Firstly, sorry for taking a while to respond to your questions guys. Let's see if I can answer them all. DoubleRistretto: Let's get this absolutely clear - this is an accreditation scheme and not a licensing one. Licensing suggests that there will be penalties for not having the tick. We're trying to build an accreditation which will benefit those who have it and the industry as a whole. Hopefully this will clear up some of your concerns about a 'regulatory' body. The focus of 'regulation' in this case will be on making sure that those who have earned the accreditation remain accountable to the final quality of their product - if baristas get this accreditation and then go back to their cafe and make shocking coffee all the time then the scheme as a whole will lose all validity. In terms of the cost of going through the accreditation, if you look at the conference signup you will see that for the $500 (AASCA member) fee, you are getting four hours of teaching and assessing. The majority of this time will be spent giving the participants an overview of what they should expect in terms of the assessment and how it will be assessed (basically breaking down the WBC judging guidlines). The participants are then able to go through the assessment process of a written quiz and practical test. Along with covering that fairly intensive training and assessment session, the cost for the accreditation is also based around a budget to create a professional standard system which will support itself and allow benefits to be arranged for it's members. You are quite correct that none of AASCAs members are paid at the moment...but we certainly don't want that to continue. This system would cover costs for paying for the assessors time and supporting the scheme as a whole. G_Uru: Obviously this is a question of the chicken and the egg - which comes first? What is likely to happen is that the initial round of assessors at the conference will comprise mainly of World Barista Championship certified judges. These people have had to sit through multiple tests including a very demanding Sensory skills test which has very small pass rates. Once the scheme has been running for a while I'm sure that we'll move towards having assessors who are both qualified at a WBC level and accredited under this scheme. I hope that helps to clear up some of your questions guys but if you have any others feel free to post them up and I'll answer them as quickly as possible. Alternatively, if you're coming along to any of the upcoming events in Sydney between the 23rd and 26th, track me down at the Aroma Champions Tent or the AASCA Australian Barista Guild stall at the ICTF and we'll carry on discussions over a coffee. Cheers, Ben ______________ Secretary for the AASCA Australian Barista Guild W.A. Convener for the AustralAsian Specialty Coffee Association
