2008 Ohio Smoked Meat & BBQ Festival is set to go!!!

[Kloset BBQR]

Wow, I guess I was blinded last year when we won a couple of categories and did not realize some of the other things that went on. I can't blame anyone for being mad at the event.

Carl Franz and Tom Lambrecht are the ones incharge this year. Mainly Carl Franz from the Hotel. I have been trying since january to get someone moving, and I must agree it is disheartening.

Maybe like someone said in an earlier post, "This event will need to fail before it gets big". I can assure you that the local community away from the college will support this event. As a matter of fact I am going to contact the chamber of commerce and fill them in on some of the information. I beleive I wil also contact the one sponsor, Rocky Boots and let them know. I don't know what I can do for this year, but maybe I can get things rolling towards something in 2009. Damm all this stuff makes me mad!!!

That would be a great starting point because I know that the contest is important to both the community and to many cooks on the barbecue circuit. The cooks got caught in the middle of a feud between the former KCBS reps and the organizers, who were not really the organizers. The reality was that the reps were the organizers and the reps but could not be both so they had the Inn be the organizers on paper and they were told that the reps would take care of everything. Last year all that fell through and you had a game of he said, they said with each side blaming the other culminating with the firing of the Reps publicly at the contest. Do you remember those pink sheets that were passed out at the contestj? That led to some very harsh feelings and the website which was owned by the reps was taken down immediately. To this date a website for the contest has not been reestablished despite one of the cooks volunteering his time to do so.

The bottom line is, is that the Inn does not have the ability and/or desire to run this contest the way it should be done. There are a lot of people, myself included that would like to see this contest survive. I do believe that it is too late for this year. It would be good to bring this to the attention of the town council while getting the Inn to resign as the organizers of the event. I believe that a committee could be formed to act as kind of a trustee to run the contest for next year. The contest has the facilities to accomodate a very large contest if proper planning is done. I would love to see some entertainment at the contest, a pot luck dinner for the cooks as well as the breakfast that has been done in the past and also the addition of a Kids Q. Funds need to be dedicated to doing some minimal advertising of the contest in the KCBS Bullsheet and the National BBQ News. Additional sponsors beyond Rocky Boots need to be added. If there could be awards given to the top 10 in each category and top 5 overall I think you'd see teams come. This probably means somewhere between 8-10k in prize money would be needed for the contest and it cant all come from the entry fees.

See if there is any interest in doing things the right way and let them know that there are people who would be willing to volunteer their time to help (you can count me as one right now). Hopefully they will be appreciative of the efforts to keep the competition alive in Nelsonville! Good luck with the council and keep us informed of any developments.

Dallas

 

[beardjp]

I received the following reply from Tom Lambrecht of The Inn At Hocking College regarding prize money.

"The prize money is at least $400 first prize each catergory or more
depending upon the total # of entrants. Sorry we can't be more specific at
this point but the winner is the Ohio state champion making them eligible
for K.C. I believe. "

That is all the information he sent.

 

[beardjp]

The following was posted on the BBQ Brethren forrum;

Looks like Nelsonville may not happen at all. Tom Lambrecht just quit after reading all the emails that were flying around. I did get a copy of his note as I did send him an email. He his contacting the president of Rocky and turning over the proclamation to him. If you want info his email it's kevin.dotson@rockybrands.com.

Tom is still saying it's all the Grinsteds fault but has made no attempt to address the need for paying to 5 positions plus GC/RGC and he has not submitted papwrwork to the KCBS for the funding guarantee. So I guess there's lots of blame to go around.
__________________
Ford
Great Lakes BBQ & Feed Co

Now for the rest of the story!!! Mr. Lambrecht was asked to stand aside. The Nelsonville Chamber of Commerce along with Rocky Boots is working on taking over the competition and trying to get things on track. We don't know about 2008, we can only hope. But 2009 is where we really hope to take off a new. I am sure things will change quickly in the next few days.

 

[beardjp]

2008 Ohio Smoked Meat & Barbecue Festival is still on!!!

I just finished speaking with Kevin Dotson from Rocky Boots and the Nelsonville Chamber of Commerce. It is official the 2008 Nelsonville BBQ competition is still on. The Nelsonville Chamber of Commerce is now the organizer for the event with Rocky Boots staying on as a sponsor. We are having a meeting on Friday at 2 pm EST to bring everything together. After the meeting I should be able to get more information out to everyone.

In the mean time any ideas or suggestions that you would like me to bring up at the meeting are welcome. It would also be a great help if any teams that are interested in competing let me know so we can see where we will be standing for teams.

I appreciate everyone’s help and support over the past few days. It is great to know that this type of support is out there.

 

[beardjp]

Ohio Smoked Meat & BBQ Festival

The Ohio Smoked Meat and Barbeque has a website;
http://www.nelsonvillefd.org/ohiobbq.htm

Nothing special at this time but we are up and running, updates will come as I get them.

 

[Kloset BBQR]

Good luck with the contest Dan. Keep us posted as things develop.

 

[Uncle Bubba]

Who's the organizer??

 

[Kloset BBQR]

Nelsonville Chamber of Commerce.

 

[beardjp]

The Nelsonville Area Chamber of Commerce is the organizer, and Rocky Boots is stepping up as the main sponsor for now. They are planning on moving the competition to the Nelsonville dowtown area around the public square. There is water and electric in the area from several festival events that are held in the same area. I should have the full run down tomorrow after we meet and make some final decisions.