Kevin Shaw, from Coffee Beanery, spoke with this morning’s 16 members about coffee, his coffee, and his business. Started by Kevin’s parents with $75 and enthusiasm under a different name in 1968, the business has expanded to 60 domestic location and 30 international locations and roasts/packages 30 “straight” (unflavored) coffees, 4-6 flavored coffees, and 24 “Singlicious” (their version of “K-cup” for single-cup users) options in their 50,000 square foot Pierson Road plant. This amounts to approximately one million pounds per of beans picked by hand off bushes that each produce one pound per year in four seasonal picks per year. He explained how CB coffee is decaffeinated using a Swiss water process which does not alter that flavor of the coffee, ane he noted the differences among various “roasts” of coffee as well as Robusta and Arabica bean types. By the end of his presentation, although Kevin is not a “coffee snob” himself, he may have created several!

To open the meeting, President Phil Holmblade asked Ron Ballard to lead in the Pledge of Allegiance and Jack Proffitt to say grace. After word of Art Ridley‘s impending surgery (tomorrow) for an aortic aneurysm, discussion of the desirability of contacting regular $5K Raffle ticket purchasers about the rescheduling to March 26, 2020 occurred. (Former member and strong raffle seller Bob Hale has been informed.) We also talked about the upcoming Widder Golf outing, with 5 teams and 10 hole sponsors for the September 14 date.

After that, King Jeff Dennings began fining the entire Club in a series of “fundraisers”, Steve Schlott fined all those not participating in the Crim events this week and was fined himself for attempting to evade fines with the flimsy excuse of retrieving Art Ridley’s “Get Well” card from the car. Greg Hilliker paid a fine “for making our King look like a moron” and Bill Hentgen and Jim Reigle paid fines for wearing Hawaiian clothing and not speaking the language, after which Ken Cullen paid a price for Bill’s knowing at least one Hawaiian term identified by John Losinski. When the laughter subsided, Speaker Chair Greg Hilliker introduced Kevin Shaw and coffee kept us alert.

Until next time, “Promise Yourself…