to new, struggling and successful KCBS Organizers 
Organizers workgroup mission 2024
How are we going to accomplish this? 
Organizers Improvement thru Education utilizing Communication 
A 4 prong approach.
A Team, Organizers, To Organizers, For Organizers, By Organizers 
B Team, Bullsheet. Communications 
C Team, Charlie Brinza, Navigator 
D Team, Documents team
 
A Team Organizers Workgroup, Randy  Todd, Charlie Brinza, KCBS Organizers Noel Kay, Cindy Wells, Jim Palmer, Myron Berry, Laurie Tweten.
B Team Bullsheet articles, communication team. Rhiannon Dickerson, Randy, Charlie
Organizers page in the Bullsheet.
Communications via email with all Organizers 
Questionnaire to all Organizers is complete. 
C Team, Charlie Brinza will provide oversight of all teams. The road to success can be narrow. Charlie's guidance will keep us all on the right path.
D Team, Documents team
Chiles Cridlin team leader, Nancy Goldsmith, Julie Poe, creating & updating Organizers guides, booklets, forms.
A Team report: 
Per the results from the Organizers Questionnaire, work is beginning on a format for an Organizers Advisory panel. The format includes a twice yearly Organizers Town Hall type meeting with the Organizers Advisory panel while also having the Organizers Advisory panel available throughout the year to give advice and assistance to fellow Organizers on an as needed basis. 
Also from  the survey work is  beginning on an Organizers Mentorship program.
B Team report 
Jim Palmer is writing an Organizers article for the June Bullsheet,  Myron Berry is writing one for July.  
Noel Kay and Chiles are collaborating on a very interesting topic for an August article on Organizers selling a VIP Pit Pass at a competition where a VIP group of 4 - 6 people are given a 1 to 1 1⁄2 hour tour and discussion inside a cook teams trailer for a bbq competition presentation. Passes are sold for $75 to $100 each. Great idea!
 
D Team report, Documents Team: Update the Organizer’s QuickStart Guide
Julie Poe reported on the status of the Organizers Guide update. Julie  is making great progress. 
Chiles reported on the progress of the People's Choice Guide. The 1st draft of People's Choice, “Recipe for success” is complete. Copies will be sent to the Organizers workgroup for review. Chiles has done excellent work.
Julie Poe
Julie discussed a somewhat unique problem Organizers and Reps have on the West Coast. A very popular West Coast Backyard contest uses the 2 meats of ribs and tri-tip. The problem is using the SCORE software program to set up the contest to award an overall Grand Championship and Reserve Grand Championship with the 2 meats of ribs and tri-tip. Her workaround is using the Open competition category. Julie reports this is awkward. 
 
Documents Team Future Project
Work for a “One Meat” condensed version of the existing organizers guide will begin after the Organizer’s Guide updates have been completed.  The existing guide can be overwhelming for what a single category really needs.  This was reviewed and is still on for future development. 
From the Reps committee: 
Item for Discussion 
This item was referred to the Organizers workgroup by the Reps committee via the CBJ committee: 
The subject of inflating judges scoring at a contest by Reps and/or Organizers. It was brought up in the last KCBS Board CBJ committee meeting that occasionally some Reps and/or Organizers during the judges meeting at a contest will talk about what great cook teams are here today and I know that the scores will be high etc… thereby unknowingly influencing the judges to score higher than actually deserved. The Rep committee sees this as a real problem.
Action by the Organizers workgroup committee: 
A paragraph was added to the Organizers Guide instructing Organizers to refrain from mentioning scoring with the judges. It's ok for Organizers to mention during the judges meeting about the great cook teams at the contest, but to refrain from mentioning high scores or anything related to judges' scoring. 
This from Charlie Brinza via the Rules committee:
Please consider adding Ancillary category guidelines to the Organizer's Guide (maybe as an addendum). 
Action by the Organizers workgroup committee: Chiles Cridlin is leading this task.
 
 
Backyard Work Group
No Report for this period.
 
Bylaws Work Group
No Report for this period
 
Technology Work Group
Present: Rod Gray, David McCallister, Chiles Cridlin, Paul Buob
 

• Deployment status (score deployment automation) [David]

All beta testers 10 have been on new version some for up to 6 months
All reps have access to the update. Version 12.9

• establish metrics (deployed/updated) [Possibly with a file trace on machine.]
• after Davids vacation July 3^rd zoom sessions will be established (working session to review the new release)

• Current Prioritized List of changes [David]
  • Trace logging.
  • Database upgrade to sql lite.
  • team input (see below) [All]
  • auto checking categories
  •  
• Discuss other possible projects w objective impacts
• Monthly Review with prioritization of backlog
• (Technology related Office move must do's )
  • Wiring CAT X
  • Router (upgrade)
  • Cloud and google fiber.

 
Audreys input = look for opportinuties
 
Team names – extra characters in team names can cause issues. For example, apostrophes, dashes, etc. To be honest, many teams think their names are different than what we have in our database. Organizers provide the lists to the reps and while they verify the information as much as they can, the head cooks still need to confirm the information is correct when they check in at a contest. As the season progresses, I know what team names to check on the csv files I get and correct the names as needed. (FYI, I reached out to about 10% of the teams that registered for the World Invitational because the name they provided and what we have in our database did not match. I took this time to get things cleaned up.) When members contact us to set up team names, I highly encourage them to leave off the extra characters and, in most cases, they completely understand.
 
Head cook #s – When I get the contest results, some errors are included in the email. I check the list to look for invalid head cook #s and incorrect team names as well. In some cases, it can be that the head cook provided an incorrect member # or the rep keyed the # in incorrectly.
 
The errors that are in the contest email I receive are little vague sometimes. The same error appears for different issues – head cooks whose memberships have expired, teams whose head cooks are not members or they never called to have their team name tied to a membership, etc.  The majority of the time the list is pretty short and it only takes me a few minutes to look them up. Not every contest file has errors. Honestly, I don’t think getting a more precise error message would make things any easier as I still have to look at our data base and I know it’s typically one of those things.
 
Overall, I don’t have to make a lot of corrections on Mondays. I do keep track of what I  change for each contest. I know what to look for and share with Jeanne any issues that I feel she needs to communicate to the Reps. Also, the teams that care about TOY points will reach out right away if they are not seeing their points.
 
Backyard one meat One thing I forgot to mention is that when we have one meat contests, I have to add a column to the csv file for the backyard teams so that they get their points. If there is a backyard contest at the same event, it’s easy for me to identify those teams. Otherwise, it’s a bit of a chore to determine who they are.
 
 
 
CEO Report
 
Key Highlights:
The 6th Annual KCBS World Invitational is now in the books. We saw 145 teams compete over the weekend. The initial impressions and feedback were all positive, especially regarding the contest site and the service provided to teams. The judging area is climate controlled, which was welcomed after last year’s sweltering heat. There were 160 judges involved in the event, 31 states were represented between teams and judges, and the total prize purse was $70,000.
 
Membership:
The June 6th, 2024, membership count snapshot reflects 15,905 members, down 137 members from the 16,042 reported on May 10th, 2024. This ends a four month increase in membership numbers. The May Lifetime membership drive added 55 conversions and additions.
 
The postcard reminders to lapsed members continues to help membership retention. These postcards will be sent each month to the previous month’s lapsed members. We’ll transition to sending postcard reminders for members who are in jeopardy of lapsing soon.
 
Contests:
123 Contests Completed in 2024
354 Contests Scheduled for 2024 (calendar year) 26 Contests Canceled for 2024
CBJ & Table Captain Classes:
42 CBJ Classes Scheduled for 2024
26 TC Classes Scheduled for 2024
 
Partnerships Discussions:
Sponsor Updates:
Q39: Quarterly CBJ classes sponsored by Q39 (including cook cost, cost of meat, Q39 employee KCBS membership and CBJ class fees), hosted at the American Royal. Registration for June class: 38
Ongoing: KCBS, Johnson County Community College, Q39, and the American Culinary Federation are planning a Master Class in BBQ October 11-13, 2024 for ACF chefs includes CBJ certification for 100 ACF members
 
Marketing & Communications:
World Invitational:
KCBS World Invitational Sponsors: Baseball BBQ, Pick Tennessee Products, Lebanon Chamber of Commerce and Office of Economic Development, Holladay Distillery Cocktail Contest, National Turkey Federation, and US Soybean