As the pandemic wears on and the world deals with evolving variants, the purpose of this post is to clarify misconceptions about judge inactive status and reassure members that they do not need to worry about their activity during the pandemic.
We continue to receive communication from members worried about becoming inactive since they have not been able to judge or participate in events during the course of the pandemic. Let me clearly reiterate the stance we have taken since the start of the pandemic: we are not marking judges inactive during this time. Period. When the organization decides to resume our policy related to judge activity, we will clearly announce that change and give members significant time to start participating in events again to remain in an active status. At the current time, we do not plan to resume monitoring and enforcing judge activity until at least 2023. We will continue to monitor the pandemic and adjust timelines accordingly. So, judges need not worry about becoming inactive due to the pandemic for quite some time.
Also, I’d like to clear up confusion about what inactive status means. We mark judges inactive who have had no activity on their judging record for more than two years. You will never lose your judge rank or title if you become inactive. If you are even moved to inactive status, you will no longer appear on lists provided to competition organizers for judge recruitment and you will become ineligible to vote in BJCP elections. That’s it. You keep the rank you have earned for your lifetime, regardless of if you are in an active or inactive status in our database. If you ever become inactive, all you need to do in order to become marked as active again is to record activity on your judging record. This could be receiving points from judging, stewarding, continuing education, or organizing a competition. Or, the activity could be from updating your judge record account information such as your address or password. Of course, we would prefer consistent judging activity so that our members can keep their judging skills and knowledge current (when the environment is safe to do so).
As we have said in our previous updates, please continue to abide by local guidance when holding or participating in judging-related events or exams. Please stay safe, healthy and do what you can to help mitigate the spread so that we can all return to an in-person judging table sooner rather than later.
Please contact your regional rep if you have any questions.
Cheers,
Dennis Mitchell, President
Beer Judge Certification Program, Inc.