People said we were crazy to plan 2 events on back-to-back weekends but we did it! The first CiderWISE was a huge success, lots of new faces came out to try the ciders and GF craft beers on Saturday afternoon. Then a week later the AGM at the Biltmore Cabaret went beautifully with nearly 200 people turning out for some great casks and take care of the business of society.
We descended on the WISE Hall for CiderWISE and by reaching out to people who aren’t usually craft-beer drinkers we brought in more new people and made converts of them! We made made lots of new friends and a big thank you to all the cideries and breweries who got involved. I’m pleased that we have announced 2014 as CAMRA’s year of Craft Cider as many people came to thank us for giving cider a place alongside craft beer. We also had Culver City Salads standing by with their collection of GF and Vegan foods, again not a typical craft beer food-truck but something a bit different. It’s important to remember that we love all of our members and we’re not trying to push them away by doing new and different things, we want to spread the message to as many people as possible and continue to grow and diversify. We had a good media presence with Rebecca Blissett from the Vancouver Courier and Terry David Mulligan interviewing me and a few others at the Event, pictured here with TDM fanatic, our Communications Director Monica Frost.
Of course, a big thank you to all our wonderful volunteers who did an awesome job and everyone who came out! Our next event was our AGM, probably the most fun AGM in the world. The Biltmore Cabaret is my favourite club in the city and I was there 3 times that weekend! Once we got started we moved quickly through the agenda and once the dissolution of the board was complete we invited John Mitchell, 83 year old Grandfather of BC craft beer to act as executor for the elections. All the positions were uncontested, if you would like to know who your new board are click on the Executive tab above, suffice to say you’re stuck with me as President for another year! Thanks to John for your help and stories. The pin casks quickly ran out and we thank all the breweries who contributed.
Your new CAMRA Vancouver Executive. L-R: Dan Olson, Adam Chatburn, Chad McCarthy, Arianna Dressler-Stolte, Danny Seeton, Sammie Gough, Monica Frost & Amanda Barry-Butchart.
The next order of business was the CAMRA awards as ever given out by Amanda and Monica – this is always fun, especially as we added two new categories this year, best beer name and best label artwork! For the full list of winners check the Awards tab above. Once the awards were given out we had a very special surprise for our guest of honour, John Mitchell and I got to say something I’ve always wanted “this is your life!” we presented him with a big red book outlining his many achievements in Craft Beer with Trollers, Spinnakers and Howe Sound and the laws he fought to change over 30 years ago. We awarded him with our first (and only) Life-time membership of CAMRA Vancouver and just when he thought he could get away we had one more surprise thanks to Ken Beattie of the BC Craft Brewer’s Guild who presented him with a handsome glass plaque thanking him for his contribution to craft-beer in BC. L-R: Adam Chatburn, John Mitchell, Ken Beattie.
EDIT: John Contacted me the next day horrified that in the surprise he had forgotten to include thanks to his wonderful wife of 56 years, Jenny. I’m happy to pass on thanks from the BC craft beer community for supporting John all these years!
Thanks to everyone who made these events so successful and stay tuned for even more great events from your 2014 CAMRA Vancouver Executive!
Adam Chatburn
President, CAMRA BC – Vancouver Branch.
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