Saturday 25 July 2015

Upcoming social events

A couple of social events have been kindly organised by our membership secretary Paul Forrest.


The first is tomorrow Sunday 26th July, at a great pub which recently won the accolade of being voted our 2015 Branch Pub of the Year, The Red Lion in Horley.

There will be guest ales, including I'm told a brand new strawberry blonde beer from nearby Turpin Brewery, traditional pub games and a BBQ. From 12:30 onwards.


Secondly there will be a minibus trip on Saturday 8th August to the excellent Ale & Steam weekend which is a collaboration between the North Cotswold branch of CAMRA and the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.
The minibus will leave Banbury at 10am and travel via Hook Norton and Chipping Norton.
Cost* is £10 for CAMRA members, £15 for guests. Contact Paul to book a place

* Cost is for the minibus only, it doesn't include entrance to the festival or beer, sorry!


Looking slightly further ahead, GBBF isn't far away - book your tickets now!

Committee Changes at the AGM, and an urgent plea.

The branch AGM was held at the Harrow in Enstone on 13th July. Ales from CATS brewery (local to our branch) and from Adnams were enjoyed by all.

As a result of the AGM there are a couple of changes to the committee.

Paul Forrest is stepping down as vice chairman, though he's continuing his membership secretary role.

Lynne Baldwin is stepping down as branch secretary, but has instead taken on the roles of vice chairman and public affairs officer. A lady of many hats within CAMRA, she's also area organiser for Oxfordshire.

Brian Wray is stepping down as Pub Campaigns Coordinator (the role formerly known as Pubs Officer), but will continue in numerous roles as he's still our Pub Protection Officer and Pub Database Coordinator. He has also agreed to be the Good Beer Guide Coordinator.

Nick Faulkner is stepping down as treasurer, replaced by Simon Whitehead.

Russell Broom will be working with Helen Jones as joint social secretary.

Many thanks to everyone who attended the AGM, to all the committee members old and new and to the Harrow for hosting us.


You may glean from the above that we have no branch secretary or pub campaigns coordinator currently. This is a problem, especially in the case of branch secretary as this is a core role without which the branch cannot function. As such, the Regional Director Nick Boley has stated he will be forced to wind up our branch if nobody steps forward.

Obviously we're very keen to avoid this situation, especially with a continually growing membership (now 625) and another successful Banbury Beer & Cider festival fresh in our minds.

Helen Jones has agreed to take on the role of secretary temporarily - we have 3 months to appoint somebody before Nick starts asking questions.

So the (rather predictable) plea:

If there's a branch member out there who'd be willing to help us avert disaster by taking on the role of secretary, we would be most grateful.

CAMRA's guidelines on what the branch secretary role entails can be found on our website here.

Similarly, pub campaigns coordinator is also a very important role which we are keen to fill.
The guidelines for this role entails are online here.

We also have a vacancy for Press & Publicity officer.

Please contact the chairman if you'd like to take on a more active role in our branch.

Cheers.
GJ


Saturday 11 July 2015

Branch AGM this Monday

The 2015 AGM of the North Oxon branch of CAMRA will take place at the Harrow, Enstone at 8pm on Monday 13th July.

Come along and join us!

You can find an agenda and the minutes from last year's AGM on our website using the links below.

Agenda
2014 Minutes

Regional Final Pub of the Year voting

There's still time for CAMRA members in our area to vote for the Central Southern region's Pub of the Year.

The finalists are :
  • Queen's Head, Wokingham
  • Rising Sun, Berkhamsted
  • Royal Oak, Wantage

You can download the voting form (MS Excel spreadsheet) here.
Please send any completed forms by 25th July to the regional director: rd.centralsouthern@camra.org.uk