Hello there beer-lovers,
What are my goals & Why AM I doing this?
I am doing this because I love BEER. Craft, Real Ales & Belgian Beerand I want other people to learn about Belgian beer and the centuries of craftsmanship it took to come to the variation of all different beers, all made in that little country called Belgium. A country where people love to live the good life in food and drink and now, probably & ironically when the further existence of that country itself is not sure at all , I try to give it a day where the whole country and the rest of the world can celebrate solidarity and camaraderie between beer-bar-brew people worldwide. I also want to bring the International Craft beer scene To Belgiumand show my fellow country peoples the styles and brews enjoyed worldwide.
But there’s more
1) I want to set up local Belgian beer days & weekends (with educational tastings and cooking) in the whole world starting in the USA. Events that are a tribute to the Burgundy way of life in Belgium and that will bring this drinking and eating culture to the attention and appreciation of the people of the world. Me, I just want to be closer to my best friends whom I met 10 Years ago at the burning Man Festival in Nevada, in the USA. I visited this festival and tried to spend as much of my free time with my friends during the rest of the year. Until two years ago when I was misled in an 8 month start up scam by two professionals. I didn’t only lose all my savings but after I was discriminated by a corporate brewery (that owned the place) for personal reasons I had a less fortunate period in my life, Two annoying surgeries made it impossible to work and i just wanted to go and see my friends and start a new career.
And so I came to the migration story of the Red Star Line: A migration museum is going to open here in my home town Antwerp about the migration of 55 million Europeans to The New World (USA & Canada). I felt really connected to their stories because I was feeling something of the same. Then I filed an idea (to find onbelgianbeerweekend.com) with the City here, but because it was an election year, the credits had to go to somebody in office and running for another 6 year of snobby-culture-political-policy.
I couldn’t part with my idea of toasting over the ocean and was thinking, “What do you bring to a country you emigrate too?” The good things of your home country was the logical answer. Combining that with my love for beer and the burgundy way of life, the idea for a Belgian beer-day was born.
So last year after a whole winter behind the computer to get some computer skills and a couple of tries in the “normal” job world (were being social, which was my job for 25 years, is “differently” appreciated) I decided to go back to the plan and go for it. And now using Social
Media. So, on august 29 2012(my birthday I started tweeting under @belgianbeerday and
@captaincheers , now (today 22 August 2013) the two accounts have reached more than 15.239 UNIQUE FOLLOWERS in more than 119 Countries and are still growing strong . The website’s traffic also goes up every day and by adding new content almost daily, the statistics encourage me to continue with my project even more.
2) To set up a HUGE International Craft beer festival here in Antwerp. With seeing and feeling your passion on the twitter accounts that are connected to me, I am so curious about other Craft Beers and I know a lot of Belgians are curious as well. So I want to check out how to get a the craft breweries here to give us a taste of the international evolution in brewing. Belgians are beer lovers so I think they will certainly share the interest of tasting and drinking your local beers to.
3) Because I want to set up a global community to organize events & charities in a cooperation with bars,(home/Craft-beer )breweries, restaurants or other local Small or Medium Businesses. The intention is to offer the business owner or manager the opportunity to bring goodhearted or life enjoying people together on an event or charity. The first of the charities is the worldwide Thanks 4 Giving charity, because I believe it must be possible to avoid people being cold in wintertime or even worse that people die of the cold. If we bring our old or not used warm clothes to our local bars, restaurants or other Small businesses in the thanksgiving weekend and pick them up there (last year in Antwerp I had a friendly taxi company that picked up the bags and brought them to the help organization), there must be a way to get them to the people that need them in your city or to the organization’s that do that already but are always short in winter time.
So why am doing this? To start a new life? To show corporates that for some of us, it’s NOT all about the money and that there is something like a HUMAN factor in doing business. Or maybe to change the world and show that fun and charity go along together if you bring the right people together. And maybe to show all people, but especially the young ones, that it IS Ok to have crazy dreams and chase them. That it is ok to reach out and ask for some help? That if you ask, somebody out there will listen and that TOGETHER, EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE. (Even crazy dreams)
I know Now that it’s probably a good mix of all this and in the end the (almost) perfect plan is almost complete .
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