A New Year’s Message from Flying Bike’s President, Ryan Vanderpol
Hello Flying Bike Members!
What a fantastic year 2013 has been! We’ve accomplished a lot this year, although much of it has been behind the scenes. Your Board of Directors has been incredibly busy this year and I thought you would appreciate a recap of all the great work that has been done, and set some expectations for next year.
As a co-op, our membership is our most important and valuable resource. I’m ecstatic to welcome the 100+ new members that joined during 2013. As of today, our membership stands at 687 members! I hope you’ve had a chance to join us and your fellow members at some of this year’s events. If not, I encourage you to come out, drink beer, and meet some of the best beer enthusiasts in the area! Watch for Flying Bike event updates via email, Facebook and Twitter. There are also lots of volunteer opportunities for members. If you’re interested in helping your co-op grow, please contact volunteers@flyingbike.coop. Remember, membership has its benefits! And to encourage everyone to bring in their friends and family, we have an awesome Referral Program.
Another important aspect of our co-op is what we call Member Driven Beer. The recipes we will brew are determined by you, the membership. This year, we added two new recipes to the books. In February, Bob Yeaw’s Pale Ale recipe was selected by a panel of member-judges and in December, Dan Schmidt’s Rye Saison was added at our first Homebrew Open event. While we work towards opening our own brewery, we’ve been collaborating with other local microbreweries to brew our recipes for us. The Airship Ale, named by member voting, was brewed up by the awesome folks at Machine House Brewery and was available on tap all over Seattle earlier this year. Stay tuned for some exciting news about the Rye Saison!
One of the reasons Flying Bike is different than other breweries is our focus on Community and Education. In addition to the competitions, we held a handful of other fun and educational events this year. Some of the highlights this year were our member-exclusive New Brewery Preview events, where brand new breweries let FBCB members in before they opened their doors to the public. We had an awesome time getting previews at Peddler Brewing and Stoup Brewing! We also held FBCB Member Meetup events at Spinnaker Bay, Asgard Tavern, Rooftop Brewing, and Big Al’s. Tour de Pints, the annual bike-based pub crawl during Seattle Beer Week, has become a regular event for us; we’ve grown the event over the last couple years and it now attracts over 100 riders! As part of our Beer Education events, we held several classes on tasting and brewing beer this year. These classes are led by industry experts and offer an interactive platform for learning about everyone’s favorite beverage. Be sure to keep an eye on the events page during 2014.
Our 2013 Annual Membership Meeting was held at Machine House Brewery in September and boasted our best turnout yet. The meeting also concluded our Board of Directors elections, where we welcomed our first women to the Board: Melissa Kerson and Erinn Hale! Over the last couple months I’ve come to really enjoy working with them both and welcome their enthusiasm, energy and unique perspectives.
While we enthusiastically welcomed our new Board Members, we also said a heavy-hearted goodbye to a good friend this year. Chris Tarnstrom, member #8, was a founding Board Member and our Treasurer. Chris passed away unexpectedly on July 11. His quirky personality and unique insight made him a favorite conversationalist at many of our events and his energy and passion inspired people in all aspects of his life. Chris played a crucial role in the progress Flying Bike has made over the last several years. I enjoyed working with him and getting to know him over the years. He is sorely missed.
Over the last year, we’ve invested a huge amount of time and energy into lining up the remaining pieces to launching Flying Bike’s brewery and taproom. We’ve engaged a Commercial Real Estate Broker from Colliers International to help us in our search for brewery space. We’ve located several potential spaces across the city and put in offers on two of those in Fremont. After much back and forth on those offers, we are continuing to pursue other options. If you have a lead on a good space for the brewery, please get in touch with us at info@flyingbike.coop.
This year, we also engaged legal counsel with Stoel Rives. The attorneys we’ve worked with over the last several months specialize in co-op law as well as food and beverage law and are well equipped to guide us as we continue moving forward. Counsel has helped us craft an amendment to our Articles of Incorporation allowing the sale of Preferred Stock. This amendment was approved by the membership by a landslide vote during this year’s Annual Meeting. Our attorneys have also helped us prepare dozens of legal documents pertaining to our execution of our forthcoming Member Investment Campaign.
As many of you know by now, starting a brewery takes a lot of time, dedication and capital. As a co-op, we are different than other startup breweries. All of our initial capital is crowd-sourced from our membership. To date, we’ve signed up almost 700 members at $125 each ($25 of your membership fee pays for the shirt and pint glasses you received). Less our overhead for hosting events, education classes, marketing, sponsorships, etc., we still have a long ways to go before we have enough capital to sign a lease, purchase equipment, build a taproom, hire staff, get licensed by the State and TTB and finally start brewing.
To do all of this, we need to raise a total of $350,000. I, along with the rest of the Board of Directors, have committed to personal investments totaling $50,000. With this and the cash we have on hand, we have about $250,000 left to raise. This is where all of you come in. Every member will be receiving critical information about this campaign via postal mail and email very soon. I encourage all members to read through the investment documents, business plan and supporting materials. Whether it’s $500 or $5,000 (or more!), the contributions made by you, the membership, are absolutely crucial to getting your brewery and taproom up and running. If you have any questions about how to contribute please contact our team at finance@flyingbike.coop.
This year has been highly productive for us; we’ve done a lot of learning and have really matured as an organization. I would like to personally thank the rest of the Board of Directors and advisors for the hundreds and hundreds of hours that have been dedicated to this project. Brian Cadwell, Kevin Badger, Steve Manghi, Tim Dery, Melissa Kerson, David Wiegand, Mitch Johnson, Erinn Hale, Shawn Becker, Mike Knoll and many others all have my deepest gratitude.
I also want to thank our entire membership for your patience, support and enthusiasm. We wouldn’t be here without you all. Remember, this is Member Driven Beer. What can we do better? How can you help? If you have thoughts, comments, complaints, suggestions or anything else constructive please speak up and chip in! Volunteer and get involved! This is YOUR brewery! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure you’re getting our monthly newsletters via email. Contact us at members@flyingbike.coop.
Although 2013 was our most successful and productive year to date, I am incredibly excited as we move into 2014. Last year, we quietly loaded up all the bases; over the next year, let’s knock the ball out of the park!
Cheers!
Ryan Vanderpol
President, Board of Directors
