Chili, Chili, Chili

Well, I survived!!! 2009 is in the hands of our CPA. I didn't think I would make it. It took much longer than it has before and my concussion did not help things one bit. I'm just glad it's out the door and someone else gets to deal with it now! I finished up just in time to start finalizing everything for the 9th Annual Gingerbread House CCO February 5-7th. This is a three day cook off held at the Ellis Co. Expo Center in Waxahachie, TX. I will post a flyer this morning with all of the information.

Speaking of chili....a few items of note have come to my attention the past few weeks. First of all, the CASI BOD held their winter board meeting at the Irving Elks Lodge. As I had a prior commitment that day, I sent Gary in my place to take notes. Do any of you know that only FIVE Great Peppers (I may be off by one or two) attended that meeting? I felt that if I couldn't be there, I should send a representative of the NOW Pod to show the Board that we do care what goes on at the meetings and that we are concerned with the direction CASI is headed. I know many GP's live outside of Texas, outside of the DFW area, and just can't make it. However, there are plenty that do live close enough to the Elks Lodge and in my opinion, should have made their presence known at that meeting. How can we expect the Board to take our comments, complaints and suggestions seriously when we don't show up to meetings? How can we know what that Board does without our knowledge (and we know this goes on!) if we don't show up at the Board meetings and let them know that we are there to question them and hold them accountable. Complaining about the Board's decisions once a year at the GP Meeting...or at our cook offs throughout the year...does NOTHING for our need to be heard or taken seriously. For every cook and GP I hear complain about something the Board is doing, wants to do, or has done, I see one person actually step up and do something about it. Come on Chiliheads - this is just as much our organization as it is the Board's...and the Sponsors. Let your voices be heard! Provide solutions to the problems - not just empty complaints. If we join together as a team and present a strong, competent voice, they'll have no choice but to listen to us. We can only hold them accountable for so many things. At some point we have to hold ourselves accountable for not speaking out about the issues facing CASI that we don't agree with. This leads me to an issue I have some very strong feelings about: how cook offs are scheduled. I don't believe that the current "system" (if there really is one) is working. CASI faces a tough choice when it comes to scheduling cook offs the same weekend as ones that are close by or well established. You run the risk of pissing of the sponsor or charity by putting your foot down and telling them they can't have a cook off 30 miles from the established one because you probably won't make 15 cooks. Or, you piss them off when you let them have the cook off and no one shows up - and having a chili cook off to support your charity looks like a waste of time. We've got to come up with a hard and fast rule, a system EVERYONE abides by, and put it in place. What do we accomplish by letting a Pod or a Sponsor/Charity have a cook off 30 miles away from the Gingerbread House Cook Off, for example? What is the harm in telling some of these people, "No, that date is not available because of the cook offs in that region that are already scheduled and the fact that these are established cook offs that are going to pull most of the cooks. Let me help you find a better date to help you maximize CASI's assistance to your charity." How hard is that? How difficult is it to put a mileage rule in place when scheduling cook offs? It's not. What seems to be difficult is CASI's inability to say no, or follow the rules. As of now, RR are supposed to be put in contact with the potential charity or sponsor. RR's know more about what's going on in there area than anyone. If we could really open the lines of communication, and have some rules in place, I think that a lot of these smaller cook offs that happen only once because of poor participation, could be moved to a better date and become more successful. I would like to see this issue addressed at the 2010 GP Meeting in Salado.

I'm off to work on our cook off items so that I'm not running around like a crackhead next week. Please, please, please tune in to KBEC (am station) Wednesday February 3rd around 8:10 am to hear me promote our cook off, as well as The Ranch 106.9 Friday morning, February 5th. We are poised to have a GREAT cook off and I look forward to seeing a lot of you there.

Stay warm :0)