Some words from Co-Chair René Macaulay on the Guild Unification
Since its outset the guilds have been evolving to offer better value to its membership.
After years of running events, aside from social, we have found a more focused platform which addresses jobs a roaster and barista might do in their day to day will be of most benefit to all, but these events have been of interest to more than just the head roaster and barista.
To this end we have changed the focus of the Guild events slightly.
We will continue to be hosting the more fun, social events, like the throw downs to keep the community tight. As well as this, events with a learning focus which addresses the cross over in roles when assessing coffee and running Quality Controls.
A roaster can’t operate easily by themselves in producing and assessing the quality of their roasts. They need to be competent in brewing espresso and filter, and need the coffee to be produced at cafes in the way they desired it to be.
The roaster can’t fully understand if they are succeeding unless they have feedback from the cafe “coffee specialist”, and they can be sure they can interpret the feedback as valuable unless it is aligning with their desired outcomes through training.
This means a roaster ideally would be working with their head barista / coffee specialist, trainer and technician to be able to produce a consistent product, and be able to talk meaningfully when assessing it. For some business all these roles might be one person, for another they might be all different roles.
Going forward the learning events will be open to anyone who has interest in the topic, but targeted at people who are involved in the different roles in producing coffee, as they all have a valid point of view and can form a valuable 2 way street of learning.
We hope this can help you build a better QC team at your workplace !
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This years theme: RnD and QC
We are role modeling some ways to add value as an individual to your role, and some ideas on how to approach these topics like “research and development” and “quality controls”.
We want to ask some of the key questions together and learn how to run tests, but not necessarily tell you what the right answer is. Very often there is no correct answer, different coffee brands approach things differently as they serve a different market, and should answer these questions differently.
At guild events we will learn, for example; how to test for extraction % using a refractometer, and why this is useful, but not prescribe the right extraction % for all coffee. We each should decide what is the best extraction yield is for our own coffees.
We hope the guilds can offer something of interest to all who are in coffee preparation, and invite you to attend events and be involved in making them great.
We propose that our events will be set out in 4 categories, there will be overlap in these at times 🙂
Social Stuff / Think Tank / Professional Development / Competition Based
More deets on committee roles & stand for a position on the newly formed committee here>