Branch Campaigns

CAMPAIGN TRAIL

What is being a member of Westmorland CAMRA all about?

We all need to get out more

There is always scope for improvement and we are trying to generate more interest and activity in our Westmorland Branch of CAMRA.  We are keen to enthuse potential new members to join and ‘sleeping’ members to get more involved.  Here is a list of activities that you can ‘pick and mix’ from to meet your individual taste and become involved.  These all centre around the appreciation of Real Ale, presumably why you are reading this, and will apply to most CAMRA branches throughout the UK.

 · Social Events & Friendship

Join in and make good friends.  Humans as a species are social animals; our physical and mental well-being is positively affected by good social human interactions and relations.  Our branch is friendly and inclusive, and we tend to sup responsibly and not to bite!

 · Hike’n’Pint

We try to organise four walks a year through the best of England’s landscape taking in a couple of pubs.  The walks are carefully selected and the pace is always comfortable and set to cater for all needs.

 · Surveying Westmorland Pubs and Breweries

We regularly organise visits to pubs and breweries in our area in order to keep up with the positive and negative changes in these businesses.  We also  try and encourage members in more remote areas to join us.  We as a CAMRA branch are going to work harder at this to hopefully generate more CAMRA activity.  On occasions we travel to neighbouring regions to visit other Beer Festivals and other CAMRA events.

 · Beer Tasting.

We have a CAMRA Cumbria Tasting Panel that is always keen to recruit new taste buds.  There are regular tutored tasting events at pubs and breweries where we all get to understand more about how the 10,000 taste buds in our mouth and olfactory system work.  It is great fun and it can really increase your experiences and appreciation of food and drink.  One of the greatest benefits of this activity, alongside meeting new people, is the fact that ‘we beer tasters swallow’!  The results of all our hard work include positioning our Cumbrian Ales in the Champion Beer of Britain competition, providing tasting notes descriptions for the Good Beer Guide and keeping checks on beer quality.

 · Beer Festivals

Help at and enjoy our Westmorland Beer Festival each October:- see Festivals page

 · Good Beer Guide (GBG) Surveys and Selection

Annually Westmorland CAMRA selects and surveys 36-40 Pub contenders for GBG.  These are then put into a democratic process which selects the 23/24 that enter the Cumbria pages representing Westmorland.

 · Campaigns

Campaigning, a core activity of CAMRA (arguably the UK’s most successful campaigning organisation) is performed at local, regional and national levels.  Here is an important issue amongst our current campaigns:

Is your local under threat?  Promoting and protecting the pub

The British pub is a unique institution, offering the combination of social drinking, acceptance of diversity, conviviality and atmosphere.  Drinking proper beer at a beer festival or at home is good, however the best place to savour a pint is in a good pub.  This great institution is under threat, CAMRA’s own surveys suggest we are losing pubs nationally at the rate of 57 a month and the suspicion is that this may be an under-estimate.

We as real ale drinkers need to get out more to support and safeguard our valuable community resource, and, if not already members, join CAMRA .  As CAMRA members we need to work harder in organising ourselves and campaigning towards protecting our traditional pubs. 

Current economic and societal changes place major threats to the viability of our pubs.  Diversity is a way forward and the ‘Pub is the Hub’ (PITH) [see article below] initiative is active and running in Cumbria.  Rural pubs are often at the heart of their community, PITH encourages support for local services to help them stay that way. Research shows over 70% of villages no longer have a shop or Post Office. Indeed nearly 60% no longer have a village pub.  Pubs often provide the only meeting place, where for example, there is no village hall.  Rural pubs have potential to assume a wider business and community role in the future as one-stop shops for essential rural services helping to revitalise rural economies and communities. As well as providing services that may be lacking in a village, such as a Post Office or a shop, they can often make the difference between economic success and failure for the pub itself and support local suppliers.  Westmorland CAMRA is keen to assist in this process.  From October 2008, the Government will be seeking proposals for a national action plan to deliver sustainable communities. The Act will enable CAMRA to pursue measures including:

Increasing the number of pubs eligible for rate relief

Ensuring full planning permission is require to convert a pub to another use

Outlawing the use of restrictive covenants that prevent a closed pub being reopened.

Allocating funding to initiatives to promote local beers.  

In  In the meantime please keep enjoying your responsible real ale supping!

Chris Holland

Chair Westmorland CAMRA

Last Updated 29/03/2010 00:20