MINUTES OF EAST MIDLANDS REGIONAL MEETING HELD AT 12.00 ON SATURDAY 4 MARCH 2017 At the Greyhound, Hinckley, Leics LE10 1HN Summary of key points Attendees updated on mailouts, current campaigns plus other regional matters including various matters concerning beer festivals Actions Branches to ask for volunteers to a) work on a regional mapping project, b) become the regional finance officer; assistance is also needed with regional website. East Midlands Regional Minutes 1 2.22.3 Branches to ensure pub closure data is kept up to date – as this is now 1. MEETING ARRANGEMENTS used by CAMRA for pub closure statistics. Transferred to Standing Orders. 1.1 Standard - The Regional Director (RD) welcomed all to the meeting and 2.22.4 Branches to ensure activation is a named item on branch meeting reminded those present that all mobile phones should be silent during the agendas – Moved to Standing Orders. meeting. 2.22.5 RD to contact Northampton branch re non reporting BLOs - Steve 1.12 Local - Hinckley & Bosworth CAMRA outlined the lunch arrangements. Westby had successfully contacted – ID. 1.2 Apologies for absence: Steve Westby, Brewery Liaison Co-ordinator (BLC); North Notts branch; Loughborough branch; Melton Mowbray branch; 2.3 Matters arising Dickie Bird, Peterborough; Mark Grist, Ashbourne & District; Mick Portman, 2.3.1 Re 5.3.2 - Bill Woolley (Leicester) is keeping in touch with the Little Chesterfield; Bob Foulger, Lincolnshire Area Organiser (AO); Ray Kirby, Britain Pub Company. Nottingham; Paul Edwards, Andrew Brett, Mansfield & Ashfield; Mandy 2.3.2 In response to the query on beer festival entries on WhatPub (3.6.1) – Stephensen, Leicester; Julian Tubbs, Derby; Aaron Joyce, Lincoln. RD had established that beer festivals can be entered onto WhatPub as an entry – but open/closing dates need to be carefully recorded. 2. ATTENDEES 2.1 Present Branches Represented - 14 - (numbers present - 36): Amber 3. BRANCH & REGIONAL MATTERS Valley, Burton & S Derbyshire, Derby, Dronfield & District, Grantham, Hinckley 3.1 Regional Matters inc mailouts, ACVs, activation & Bosworth, Leicester, Lincoln, Mansfield & Ashfield, Matlock & Dales, 3.1.1 RD briefly ran through the numerous memos that had been published Newark, Nottingham, Rutland and Sheffield. since the last meeting, commenting where appropriate (various subjects were East Midlands Officials – Carl Brett, Regional Director (RD); Alan Ward, addressed later in the agenda). Deputy RD; Rhoda Waygood, Regional Secretary. Nik Antona (NA) 3.1.1.1 The memo from Ken Davie re year end financial statements was represented the National Executive (NE). Three members from the West discussed – branches must comply with this or financial support for beer Midlands region were also present by invitation. festivals will be withdrawn – six branches in the East Midlands have not yet complied. The new online branch accounting system (COBAS) has been 2.2 Minutes of previous meeting designed to make this task easy for branch treasurers. 2.21 Accuracy The meeting accepted the minutes as a true record. 3.1.1.2 Branches must ensure that their AGMs are published on What’s 2.22 Action Minutes Brewing – one branch recently did not inform RD or publish it (Standing Order 2.22.1 Branches to ask for volunteer(s) to assist with new regional website – 2). ongoing. A new regional website has been set up and needs populating with 3.1.1.3 There was some discussion as to branch committee members getting content. memos - to avoid overloading them they should only receive those pertinent 2.22.2 RD to report to meeting progress with revised Good Beer Guide (GBG) to their roles (Branch contact should receive them all, and should ensure allocations – RD reported that there would be no changes for the 2018 Guide. relevant members are aware of matters concerning them). This should work if A timetable has been agreed with Books Committee for 2019 which includes a the branch committee is up to date – the branch Chairman and Secretary can complete review of GBG structure. David Finn (Hinckley & Bosworth) felt that update online. RD to check all branch committees are up to date on the online this was unsatisfactory as this matter had been going on for some years now. system. NA explained that the revised allocations down to county levels had been put 3.1.2 Thanks were awarded to Nick Molyneux (Nottingham) for the help he has to the RDs but had been rejected as those with fewer allocations felt this would given to branches applying to Newark and Sherwood council for ACVs. be unpopular. Wide changes in demographics and pub numbers have occurred since the original allocations – in the most extreme cases currently 3.2 Branch matters branch reports appended one branch has an allocation for 1 in 4 pubs whereas another, only 1 in 20. 3.2.1 The tasting training course to be held in Burton-on-Trent on 25th March is The officially agreed timetable is circulated with these minutes. – item now to be held at the Burton Bridge Inn (relocated from the Coopers Tavern, discharged (ID). owing to the uncertainty as to when the Coopers (currently undergoing refurbishment) will re-open). East Midlands Regional Minutes 2 3.2.2 It was noted that, under the Melton Mowbray report, it should have stated resulted in duplicate WhatPub entries. As HQ defines branch boundaries by that the beer festival returned a surplus – CAMRA is a not for profit postcode this often differs from branch opinion (rural postcode areas are often organisation. very large). An electronic solution was sought and worked out using open 3.2.3 The National AGM & Conference is to be held at Bournemouth in April. source software and maps (the Ordnance Survey have open availability of Members should note that voting for the NE candidates must be done online or certain maps as long as copyright is acknowledged) and eventually a map of by post by 25th March and will not be available at Conference. There is also a the complete West Midlands region was created with branch boundaries, Special Resolution (details in What’s Brewing) which members can vote on in which could be used to add e.g. county boundaries as well. The current advance or at Conference. membership system is a commercial system so unfortunately access cannot be granted to its database so plotting of member locations cannot be done. 3.3 Tasting Panels Jim is willing to train a group of volunteers to undertake a similar project in the 3.3.1 A brief report from Terry Lock, the regional tasting panel co-ordinator, East Midlands, where numerous queries over branch boundaries have been appended. Any queries please contact Terry directly [email protected]. raised. Branches to ask for interested volunteers. 3.3.2 The tasting training to be held at Burton on 25th March is fully booked. Norman Hall (Hinckley & Bosworth) is now a fully accredited taste trainer and 3.5 Branch Publication Awards Nothing to report this time. is planning a course to be held in the region in early May. 3.6 NBSS and WhatPub 3.4 Pub of the year (POTY) and Club of the year (COTY) 3.6.1 Development of WhatPub is ongoing. RD is on the steering group, any 3.4.1 The National POTY has been announced as the George & Dragon, queries can be sent to him. Hudswell – a pub saved from closure by the local community. Extensive media 3.6.2 Important to keep pub closures up to date, as the data is now used by coverage was generated. CAMRA for pub closure statistics. 3.4.2 Branches need to announce their POTY by 12 March by informing the 3.6.3 Important to inform CAMRA if any plagiarism is taking place of the data RD plus the relevant AO and publishing it on the regional yahoo group. The on WhatPub. Perfect Pint has now closed down, but action was being yahoo group is to be replaced by a regional group on Discourse and branches considered against it as it was using information from WhatPub. As WhatPub must ensure at least one member joins this new group by requesting RD or is the leader in this area, keeping entries up to date will help keep it so. Andy Shaw to add them. Data protection is stronger on Discourse and it can be set so as to send emails to members. Several attendees agreed that At this stage of the meeting RD invited the West Midlands Regional Finance Discourse was difficult to understand and more explanation was needed – RD Officer, Steve Edwards, to explain the role and its background. to ask Alexander Wright to issue more guidance for users. CAMRA has made a loss for the last two years and needs to get back to a 3.4.3 Jon Whowell (Rutland) stated that his branch were unable to find judges break even situation. Branches need to ensure that surpluses are remitted to to travel the considerable distances required in order to judge the other HQ (they can always be recalled if needed). The new online branch accounting candidates in the county round, and therefore their POTY would not be system (COBAS) has been set up to enable branch and festival treasurers to entered. This is not a new problem. Derbyshire was split into north and south keep accurate records in an easily accessible format. Year end accounts as regions for similar reasons. RD to look into this to see if it can be made easier. requested by HQ are very easy when using this system West Midlands region have created their own suitable groups (not necessarily The regional finance officer helps treasurers and branches run their financial following county boundaries).