Howdy, cattlemen! August is scooting past us quickly and bringing the fall months with it. While your staff gears up for an extra busy time of year, we know each of you are preparing for county annual meetings, fall calving season, cattle sales and…let’s be real, this is important…football season. Before we get too focused on touchdowns and newborn calves, get your weekly update from the ACA.
Amping Up Membership…Software Style!
If you’re looking for ACA Membership Coordinator Jessica Kennedy, she’s buried under 50,000 membership profiles dating back to 2005. What are we talking about, you ask? She’s making a huge leap this week toward activating our new membership software. This week held the big import which moves all our data from the old software (Ag Returns) to the new, web-based program! The plan is to have the software up and running by the kickoff of the November membership drive, and we’ll train our county leaders at our upcoming regional meetings.
Note: We are asking that NO MORE information be submitted to the Ag Returns software. If you have new county information to submit, please contact Jessica Kennedy.
Before we finish up our membership update, we’d like to take just one
more opportunity to congratulate Franklin, Limestone and Lauderdale counties on being the three largest county chapters in 2017. For those who missed the fun at last week’s board meeting, our largest county with 582 members (Franklin County) was awarded a shiny new outdoor tent and “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” banner, while Limestone County (502 members) was awarded the same banner. Coming in at third place with 350 members, Lauderdale County was awarded a $50 merchandise credit. Congrats to all three hard-working counties!
ACA Regional Meetings
If you’re a leader in your county cattlemen’s chapter, be sure to save the date for our upcoming regional meetings. We’ll be bringing October Beef Month supplies, updates, software training and open discussion to your back yard. If you’re interested in an October Beef Month box, contact Jessica. Here are the dates:
9/5 Marshall County Dinner
6:30 p.m. Guntersville Extension Office
9/6 Lawrence County Breakfast
7:30 a.m. Mel’s Stockyard (Moulton)
9/12 Tallapoosa County Dinner
Location/Time TBD
9/13 Tuscaloosa County Breakfast
7:30 a.m. Heritage House (Tuscaloosa)
9/19 Clarke County Dinner
Location/Time TBD
9/20 Pike County Breakfast
7:30 a.m. Pig Cafe (Troy)
Board Sales
Cattle sale season is rapidly approaching and board sales have already begun to kick off around the state. This Thursday, ACA Director of Industry Relations & Youth Programs Michael Agar is attending the Piedmont Cattle Marketing Association Board Sale at the ALFA home office at noon in Montgomery. For those interested, the sale can be viewed live at here. Speaking of cattle sales and ALFA, Michael also enjoyed visiting Montgomery Stockyard this Monday with Nate Jaeger of the Alabama Farmers Federation.
BAMA’S BEST BURGER Elite 8 Challenge
After five successful years of the Alabama’s Best Steak contest and the
implementation of the #ALSteakTrail, your beef checkoff program is switching its focus to burgers. After a buzzing week of nominations which garnered a reach of over 241,000 Facebook users, the Bama’s Best Burger contest welcomed over 1,000 nominations, which made the task of finding the eight most-nominated even more daunting than usual. Nevertheless, we did, and now our Facebook Photo Challenge is well underway! Check out who made the Elite 8 cut from each region:
North
- Rattlesnake Saloon’s “The Duke Burger” (Tuscumbia)
- Big Chief Drive In’s “Chuck Burger” (Glencoe)
Central
- Black Rock Bistro’s “Alabama Burger” (Jasper)
- Deano’s Grill’s “Deano Burger” (Jacksonville)
South
- Hamburger King’s “Deluxe Cheeseburger” (Montgomery)
- Sheila C’s Burger Barn’s “Cheeseburger” (Auburn)
Gulf
- Fish River Grill’s “Swamp Burger” (Foley)
- Our Place Diner’s “Back, Egg & Cheese Burger” (Ozark)
*Those in italics are currently leading the votes in their district* Get involved with our contest, especially for those who share a home county with a contestant. Share our contest on Facebook and submit you vote today! Click Here to check out photos of each contestant’s burger and to vote. The voting window closes at midnight THIS Sunday, and we will shortly after announce the Fiery 4 finalists!
Flying High with YCLP
Last week’s Young Cattlemen’s Leadership Program (YCLP) session was a true adventure. The objective of our second gathering can be defined into one word- teamwork. The young cattlemen kicked off the weekend by joining at the Beef Teaching Unit at Auburn University for lunch then traded their boots for sneakers as they headed out to the AU Challenge Course. All throughout the hot August afternoon, the future leaders participated in ropes course challenges to learn all about working together as a team, encouragement and how to rely and trust on your fellow cattlemen. The afternoon wrapped up with a delicious dinner at La Cantina, owned by Jim Collins of Cusseta, Alabama, followed by a tour of DCJ Ranch, led by farm manager Cal Whatley.
Day #2 of the session was spent at the Beef Cattle Conference hosted at 
the Ham Wilson Livestock Arena in Auburn. The group listened to several guest speakers then joined breakout groups to participate in a calving demonstration, an estrus synchronization discussion and carcass/fabrication evaluations.
CATTLE JUDGING FIELD DAY
Save the date for our upcoming Cattle Judging Field Day! On September 16, youth across Alabama are invited to participate in a cattle judging class with Auburn University Livestock Judging Coach Jason P’Poole, participate in a cattle judging clinic, learn during a questions class and get feedback on their reason-giving skills from P’Poole and ACA’s Michael Agar, an alumni of the Mississippi State Livestock Judging Team. This event is FREE to all youth, and while AJCA membership is not required, it is encouraged.
Registration for the event is now available online. To learn more or to register, visit BamaBeef.org/JudgingFieldDay
October Beef Month Planning Underway
October may be a couple months away but your checkoff promotions team already has big plans in the works for October Beef Month in Alabama! While ACA Executive Vice President Erin Beasley spearheads Beef 101 programs and a restaurant-focused “Beef Week,” ACA Director of Social Media & Communications Kayla Greer is pulling out all the stops on digital promotion efforts. Expect to see catchy Facebook advertising, Snapchat takeovers and a statewide ibotta coupon!
Here are a Few Handy Links You May Enjoy:
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