The end of an era?

 I've mentioned on here before my involvement with the Campaign for Real Ale and specifically with the Great British Beer Festival. My Dad was a CAMRA member from the early days of the Campaign, and got involved with our then local branch's beer festival "Pigs Ear" pretty much as soon as it started running. Inevitably that lead to me getting involved as well - initially working on the charity stall in the foyer, then when we relocated to a new venue without the space to have the stall, I moved on to initially working in the kitchen and then once I was actually old enough to be working in the main hall, the glasses stand. A few years on saw me shifting to the admin side - looking after press & PR, and assisting with the finances during the festival itself. It was at Pigs that I met MrEH, and there again that, a few years later, we agreed to go on our first date. Yep - it has a lot to answer for! 

A dramatic sky lighting up Olympia’s roof…

At the time we started going out MrEH was already involved with the Great British Beer Festival, having done the Bar Manager's Training Course there, and then become a Deputy Manager on one of the bars. I'd never particularly felt any urge to go and volunteer there, but at his encouragement reluctantly agreed to go along. First reactions weren't great, but at the point where he realised I was about to pack it in and head home, he suggested that there would be a role for me "behind the scenes" on their bar - so on the basis that I didn't have to serve the public, I agreed to give it another try, and sure enough, I found that the atmosphere of working with a good team of people was thoroughly enjoyable. Gradually I started adding to my knowledge, being taught the cellaring process and learning to take care of the beer that would subsequently be served to the customers (although almost never by me!), and when original Bar Manager Dave decided to move on to a new role a couple of years later leaving the bar in the hands of MrEH and his co-manager Bobbie, she asked me to step up to the role of Deputy Manager, and I agreed. The following year saw MrEH and Bobbie each taking on a bar of their own, and I became senior Deputy on MrEH's team, where I've been since. (Until this year, but more of that shortly!) 

An early team shot…

The team is the best aspect of the festival by miles - a group of people who, over the years, have become really close friends. Each year we get together for that week - and it's as though we've never been apart. It doesn't matter if we've not seen one another in the interim (although many of us do) for that period of time, it's working alongside some of your very best mates. 

2025 team - unexpectedly “Robyn’s Bar!”

In 2018 we were approached by a member of the Working Party - the committee who organise the festival from the ground up each year - and asked whether we would consider taking on responsibility for the ordering of the British Beer. To everyone's surprise, after a bit of thought we said yes, taking on the role from our predecessors ahead of the 2019 event. It is a massive amount of work, taking up a good amount of our time from November each year through to the end of August following the festival, but it's also been ludicrously rewarding curating a list of beers that we feel the public will enjoy.  We’ve found beers and breweries we’ve never heard of before, given small breweries an opportunity to see their beers showcased at the National flagship festival, and increased the range of styles to include far more dark beer options than there were before. Almost across the board, our selections have been applauded, which is a great reward for the hard work as it’s always good knowing you’ve got things right! 

Times have been getting increasingly harder in the world of festivals though, and none less than when you’re trying to put on a national festival that is primarily intended to appeal to the general public rather than mainly CAMRA members. Covid hit everyone hard, but we lost two years of festivals and a huge amount of momentum - plus the sea-change in people’s working patterns hit us hard - we used to do well from people heading to the festival after work, of taking an afternoon off to come along with colleagues. Now people work from home more and those outings are less prevalent - meaning that we were finding footfall decreasing and the venue emptying out from 8pm on. Then came a forced move of venues from Olympia in London (affected by building works that meant trying to hold the event there was not practical) - another year missed as by the time it became apparent that Olympia wasn’t going to work there was sufficient time to re-plan for elsewhere for 2024. 

Beer mat art for a social media post…

Now it’s become apparent that this year’s Festival at the NEC may well be the end of the road for The GBBF - although the festival itself received good comments about the beer and even some aspects of the venue, the attendance simply wasn’t what we needed, and it proved impossible to even break even, never mind making any sort of profit. From my perspective it was an unexpectedly hectic one - with MrEH being taken ill a couple of days before we were due to travel to Birmingham that left me (because if course he insisted I still needed to go!) not only looking after the Beer Order side of things on my own (on site we have responsibility for the two wet stock teams looking after logistics - getting the beer to where it needs to be within the venue, and dealing with collecting the empty casks and kegs at the end - and Stock Control - monitoring the sales on each bar and helping manage stock levels on the brewery bars, specifically) but also stepping up as Manager of our bar too. A tall order, and one that saw me spending the first few days running around like a mad thing trying to keep ALL the plates spinning! Thankfully MrEH was well enough by the Tuesday that he was able to join me and take over the beer order side of things, leaving me to complete my first festival as a Bar Manager with at least a little less stress. As always the team had my back throughout - they’re such a good bunch. Same with the wet stock teams - quite honestly they don’t really need me getting under their feet anyway! 

Wet stock teams! 

So what happens from here then? We don’t officially know yet - but we’ve been told that there will be no festival under the GBBF Brand in 2026. Realistically, while there may be some form of national festival again at some stage in the future it’s unlikely to be in the same mould, and so chances are that leaves us without a role going forwards anyway. Whatever happens now though being involved with it has been an incredible experience, we’ve met some wonderful people, worked in some iconic places and had huge amounts of fun with it - but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the thought of a little more free time to explore other options in life isn’t quite appealing. Even things as simple as being able to do the whole of the Royal International Air Tattoo in July without feeling guilty for leaving all the work with MrEH will be quite a change! 

For now at least, au revoir GBBF - it’s been a blast! 

Robyn

Missing the “usual”...

A few of you will probably know that in normal circumstances I would have been spending this week of the year working my arse off for no pay in a gigantic greenhouse in West London - otherwise known as volunteering at the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia. It’s something I’ve done annually since 1998 - so this would have been my 23rd year. Last year we added the duties of looking after the British beer order to our previous roles too - MrEH is a Manager of one of the bars and I am a Deputy Manager. It’s a hot, exhausting, sweaty, physically demanding and above all pretty stressful week, but it’s spent with some of my best friends in the world and as a result, yes, I love it! 

The festival was one of the earliest victims of the pandemic - we reach the stage of increasing commitments both in terms of workload and financial outlay from March onwards - and so as soon as it became apparent that the Covid-19 crisis was going to have a huge impact not just on the U.K. but all over the world, decisions had to be made. At the stage we first talked about it it was becoming very obvious that large gatherings - particularly indoor ones - were going to be banned for a significant period of time, potentially with no end date. With so many “unknown factors” the decision was reluctantly taken by our Festival Organiser Catherine to cancel this year’s event - a hugely brave and tough decision so far in advance, but one which was backed unanimously by the entire working party. A fair few folk on the outside said we’d jumped too soon - that it would “all be over by August” - but as we now know this is far from the case and had we tried to press ahead it would have proved a very costly mistake. 

There’s much joking on social media this week amongst the volunteer staff about all the things we are “virtually doing” - imagining that in fact we were at Olympia as normal. Right now for example, at the time I am writing I would be making final checks on any beers we were expecting to need to put on sale later tonight - Friday evening  is one of our business sessions on the bar - so tasking the cellar team with making sure that anything we would be needing shortly had a tap in it, as well as making decisions about anything that would not be ready to sell this evening, but would instead be tapped last thing tonight or first thing tomorrow ready to see out our final day open to the public. With my other pair of hands (!) I’d also be checking that the two teams under our “control” for want of a better word (actually they are staffed by exceptionally competent and experienced individuals) on the beer order side; Wet stock control and wet stock logistics were happy with their tasks and workloads and also dealing with any problems that needed our attention. 

It feels very strange to be sitting here quietly on the balcony, writing this at a time when usually I’d be incredibly busy - and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t to a degree missing the bustle and fun that comes along with it. I’m not missing the sore feet - by this stage of the week no matter how much you obey the first rule of GBBF (never stand when you can sit) the heels are always letting out a low yet relentless throb - although this is much improved from the days at Earls Court with it’s unforgiving concrete floor. I confess I am also not missing the stress - today’s 54BPM is the lowest my resting heart rate has been during August since I got my FitBit in 2017! 

There will be a real “Virtual GBBF” happening next month - although aside from putting together some lists of beers which will be featuring in that we have little to do with that as we’re unavailable during the time it’s happening - and we have a plan to get our bar team together for a meet-up at some stage before the end of the year too. For now though, there will be a glass or two raised this evening to “what might have been” and also to all those pals we are missing this week. For now, that’s the best we can do.

Robyn 

Now for 2019...

So time for a new page, a fresh year, and also a good time to make some decisions about what I want to achieve this year. Last year feels like a tough act to follow in some ways - and indeed this year's aims are going to be loosely based on what I set out last year with some additional bits thrown in for good measure. 

Personal/Health & Fitness:
- I will aim to keep up a good level of activity, averaging at least 13,000 steps daily across a year.
- Continue with eating well, using the FitBit to log foods some days to keep on track.
- Exercise at least 3 x per week - more is fine. Gym, running, swimming, circuits, HIIT Sessions - all good, also a brisk paced walk of at least a mile/15 minutes counts.
- Stretching - I had one injury last year partly as a result of not doing enough of this so an area to focus on.
- Bullet-ish journal - weekly lists, monthly planners, general to-do's.
- Aim for 500km total distance run in the year - I'm signing up to a virtual challenge for this one!
- Assuming they do the series again run 3 RunthroughUK "Chase the Sun" events
- Sign up and run a full 10k
- Bring running distance up to 10 miles
- Either get back to cycling or get rid of the bike
- Run the Dartmouth Regatta Road race in August - a terrifying 5 mile course with some horrific hills!
- Run/walk up Rueval - my favourite hill in the Hebrides

Home: We need to get back to sorting out the remaining works on the flat this year - from the more major stuff that still needs doing, to simple decluttering:
- Establish whether the electrician we were planning to use still wants the work, and if so get a firm start date from him.
- Find a new plasterer - lovely Geoff has retired!
- Plastering in Hallway and around windows - investigate whether we can do smaller areas ourselves?
- Hallway to be refloored/redecorated
- Decluttering at a low level - focus on seeing items within the house that we don't use
- New coffee table for front room - put measurements for this on the phone so I have them to hand and research and actually buy something.

Financial:
- Start to look towards replacing Ben's car - either just "at some stage" this year or earlier depending on MOT result.
- Joint savings to continue as they are
- I will keep a good eye on interest rates - if good deals come up we will switch money around to capitalise
- The "extra" savings will pay for a short holiday with friends in the spring - and will probably subsidise the holiday savings a little too as we have a short gap between the 2018 & 2019 Hebrides trips and had moved a previous surplus in that account across to long term savings
- Keep the focus on not frittering, and getting best value from our money

General/Random:
- Continue social stuff as last year
- Learn from the lessons I learned last year on friendships, and people who add value to my life rather than sucking the vibrancy from it.
- Try not to feel hurt or upset when other people behave unpleasantly or unkindly - I can't control their behaviour, I can control my reaction to it. (This one stays - SUCH a good life lesson!) Sometimes my reaction to it may be to simply step away from them as a regular part of my life - this works exceptionally well!
- Be conscious and mindful. Try to stop and think through choices and choose my path accordingly
- Brutal tidy and organise of laptop
- Sort out new power cable & battery for laptop
- sort out problem with desktop
- Keep up the momentum with the Beer Order stuff and don't let the workload pile up
- Another "big" walk - perhaps done in stages 
- Finish the Thames Path walk
- Finish the Jubilee Greenway walk

We have also agreed on some joint things to focus on for the year :
 - avoiding products with non-sustainable Palm Oil
 - Breaking the habit of procrastination (We're BOTH guilty of this!)
 - Working on cutting use of single use plastics even further


That seems like some good stuff to work on through the year, and a nice mix of "quality of life" stuff alongside building for the future. Social stuff will take a different turn this year in any event as there is likely to be less airshows partly due to taking up more responsibility within the National beer festival - the role we have taken on is a big one and there is absolutely NO room for not doing it well, so other distractions will need to take at least a bit of a back seat this year I think. There will also be meetings off the back of that too - which as a flip-side means more time spent with friends from that area of our lives which is great! 

My mantras for this year then:

Activity

Planning

Action

There WILL still be challenges - and I'll still be looking to see what I can achieve, but the focus this year will be more on maintaining the things I've achieved already within the running/fitness stuff. Last year started forcefully on the exercise front but tailed off later in the year - I found running in the heat of the summer quite challenging and as a result took more of a step back from it than I really wanted to for - this summer will be about finding a way of keeping going - hopefully the Dartmouth Road Race might be a way of keeping the momentum there!  

Feel free to join in for the ride - I'm starting out as I did last year with a challenge to do some form of exercise every day of January and so far, so good on that one. I think Frugal February will not be happening this year but I am intending to keep a focus on spending as I've said - we have more works on the flat to pay out for and lots of social stuff planned and intend to compromise on our longer terms savings as little as possible for those things. 

Has your last week been about planning challenges and goals for the year ahead? 

Robyn

The Campaign for...?

I have posted a couple of times here about my CAMRA activities - on how much fun and hard work the Great British Beer Festival is, and also on a trip to Norwich for the Annual Conference & Members Weekend a few years ago. The Campaign is facing a few struggles at the moment though - and it's that which has prompted me to write this post. Questions over our future have surfaced, and are rapidly seeming likely to split the Campaign in two, something which is quite horrible to contemplate to a long-term active member like myself.

First - some background. I worked at my first CAMRA beer festival when I was (I think) 10 years old - my Father could probably confirm as it is after all his fault, but I'm pretty sure that first one was Pigs Ear Festival 1982, working on the Guide Dogs for the Blind charity stall in the foyer. I've been a life member of the Campaign since 1996, met my now Husband (MrEH) working at a beer festival in 1997. I've worked at 20 Great British Beer festivals and am now a Deputy Bar Manager there, and countless local festivals including having for a time been organiser of a highly successful local festival in London. I have also been active at local branch level at various times although not currently. I'm not exclusively a beer drinker - at home I'm more likely to drink either gin or wine, but at the pub, a well kept Real Ale is my preferred beverage - I've never been a lager drinker - I don't get on well with CO2 and find that more than about half a pint of lager or keg beer tends to make me feel incredibly sick and uncomfortable. I don't drink any quantity of Coca Cola or similar drinks for the same reason.  Oddly enough, nobody has ever told me that I'm narrow minded, stuck in the past or a "dinosaur" for saying "Nah, you're alright thanks!" to a Pepsi though...

Further background: CAMRA is one of Britain's largest and arguably most successful consumer organisations with over 190,000 members at time of writing. From the Campaign's own website I take the following:

• We are independent and our policies and campaigning objectives are set by our membership
• CAMRA's decision making process is wholly independent of any commercial companies or other organisations
• We are not-for-profit and all proceeds are put back into achieving our campaigning objectives
• We are consumers. We have no commercial interests in pub or brewery ownership or management
• We are non-party political. 

to that I would also add the important fact that we are a volunteer-led organisation -with our many successful beer festivals around the country being run and staffed by a volunteer workforce. Although for some festivals people receive their accommodation and food on a subsidised basis, no actual payment is made for the many hours tirelessly offered by those who do it purely for the love of Real Ale (and Real Cider & Perry), the campaign and the massive social scene that has grown around our activities. The majority of the active members are incredibly proud to be involved with such a vibrant and enthusiastic organisation - indeed most of us will shout it from the rooftops at any opportunity!

The UK beer scene has changed massively in the past few years, let alone since CAMRA was formed back in the early 70's. (Coincidentally at around the same time I was formed...make of that what you will!) and continues to grow apace with the advent of "craft" beer. What is craft beer, you might be asking? Well yes, that's a question. The truth of it is that nobody actually knows what is meant by the term "craft beer" - it kind of doesn't mean anything. Brains and Adnams breweries, two of Britain's big regionals, both brew "craft" beers, so it isn't related to brewery size, "craft" beers are sold in cans, bottles and in over the bar dispense, so it's not related to serving method. The ingredients are mostly pretty much the same as for cask conditioned beer, and indeed some craft beers are also Real Ales - perhaps in fact all Real Ales are actually craft beers too? Real Ale is also brewed by breweries ranging from huge enterprises right down to "one man and his dog in a shed" sized, and perhaps most surprisingly to a lot of folk Real Ale can be found in cask form, bottles and indeed cans. What can't under any circumstances be said though is to suggest that all craft beer is Real Ale - that's a long way from the truth. Real Ale has a solid stated definition, and has to contain live yeast to be considered "Real" - in fact at the Great British Beer Festival we have access to clever microscope wielding folk that can show you the little...ummm...yeasts....floating (swimming?) about. High tech indeed! With a name like the Campaign For Real Ale you'd think it was pretty well established what we're in favour of - it's pretty up front and out there, and if anyone had signed up and was taken by surprise by it, then I'd be amazed. As for what we're against - well, nothing really. We're not keen on bad pubs, definitely not keen on closed pubs, and not big fans of the sorts of people who would tell you that drinking is evil regardless of quantity or quality. Against though? No, nothing. People drink lager? Fine - most of us tend not to - and we'll have a great go at introducing the average lager drinker to something with a bit more taste and a lot more provenance. If you want to carry on drinking lager though it's a rare CAMRA member who will berate you for it. Similarly a lot of our members drink non Real Ales at least sometimes - from a bottle perhaps, or in some cases a "craft" keg beer in a pub. Grand - each to their own, their choice even if not for me, but if it's not Real Ale, realistically, nobody would expect the Campaign for Real Ale to be actively supporting it, would they? And there is the sticking point - as seemingly there is a number of folk out there who rather than thinking "Hmmm...I like drinking this tasty keg stuff, but it's not Real Ale. Hey, tell you what, why don't I join an organisation that supports and promotes that?!" (like the Campaign for Really Good Beer for example - which already exists!), prefer instead to change a different existing Campaign (CAMRA) to suit their end. Logic would say that two strong organisations with like-minded individuals, and many "in common" interests like pubs, pub-based socialising, and a vibrant UK beer & brewing scene, could work together on the things that they were in agreement on, and perhaps even be stronger that way, no?

A lot of the debate on the subject is in the usual way of things within CAMRA, good natured. Talked out online, or over a pint in the pub, people disagree, but agree to disagree. As ever though a minority are refusing to listen to any other point of view to their own, to see anything good in the subject of change at all, shouting down those who don't share their view or choosing intimidation as the best way of trying to silence opposing views. Couple that with a very opaque and one-sided presentation of the changes that are being proposed, and a lot of conflict is resulting, leading to bad-feeling and in some cases real unpleasantness. People have put forward reasonable requests for the right to present an alternative view, and have been declined. (Our local branch has gone ahead regardless and emailed all local members on the subject.) Others have suggested that a clear statement of intent could be issued to clarify what is meant by a particular phrase which is currently causing a lot of worry - and so far nothing has appeared on that, either. This has lead to misunderstanding and suspicion from some folk, along with a groundswell of protectiveness towards the Campaign from many of those who are most involved with it - all we truly want is clarification and a clear statement, in order that we can make our minds up on the proposals with a full picture to work with - and without that it's almost impossible to do anything other than vote against, as to vote for the proposals in full as drafted currently means that we'd potentially be allowing a dramatic change to the raison d'etre for the Campaign that we are members of. Fact over speculation is invariably helpful in these sorts of situations, and the thing that is frustrating most of the more level headed members currently seems to be the lack of clarity on one of the key points and the unwillingness to allow the other side of the argument to be heard. with just 6 weeks to go now until the members weekend and conference, it now feels as though time is running out to reach a sensible conclusion to this.

Robyn

Looking back.....January

Last year I did a "Look back over my year" post at New year, and had awful problems working out which photos to include! As it rather seems as though we've done even MORE this year, I thought I'd break it down to one month per post, and pic out some of my favourite shots for whatever reason, over the year...(August's going to be fun!)

Starting at the beginning (well where else?) January saw a couple of trip round London with the camera in tow. I went for a good look at the Battle of Britain Memorial...

This is another work by the sculptor Paul Day - who is also responsible for the fabulous "Meeting Place" sculpture at St Pancras Station.

I also managed to grab a couple of days working up in the City of London - and used my lunchbreaks to good effect wandering along the Embankment...finding both fish...

...and fowl...

The final weekend of the month saw us heading up to Manchester for the National Winter Ales Festival. Bizarrely this was my first visit to Manchester so as well as spending the day at the festival on the Saturday we made some time to explore...

Very proud of it's velodrome is Manchester - there are bicycles everywhere!

A fab fountain in the city centre...

...and the most amazing and varied architecture. You hear a lot of negative stuff about Manchester, but I liked it - the people were friendly, the public transport seemed to work well (in spite of some truly awful weather on the Saturday in particular) and parts of the city are fantastic to look around. We'll be back!

Robyn.

A GREAT British Beer festival!

And great it definitely was this year - a fantastic nine days of meeting up with masses of the best friends imagineable. Looking after and serving up some fabulous beers, and plenty of drinking them too!
It all started for me back on Friday 9th when I jumped on Tube and then train to travel round to Olympia to start setting up the bar. For those who don't know, it takes  5 days to set everything up ahead of opening, and then a further 3 to take it down once we've closed to the public - so some members of staff are on site for a whopping 13 days. When I arrived some of the work of installing the stillaging for the beer, and erecting coldboxes had already been done, and the Grand Hall looked like this...

You can see our bar right at the back of the picture, to the left of the staircase. A quick wander downstairs, and shortly after I was joined by fellow Deputy Manager Brian, and we set to unpacking crates of equipment and setting up the all important cooling equipment which has to be fixed to the stillaging before we put the beer in place. Initially this just looks like a confusing muddle of plumbing, but once you've put it all together a few times it's surprisingly quick to install - in fact cable-tieing it all into position takes longer than putting it together! Once that was done and lunch consumed, we headed off to assist where it was needed elsewhere in the festival - which mostly involves a lot of walking from place to place pushing or pulling items of equipment - nobody goes to GBBF and comes back having put on weight I can tell you!
Saturday morning is when the majority of the rest of our team arrive on site - shortly to be joined by that all important component of a beer festival - the beer, of course....

That's just some of it - we had rather a lot more than that in total, starting the week with 110 "kils" - or 1,980 gallons of the stuff. We start from scratch with an empty stillage and cold-box, and put all the beer in place - none of us are professionals on our bar - this is something we do as volunteers - accommodation is provided, we get subsidised beer and meals - but there is no actual payment involved - we do it because we love it. Once it is in place it sits for a while to settle before we proceed with "venting" and subsequently (usually 24 hours or so later) "tapping" the casks. Over time you get to know how the various beers will behave as you're dealing with them - some are more lively than others...

...I mostly left that one to others to deal with! ;-)

It's not all about the beer itself though - the bar "front of house" area also has to be set up ready for opening - so handpulls all put in place and linked to the system of tubing that will deliver the beer from the casks, those lines have their own system also to ensure that the beer stays cool from cask to glass - so there's a fair bit of plumbing to get right! Then the housekeeping side of things, the metal sections of the handpulls get a good old going over with Brasso...

...and then the clips are added which show which beer is on sale from which pump. While that's going on, some of us are checking the beers to see whether they are ready for sale or not - some take longer than others, and once we know how the first cask of each is behaving we know whether we will need to work any differently with the subsequent ones. This year we opened on Tuesday with 25 of our 28 beers ready for sale if I remember rightly - a number we were quite pleased with.  Also on Tuesday is the judging of the "Champion Beer Of Britain" competition and this year we were delighted to have the beer that was placed second overall on our bar - Steve & Catherine from Buntingford Brewery were absolutely delighted - if a little shellshocked!

Within the industry this is a hugely prestigious competition, and from the bar's perspective it guarantees a good flow of customers to our side of the hall all week with people eager to try the beer. It also meant that we got a further 12 casks (108 Gallons) delivered to us to sell - we have to have the beer available at each and every session, something which we managed easily this time round by ensuring mostly seamless changes from one cask to another. There is a degree of skill in making sure that the next one is ready at precisely the right time, and you do feel a huge responsibility to the brewers to ensure that the beer is as good as it can possibly be. My own personal drinking seemed to extend to a large number of fruit infused beers through the week, and any chocolate ones I could find! In the course of the 9 days I tried two different Blueberry ones, a Chocolate Cherry mild, and then at the staff party Titanic's wonderful Plum porter and chocolate & vanilla Stout and Saltaire's gorgeous "Triple Chocoholic" - all of which were equally enjoyed by my tallest friend...

Photo courtesy of CKD - I think!

...so think on that the next time you want to suggest that chocolate or fruity beers are just for girls! ;-) On our bar we were fortunate to have Isle of Skye's lovely Hebridean Gold, and a glorious mild from our local Brewery Sawbridgeworth too.

Beer festival folk are incredible - some of the warmest, most accepting, non-judgemental people I've come across. Through CAMRA I've met barristers, brewers, builders and bin-men, conservationists, civil servants, carpenters and computer programmers. Some of those are married to one another, and one is even married to me! Sure there are people you get on with better than others, but for the most part it's a very "live and let live" environment - we're all there for the same reason, after all!

Bring on GBBF 2014!

Robyn

Serious Business...

We've just spent the weekend in Norwich at the Campaign for Real Ale's annual Members Weekend and AGM. We're what's known as "Active members" of the Campaign - volunteering at the National Beer festival each year (now relocated back "home" to Olympia) and also in advance of the festival at working weekends. There are plenty more active than us mind - many folk out there travel around the country doing festival after festival through the year - and taking part in things at local Branch level too - our local branch stuff is tricky to get involved with due to the times of the meetings being difficult for us, but we are looking to see if there is anything we can do about that. All staff at CAMRA beer festivals and within local branches are volunteers - and the campaign has an astonishing breadth of knowledge and experience within its membership to enable this.

So, Norwich - we travelled on the train on Friday afternoon, tickets booked in advance as ever to get them as cheaply as possible. We'd also booked a nice central Travelodge on a cheap rate nice and early on too, although for the first time ever we nearly fell foul of their habit of overbooking, as we got an email from them that morning asking whether we were definitely turning up. We fired off a response saying that we most certainly were and all was well when we checked in - friends though arrived later in the evening to find that their booking had had to be transferred elsewhere.

The AGM was being held in the beautiful St Andrews & Blackfriars Halls - the same location for the city's annual beer festival so it was a venue we knew. The weekend runs from Friday to Sunday, although the official AGM business is taken care of through the day on Saturday and on Sunday morning - Friday evening was all about catching up with many many great friends and sampling the excellent range of beers in the members bar - effectively a beer festival held just for those members attending, there is no public admission at all to this one. People come from far and wide to attend - we knew people there from Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and the South Coast, and all points in between, but members even travel from the continent too, and there have frequently been attendees from the USA and other countries.

We spent most of the day on Saturday in the hall listening to the various debates and presentations on all aspects of Campaign business - some very interesting, some rather less so - but that is the way of such things! A speech from Community Pubs Minister Brandon Lewis MP was interesting to hear, and he also took a question an answer session afterwards. Once "business" was declared closed for the day we took the chance to pop out for a bit to get some air, and some sunshine (and some cake!) and sat with a cup of tea on the stone "terrace" overlooking the market for a while - lovely and colourful! A return to the Members bar and a bit more catching up with folks followed before we headed off with a group of pals to visit some of the local pubs.

Sunday is a much less formal day - our "National Executive" (Board of Directors, effectively) had all ditched their suits and ties and were dressed casually up on the platform - with many a loud shirt and pair of shorts to be seen on the chaps - and the atmosphere in the hall is far more relaxed and jolly too - having had a slow start on hearing the Motions to be put to conference on Saturday morning, they fairly rattled through them yesterday, and everything that was programmed was heard. Once the final Motion was voted on Chairman Colin wasted no time in declaring the business of the weekend closed and releasing us all for some final chat ahead of goodbyes as we all scattered...Norwich Station looked like a giant CAMRA meeting for much of the afternoon!

 We'd not attended an AGM for a fair few years for various reasons but with this years being held in our "home patch" of East Anglia it encouraged us to return. As we rather expected it was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend - always nice to meet up with people anyway, and as we would sometimes only see some of these folk once or twice a year it was great to have the chance to spend some proper time chatting and catching up. Next years will be held in Scarborough and we've already pencilled the dates into our diaries!

Are you a member of any large organisations that do this sort of thing, or are you involved in volunteering for anything on a local or National level?

Robyn