www.nthba.org

All,

If you have not heard yet, we have been struck a devastating blow by the MFs at UPS. Of the 31 boxes we shipped, 9 were damaged in transit and were not delivered. I have asked that the boxes that did arrive at Defalco's be inspected for damage.

I have attempted to contact all of the individuals that were effected, but I may have missed some, especially if you did not attend the packing party but dropped off entries at HBHQ.

If your box was shipped from HBHQ and you have not received a message from me, please email me at the addrs below and I will provide an update.

Orlando
[email protected]

UPS rules! So does FedX! They all suck!

At least it's not just me anymore...

Chris ("Shards of Glass") Mewhinney

Yay. If mine in the cool boxes are destroyed I may have to go to the old 9 times the packing material method (aka the 5th grade egg drop competition packing) for future shipments.

It seems that these shipping boxes aren't as protective as we thought. It's a crying shame that some failed. Thankfully, Damon showed me and Anthony how to properly assemble the boxes. It looks like he showed us right. As our's don't seem to have had the mishap.

What ever happened to sending Chris's entries as a sacrafical goat?

Now I see that I jinxed myself with that last post. I feared that when I posted. I was just notified that 3 of my entries were destroyed but the box was intact.

Box 20 totally destroyed.

Now I need to know which 3 entries were in that box?

How did you find out your boxes were amongst the casualties?

I wonder if we are the Cool Box Guy's only customers? And if he'll ever get any more?

Chris

We hope the boxes will arrive at HBHQ by noon. We are going over to inspect them.

Orlando

I hope BROWN returns the entire box. Doing otherwise is discarding evidence. I don't believe this is incedental, and it possibly is more. I'm advocating some testing on our part. First, test what it takes to destroy some. Second, test how to shore up the boxes. It sounds like a good brew day activity.

Strange that I, a layperson in the shipping world, can safely deliver my bottles to HBHQ without even denting the box, yet UPS, a professional shipping company, utterly destroys 30% of our shipment and we pay them to do it.

JMHO but when shipping club entries to a competition, we should send them in a palletized lot. LTL (less than load) shippment.

This sitecan get you quotes: https://www.freightquote.com/Public/Home/FQ/Home.aspx

This way, the boxes stay in paletized form all the way to destination. Much less risk of breakage and should be much less expensive as well. Heck we could even send it refigerated freight to protect fragle brews.

It will take a bit longer to get there but with a little planning it could be a very good thing.

I think that is a great idea.

I have the following thoughts, some not original. Trying to consolidate thoughts and ideas.
- Boxes with 9 entries are rather light and handlers are probably tempted to throw them around. I agree with the thinking that the handlers are intentionally abusing boxes that they think may hold homebrew. The question is whether they have been instructed to do so.

- Boxes are not real heavy duty and cannot withstand a heavy load on top. If other boxes are "placed" on top they should be ok, but if heavy boxes are "dropped" continually on top problems might arise.

- Putting a lot of boxes on a pallet and taping them together or wrapping them up could give better protection. Would like to know how long using the freight thing would take. A few days is ok, two weeks...? Maybe we should investigate for the ACCF.

- In the future, possibly coordinate with other local clubs to have a member of one club drive everyone's entries down. The driver would be compensated to pay for gas and maybe even a overnight hotel room. Should still be cheaper than paying shipping.

I really like the drop shipping idea. There is at least one place locally that can do it. It should work out less expensive, and it should not take two weeks to deliver. I ordered a TV from a internet company, and their warehouse was in Fort Worth. The drop shipped the TV (it was large enough), which was delivered on a pallet to my location in 3 days.

If we still use PUSS (intentiionally mispelled) we need to fill the gaps in the boxes, possibly double box, and clearly mark the outside of the box. "HANDLE WITH CARE - LIVE SAMPLES"

kingsbrew wrote:- In the future, possibly coordinate with other local clubs to have a member of one club drive everyone's entries down. The driver would be compensated to pay for gas and maybe even a overnight hotel room. Should still be cheaper than paying shipping.

This is my favorite idea so far. Whether we do it only for our club, or if we coorinate with other N. Tx Clubs. It would be cheaper than paying for shipping..

Next event is the Alamo (ACCF), entries are by Sat Aug 8th. They have drop-off points in San Antonio and Austin. Anyone up for a roadtrip?

Orlando

Any news on whether the re-packed items made it safely? or would that be tomorrow, etc.