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By: Rob 'Rub' Bagby FBA President

Congratulations to our newly elected Officers and BODs! I commend all who threw their hat into the ring for this year's election and hope that you will all continue to keep supporting and helping the FBA in any way that you can as we continue to grow. Our membership has more than doubled in the past few years, and with growth comes the need for change. Give our 2011 BODs your input and most of all support as they face these upcoming challenges. Do you realize we have just wrapped up our biggest Funcook in FBA history? Of course, it takes a lot of people and man-hours to make these things happen, but Jimmy Brod and Ricky Ginsburg spearheaded by far the brunt of the work, drive, and new ideas for this epic event. For some time now, Jimmy has been anxiously chomping at the bit to hold a wide-open cooking class and to kick the Funcook up a couple of notches. Well this was his year and he has really out-done himself. His out of the box thinking and ideas helped make the Funcook all that it was. Add the great organizational skills of Ricky and we had an event that will be very hard to top. These two took on the role of organizers at no cost to the FBA and did a heck of a job. I'd hate to even try to guess the number of man-hours they put in, but I guarantee you it was a lot. If you haven't already, be sure to thank them next time you see them for a job well done. Our summer slowdown period is coming to an end. While August was relatively quiet with just the new Cocoa Beach contest being held, September will see three contests, and then October will be wide open with six sanctioned contests. I know I say it a lot, but it is as important now as ever; communicate! Cook teams, call or email the organizers of the contests you plan on doing and let them know. Organizers, try to work with your teams if you can. Offer to take a deposit to hold a team's spot if you can. Do away with late fees, and instead maybe offer early bird discounts. Recreational dollars are still hard to come by for a lot of teams, so do what you can to help out. We ALL want to see our contests succeed and grow, so we all need to work together and help one another. And finally, if you've been watching any of the new BBQ themed TV shows lately, you may have noticed at least a couple of FBA members in the mix. Of course, member Myron Mixon of Jack's Old South is becoming a familiar household name, as he was a competitor last season and is now a judge on the "BBQ Pitmasters" shown on TLC. Also on the same show are Bubba and Shannon Latimer of Bub-Ba-Q, who you may also have seen on a Food Network "Food Challenge". And Griffin Bufkin and Harrison Sapp from the restaurant Southern Soul BBQ were also on the "BBQ Pitmaster" show, as well as being featured on Guy Fieri's hit Food Network show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives". Congratulations to these members for their achievements, and stay tuned to see which of our friends are on next! That's it from me for this month. Until next time, I hope to see you at a contest real soon. Rub

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