[QUOTE=oldboots;92780]A small example of the mis-reporting is in this article, Colin Valentine did not say anything about "my fellow Directors and I" simply because he stepped down as chairman around 12:40 on Sunday, he constantly referred to them as "soon to be ex-collegues" and similar phases.
What was disappointing for you? The results of the SRs or the results of the NE election?
All SRs except 6 were passed by big majorities and SR6 only failed by less than 3% to get the required (under The Companies Act 2006) majority, that's massive support for "Revitalisation". I think SR6 failed because it was just a little too wide ranging, maybe limiting it to just Beer (& Cider & Perry) drinkers might have passed and would have better reflected the survey results.
The result of the NE election is just weird, Lynn Atack is a staunch Goldings and Fuggles only type of person but she came top. Speculation on Discourse is that she came top because the progressive vote was split over several candidates. Ash is young but fairly conservative and I think Gillian is fair traditional too.[/
am disappointed that SR6 was not passed. I think Camra has missed a chance to attract new young members.
I'm not convinced acting "as the voice and representing the interest of all pub goers and beer, cider and perry drinkers"*, would cut it with the under forties. A major difficulty is the image problem and that is so bad I don't know how long it would take to reverse; beards, sandals, and beer bellies covered by stained brewery T-shirts is just too tempting for the lazy journalist and others. They also see Camra as irrelevant because they think, wrongly, the fight for "Real Ale" has been won. The other problem of course is activation, there are nearly 200,000 members, but only 18,000 odd voted in the elections and resolutions and about 600 turned up in Coventry. The numbers sway the politicians and civil servants but without the active members who run beer festivals, survey pubs, etc Camra will turn into "a National Trust for beer" with lots of inactive armchair members of an organisation run by a professional team of employees.
* I have quoted SR6 because it doesn't actually say "embrace craft keg" or "campaign for Fosters and Carling".
I think if Camra was the voice for all beers and started allowing craft keg into the fests and wrote about it in Whats Brewing it would prosper.The ones who want to stick with real ale could but I think it would attract new drinkers.Lets face it the Great British Beer Fest without the best breweries in the country is a bit of a misnomer.