At the end of August, readers may have seen articles about CAMRA in the Times and the Guardian. They highlighted the Campaign’s reduced membership and loss for the 2024/2025 financial year. The Times did forewarn CAMRA of their article and they were sent a detailed briefing explaining the situation but only one part of it, a quote from finance director Ian Hill, was used.
Most of the financial loss related to the move of offices from St Albans to Luton because the purchase and sale fell in different financial years. That move was not ‘downsizing’; it saw us achieve a long-standing plan to combine our office and warehouse operations on the same site. The financial forecast for 2025/2026 looks much healthier. We most certainly have not reached our ‘nadir’ as the Guardian claimed. CAMRA is not going out of business!
As regards membership, Ian Hill explained, “We are no different from many other membership organisations that have seen a sustained reduction in membership since the pandemic. We still have more than 140,000 members and a high retention rate, dedicated to campaigning to protect our beloved pubs and pints.” I understand that over 400 new members were recruited at the recent Peterborough Beer Festival.
What was disappointing with both newspaper articles is that they clearly failed to grasp how CAMRA operates. Its strength lies in its members at local level, however many of them there might be. The Good Beer Guide is probably the most objective pub guide that there is. You cannot buy your way in; a pub is included only if local CAMRA members think that it meets the standard. Similarly, the GBG’s brewery section is unique, with information provided direct from the source by CAMRA’s brewery liaison officers. Our pub of the year awards, again judged by local members, are highly prized for precisely that reason and, similarly, brewers regard the Champion Beer of Britain award as one of the highest accolades available.
That said, led by its expert staff, CAMRA is actively involved with lobbying on a number of national issues. In particular, we have for some time been pushing the Competition and Markets Authority to hold an ‘access to market’ investigation into the restrictions being placed on small brewers by the large pubcos. This culminated in the launch of our ‘Beer in the UK’ report which I recommend everyone to read. To be fair to the Guardian, in their article they did allow Tom Stainer, CAMRA’s chief executive, to expound on this issue at length.
In its early years, CAMRA built up a reputation as one of the most effective consumer protection bodies in Europe. Essentially, this has not changed. Ignore the doubters, keep campaigning!
Tony Hedger