Good Beer Guide

I hope you have good lawyers...

Christine a écrit :

Indeed... "avoid like the plague" has been tried and tested before as a foolproof thing to print to ensure the first print of a beer guide gets scrapped. :o>

Err the person who said: "But if people never go to branch meetings and don't go on the outings, then they should belt up!"

That sounds good. the same is done here. More should be done to encourage involvement, although that needn't mean _having_ to go to branch meetings or outings.

In our area there is a 'pub adoption' scheme where members who wish to be involved but not necessarily 'seen' can report news, changes, beer quality et al. There is also a beer quality scoring system that has been used as part of the Good Beer Guide selection process for the last four years - identical to that recently introduced for all CAMRA branches. It usually results in several thousand recordings of quality.

Wierd isn't it.

John B

Flick again - and read page 32.

Well, I don't want to alienate anyone too much, (it's a small town, and you need to try to keep in with people) and the pubs I dislike strongly will simply not be listed.

The Submarine Captain wrote in uk.food+drink.real-ale on Tue, 28 Sep

Shirley it's possible to get the message across without actually saying anything libellous? F'rexample:-

"Also sells a wide variety of alcopops, to cater for the younger generation who are prevalent at weekends."

"Landlord is proud of the fact that he always has ten casks on sale, despite the low level of custom."

"Bar staff are attentive to the needs of regular customers."

Brett... wrote in uk.food+drink.real-ale on Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:25:02

I'll cheerfully confess my ignorance of the details of the national scheme; but as a peripatetic drinker, I'll certainly look into this soonest.

Many thanks.

Who's she ;-)

And all of them will be vinegar.

And don't give a sod about passing custom. I hate pubs where you queue up for ages, only to find that some "regular" barges in and says "same again, please". And the barman sees nothing wrong with serving him rather than me.

Brian

I like the sound of that - might have to suggest we do something like that at the next branch meeting, as well as adopting the Camra beer scoring system (although we already have our own system).

I do sometimes wonder why people bother to join Camra - what benefit do they get from membership if they don't take part in Camra activities? I can't remember how much membership costs - it it offset by the reductions in prices on books and entry to beer festivals? I suspect not, unless you are very active in the book buying and beer festival attending departments, in which case you're more likely to be an active branch member too...

d.

In message , Brett... writes

Probably because I'd forgotten national CAMRA adopting nearly the same system my branch has used since before I joined it (20+years)!

I suspect most active members who post here are in a similar position ;)

1. There's far more to being "active in Camra" than attending your local branch meetings.
2. There is something affectionately called the "Camra Dating Agency", which has benefit many such as myself in the past...

BrianW wrote in uk.food+drink.real-ale on Tue, 28 Sep 2004 23:47:26

Yep, this is the point, you don't have to be explicit in what you say about a dodgy establishment. It does take a bit longer and requires some creativity, I know - but as I said, my memory is that some of the old GBBG descriptions were more subtle than they are now?

davek wrote in uk.food+drink.real-ale on Wed, 29 Sep 2004 02:35:50

Well, I've never been a particularly active CAMRA member, though I first became a member back in the 70s.

At the risk of sounding Very Worthy, I'd like to think my subs go some way towards funding CAMRA's campaigning, lobbying and publicity activities; I've never done a cost/benefit analysis on festival entry (though I did calculate that a friend who I persuaded to take out membership one year at the GBBF had got a better deal than me because of the discounts).

The difference is that a national scheme means you and others can post scores to a branch other than your own in the knowledge that they will (hopefully!) be meaningful. The NBSS is not and has never been about competing with the excellent branch systems that are (and should continue to be) in place.

cheers

But sometimes when people complain about the lack of inclusion of pub x, it's the first time you've seen them all year and you feel a bit miffed that they couldn't have come along to a meeting or something so that we could arrange a trip out to it. Especially in an area like ours, which does not have an abundance of good pubs, such suggestions would be welcome.

I agree, but by the same token, I think that attending the occasional branch meeting *is* quite an important part of being "active in Camra" - simply because you can't influence branch policy if you don't.

I suppose I'm lucky in that I enjoy our meetings. We have a good craic. I have been in other organisations where I am perfectly in accord with the aims and proposals, but just don't particularly enjoy the meetings.

When I joined CAMRA I spent much of my time (after one Great British Beer Festival as a starter for 10 and a bit) visiting (and working at) the festivals of the people I met. It was sadly the case that at that time no one from my local branch actually worked at anything other than their local festival so it was a few years before I departed from the end of the Great British Beer Festival directly to the branch meeting I'd been told about by the then Regional Director. (Bags of clothes, goodies and all) I was simply having too good a time doing things at the national level and without mixing with the local branch, in fact so much so that when I did start going to branch meetings I knew more Regional Directors and National Executive members than the branch had active members.

Being a CAMRA member isn't all about doing things at branch level, nor is it all about national events, it's whatever the member wants it to be within the bounds of the Articles.

I know what you mean and have a lot of sympathy. I've seen it happen many times. However try and be positive - at least they have turned up once. Build on it.

Encourage them to give more opinions; say how useful their information can be; and slowly draw them into being helpful, constructive and active within your group.

I guess that's what many of the detractors secretly wish for anyway, yet are too pig-headed to admit it.

John B

I've been to a couple of meetings of my local branch and found them not very nice at all. They're very cliquey and I felt like an outsider.