How to cancel CAMRA subscription ?

If paying by cheque, don't pay when it's due for renewal.

If paying by direct debit, tell your bank to cancel it.

Not difficult.

In what areas do you feel "What's Brewing" should have been less insipid?

Of course if you are a Life Member you will have to kill yourself first before your What's Brewing subscription can be cancelled.

But to cancel a Life Membership would be cutting off your nose to spite your face, as they would still enjoy the benefit of the funds.

(I'm a life member, btw)

Good. Thanks for that.

Most of the CAMRA newspaper is purely marketing and advertising for the benefit of the brewers and it's very tiresome wading through so much fluff and gossip looking for interesting content about real ale.

If I may use the 'b' word... I find What's Brewing boring.

I've got a number of excellent books published by CAMRA, some of the going back to the 70s. Perhaps my preferred method of reading is not the newspaper or magazine format, but the book ! :-)

Well you might look at it that way but I think that the OP mainly wanted to stop What's Brewing arriving every month.

You could always throw it away unopened and continue to support the campaign through your membership fee and contributing to the size of the membership, unless of course you feel that your vicarious pleasure for up to an hour each month is more important than supporting the campaign.

It's no different to any other trade magazine. They have all got to sound upbeat. That's their purpose.

If it's that bad, just put it on the pile of newspapers for re-cycling.

I think the point is really that I'm not being served, as a member, by CAMRA and, in any case, I don't want to encourage CAMRA to be any more wasteful than they are.

This is 2005 and CAMRA has been in business for over thirty years.

If CAMRA can't organise a means whereby a member can opt out of their What's Brewing mail shots, then CAMRA are unable to organise the proverbial piss up in a microbrewery.

No. Standing Orders are originated at the bank and are cancelled by contacting the bank.

Direct Debits are originated by the organisation collecting the money [1] and are cancelled by contacting that organisation. As a general rule it worth copying the cancellation letter to your bank. Then if the originator does not cancel the DD [2] the bank knows that you have jumped through the relevant hoops and will stop payment when you ask them to.

1. Making things cheaper for the banks, hence they are so keen on DDs.
2. For whatever reason, corruption / incompetence / etc.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@bat.mobile.invalid writes [snipped]

What rubbish! Trying to filter out members who do not wish to receive a newsletter can be an expensive and time consuming operation that would cost more than sending out the magazine.

'What's Brewing' is sent to a mailing organisation after it is printed, and they presumably work from a database of members. Why CAMRA's administration should have to go to the trouble to draw up another database of just those members who want 'What's Brewing' is beyond me. Why not just give your copy to a local pub, tourist information office, youth club, hospital or some place where people might be interested in it?

I don't know in what respect you feel that you are not being served as a member, but I am happy that the cause of real ale, real cider, and good pubs is being well served by the Campaign in general. I get the distinct impression that you are looking for any excuse to criticise CAMRA and cancel your membership.

Good riddance!

There are organisations that manage to offer a reduced membership fee if the magazine (or other benefits) are not required.

An organisation that adjusts to what its members require by offering different levels of service/benefits can actually increase membership. It does need some forward thinking rather than following the 'we've always done it this way' line of thought, all too common within some bodies.

It would be interesting to know.

Is that really necessary? You should make clear that you only speaking as an individual and not as a CAMRA member.

John B

Nonsense. Any good mailing list manager offers the facility to flag user records as 'do not mail' and then to mailmerge the resulting recordset to mailing labels.

There's no excuse for not offering this option via the website's subscription area, and generating the mail list for the direct mail organisation directly from that.

In fact it's counterproductive not to do so, because of the likelihood of keying errors, and the requirement to have somebody manually 'chug' the database each month increases the chance of errors.

Cheers - Neil Smith [PHP/MySQL Web Developer]

Don't you mean "CAMRA official"...

Was that boorish noise coming from the Press Officer for CAMRA West Berkshire ?

It really reflects badly on CAMRA as an organisation to see this type of behaviour in public places. It's very off putting to turn up at CAMRA festivals and see prize-winners and guest speakers abused by being booed or heckled. Always a few bad apples in the barrel in any group though.

Regarding my desire to opt-out of CAMRA's What's Brewing mail shots, I don't think it's a very unusual request and it's terribly wasteful just to bin the newspapers on receipt of them.

For an organisation that claims to be very effective at campaigning, CAMRA seem particularly inept at managing new technology. I really mean that sincerely... just look at the facts. It's 2005, is there a good, uptodate e-newsletter sent to members or prospective members ? No, afaict. I've seen tiny organisations with a few hundred members produce excellent e-newsletters and fresh newsworthy online content.

CAMRA seem to be fixated with the old print press, and I guess it's something to do with the organisation's historical legacy and the influence of old-time journalists who helped lay the foundations. It's the "we've always done it this way" mentality, as some one else in this thread alluded to.

What means are being used to distribute mailing list messages regarding CAMRA branches ? Can you believe it... Yahoogroups. So, you pay your subscription rate of nearly twenty quid a year, and you are part of a massive UK organisation, and CAMRA HQ sanctions the use of a commercial American mailing list which, if you use it, slaps bizarre advertising at the footer of each message. It's almost surreal.

CAMRA own the domain camra.org.uk and I see no particular reason why they can't manage their own mailing lists so that members get the best possible service. It's hardly rocket science. It doesn't cost the earth. It's really embarrassing to be part of a movement which takes such a visibly amateurish approach to communication.

wrote

CAMRA own the domain camra.org.uk and I see no particular reason

Gosh as simple as that eh?

Have you not considered that CAMRA size wise at the moment is too small to commit resources to it, but too big to use volunteers to give an acceptable service. I'm sure it is easy to set up a group with a few subscribers.

Also don't forget there are CAMRA members out there with no access to the net who might regard it a waste of resources to supply such a service when there is no proven demand.

It is your decision to leave the campaign, but I suspect your 'protest' will not be noticed by that cause of action. Better to be in it if you want to have influence and gain support then just sounding negative by moaning on a news group

In fact if it is so simple why not stayin CAMRA, offer your services and proof how easy it is?

Rob Shanks

No.

Are we part of the same CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale which signed up the 75,000th member during March this year ? That's a fair sized campaign group.

Yes, I totally agree with you that resources should not be wasted, hence I believe CAMRA members should be offered the *option* of opting-out of mail shots for publications like What's Brewing which exist primarily to serve the interests of advertisers and producers.

Printing newspapers costs a good few shillings more than creating online content and allow members to *choose* the content they want to read.

Regarding the demand for online services for CAMRA members, I may be misinterpreting search engine results, but the impression I get is that CAMRA branches have a really good presence online, and the content is often far more sophisticated than the material organised by HQ.

You must have a really low opinion of CAMRA if you think the organisation is so fragile that it can't take any public criticism from the membership.

That's a good question, however, as I've said, CAMRA does not offer me, as a member, any real benefits and, in any case, there is absolutely no need to be a part of CAMRA to drink real ale or support the industry.

Oh, I do then APOLOGISE. I was under the impression you were Roy Bailey the Press Officer for CAMRA West Berkshire, contributor to many CAMRA publications, webmaster for your local CAMRA website, member of the British Guild of Beer writers, cider entrepreneur etc etc.

Unless of course there are a series of cloned Roy Baileys linked to CAMRA.

wrote >

Are we part of the same CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale which signed up

Yes but that still does not automatically equate that there is a real demand or support for the costs of putting one of our full time staff on it. It is only your opinion and you have not put forward any statistics to proof. I can't proof otherwise of course but I would prefer to comsider facts before saying one way or another

See above - you still have not proved that this is as cost effective as you claim as again you are only making an assumption with no hard facts to back it up.

Again your opinion - in this case well wide of the mark. I know the camapign is far from perfect but I have a quite high opinion of it overall. I have no problem with deserved criticism but you alone are not 'public'. I was just pointing out that your idea of protesting needs a bit more support to acheive its goal ie more members taking the same action. So if you are correct I expect to see the campaign to fall back to under 30,000 members as it was when I joined.

Correct and that is your right to choose to be not a member. I find that the other benefits such as reduced admission to beer festivals, savings on products and GBG, the social side as well as the opportunity to have my say and try and influence the direction of the campaign are worth the subscription.

Everyone is different. You started this asking how to cancel your membership, some members have give you that information, we are now all aware of your low opinion of CAMRA, you do not have to justify that, so lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that eh?

Rob

In article , snipped-for-privacy@bat.mobile.invalid writes