Hello everyone,
It is hard to believe that another AGM has passed us by. On the afternoon of February 27th we were joined by a group of CAMRA Vancouver Members at the Biltmore Cabaret to take part in the procedure. The AGM is a crucial piece to our year as it decides the fate and future of the organization for the upcoming year. At the meeting we discussed branch financials, the direction of CAMRA BC as an organization and we elected a new Executive board. I am pleased to say we had a nice array of attendees, ranging from some of our founding members to new members that only signed up this year! Now, was the event as well attended as I would have liked? No, of course not. We have several thousand members and we usually get about 100 people that come out. Honestly, we saw a lesser turnout this year than in past years, and that was disappointing. But, we can’t lament over those things as we had a great event none the less. I did get a few responses from AGM attendees with questions, so I thought this would be a good opportunity (and medium) to address some.
“Why couldn’t I get a beer when I got there?”
This is a very valid question – as people that have attended years previously have had the chance to drink beer from the moment they arrived until long after the AGM was completed. The decision was made this year to limit beer consumption until after the business had adjourned. We didn’t expect this to be a popular decision – but we also didn’t get as much pushback as anticipated, so that was nice. This decision had multiple layers to it. First, in years past overconsumption has led to less than desirable verbal altercations between members. One could certainly make the argument that a bit of alcohol allows people to speak freely if that is a good thing. I don’t necessarily disagree, but at the same time it is important that people speak their mind of the organization without intoxicants. The second major piece fell into how we are viewed as an organization. A lot of people said to me “we are a beer club so we should be drinking beer as we talk.” While we are an organization that supports, advocates, and enjoys local beer, That is not the core reason for our organization’s existence. We are a consumer advocacy group. In my view, and a view of the outgoing executive, It is important that we are viewed as an organization that is professional and credible. If we decide to take on the liquor reform head on and a member of government decides to attack us back, it isn’t hard for them to point to our AGM and say that our policies are decided when alcohol is in play. This secondary factor is something that has been discussed on the provincial level with CAMRA BC. This policy was adopted at the recent AGM in Powell River and Will be adopted at the upcoming provincial AGM in Victoria.
I have heard that people felt as though they were being disrespected as adults by not being allowed to have a drink. That is certainly not the intention. Perhaps we could adopt a system where everyone can have one drink during the business to sip on, I would have no issue with that in theory. This was a trial run for us and we will see what next year holds. Another nice factor in limiting alcohol is that we dealt with our business in record time so that I could get to the beer. We enjoyed the beer afterwards … and it was great!
“You mentioned in your speech that we backed up on advocacy this year, what’s with that?”
This is another great question, that I have heard from a few people. Two years ago, CAMRA Vancouver took on a very aggressive advocacy campaign on several fronts – the most well known of which was the Fess Up to Serving Sizes (or F.U.S.S.) campaign. Members of our team went on the offensive and started measuring serving sizes in various establishments across the city. Now, without getting into all the details of how that went on – I can tell you it had mixed reception. CAMRA Vancouver was suddenly seen as an antagonist and a catalyst in the local community. While the intentions were good, the execution of that campaign (and a few other events in the years prior) had left people in the community with a sour taste in their mouth – think Acetobacter in your beer. When I took over last year, I worked hard to engage the community and get a feel with where we were at. Without naming names I had several very intense conversations with CAMRA members, some bloggers and industry contributors and it became clear to me that our organization was not being viewed in a positive light. As a result, we made a very intentional choice in the past year to take a step back and focus on community engagement. We feel as though we had a successful year, we mended a few bridges that were collapsing or had collapsed. I would love to head into this year keeping advocacy at the front of mind. CAMRA BC has every intention of investing into our advocate front this year. With the creation of an advocacy role on the BC board, Vancouver will be able to direct province wide campaigns to the provincial organization and be able to focus in on issues of consumer rights that are specific to Vancouver.
Other than that, people seemed really happy with the AGM as a whole! The new executive is thrilled to get started – I know we have already had conversations of what we can do this year. In the coming weeks I will be meeting with them all individually so we can create a plan of attack regarding how we are going to proceed this year. If you weren’t at the AGM, you can get to know the executive team here. While we are excited to welcome new faces, and see old faces shuffle around a little, it is always hard to say goodbye. I would like to take some time to thank outgoing executive members: Dan Olson, Samantha Ingham, Jeremy Noonan and Danika Strecko. We appreciate the service you put into this organization and I am sure we will see you around! Conversely, I would like to welcome newly elected Executives in Ksenia Dempster, Adam Dewji and Ashleigh Begg. If you have ideas, of what you would like to see this upcoming year, please let me know via email pres@camravancouver.ca or tweet at me @davidjp87. It’s gonna be a fun year and I can’t wait to report back soon with all the ideas we come up with!
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