Most of what the federation has run in 2021 has happened on a screen, and for good reason. So it's worth flagging when something on the calendar goes the other way: Workshop: Cedar Competition Prep meets in person in Chicago on December 31, and it's staying that way.
The workshop is built for members who are entering — or thinking about entering — next year's judging cycle and want hands-on feedback before they commit a wheel to a category. That's a hard thing to do over video. A judge can tell you what a paste should feel like when you press it; they can't have you press it through a laptop camera. This one is small on purpose, capped low enough that everyone gets time at the table.
We're not alone in that instinct. Other craft cheese training programs spent most of the year running boot-camp-style instruction over video before finding their way back to an in-person session this fall, and members who've done both tell us the same thing: a screen is fine for a lecture and genuinely bad for judging feedback. You can't smell a rind over a laptop speaker, and you can't watch someone's hands the way you can across a table.
Who it's actually for
If you've never entered a competition before, this is a reasonable place to start — you'll leave with a category recommendation and a clearer sense of what "ready" looks like for your particular wheel, rather than guessing from a rulebook. If you've entered before and didn't place where you expected, bring the wheel that didn't place. A working session is a much better use of a judge's time than a general Q&A, and it's the kind of specific feedback that's hard to get any other way.
The Awards & Competition Committee runs this one every year around the same date, and attendance has stayed steady even through two pandemic winters — enough members told us they wanted to keep at least one in-person touchpoint on the calendar that the committee never moved it to video. If you're weighing whether a New Year's Eve workshop in Chicago is worth the trip, that consistency is probably the honest answer: for the members who keep coming back, it is.
It's also a reasonable place to think through your entry budget for next year, separate from the make itself. Between the entry fee, a night in Chicago, and shipping a sample wheel if you can't carry it, a competition cycle costs more than the ribbon suggests. Members who've done it more than once tell us the return isn't really the placement — it's the specific feedback that tells you what to change on next year's wheel before you've spent a season making it.
Before you go
Bring a wheel, not just questions. If you're planning a Soft-Ripened or Aged Cheddar entry for next year's competition cycle, that's the sample worth carrying on the plane. And if travel isn't in the cards this year, the committee can still review your entry paperwork and category placement by request — reach out before the holidays so there's time to get you an answer before entries close.
Freight has been unpredictable all quarter, so if you're shipping a wheel rather than carrying it, build in extra time. A sample that arrives after the workshop is a wasted trip for everyone involved, judges included.
Whatever you're bringing to the table on December 31, we'd rather you show up with a rough wheel and real questions than a polished one and none. That's what the workshop is for.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.