CAMRA BC AGM 2016

Hello, Vancouver members.

This past weekend I had the honour of representing our community at the CAMRA BC AGM in Victoria. I must say it was a tremendous experience. In my little over a year serving as the president of this branch of this organization I have had the opportunity to represent your interests in various settings – be it at the Vancouver AGM, at the CAMRA BC executive Summits, in talks with other consumer organization, industry organizations, at beer awards, in media spots and even when meeting with various levels of government. But there was a special feeling this weekend that these other things simply couldn’t compare to.

A central mandate of CAMRA BC in the past year was to hold a true AGM for members to attend. CAMRA BC had not held a physical Annual Meeting of members in some time and we felt it important to have it happen. It was an incredible experience to see representation from every single branch of the society in one room. We had members from South Okanagan, Powell River, Victoria, Vancouver and South Fraser all present. Not only were members from varying areas present, but I believe every single branch had a member speak up during the meeting and be involved in the discussions. It’s one thing to attend the meeting and sit silently, it is another to be actively involved in what was going on. It was truly amazing to see the engagement from the members present and I believe this was a great leaping off point for future AGMs down the road.

So, a bit of backstory here before I get into what actually happened at the AGM for those that want to know the changes we are going to be seeing. At the Summit held in Powell River this year, the BC Executive decided we were going to move forward on our position that a physical AGM be held this year. In the discussions, we talked about where it should be held; Vancouver has more members than any other branch, so maybe that would be a good fit. South Okanagan was the newest branch, so maybe holding it there would be good to show solidarity with our new members. Each location came with its share of pros and cons. In the end, the decision was made to hold it in Victoria. Victoria is the birthplace of CAMRA BC and seemed like it was historically fitting to birth our renewed philosophy in that place. Plus, add on the fact that it is an easy location for the most members to travel to. While the majority of our members live in the Greater Vancouver area, we felt as though they could get there pretty easily and affordably if they wanted to. Realistically, if you really wanted to attend this AGM from the lower mainland, you could do it in a one-day trip and this would be your cost:

Vancouver Transit Fare 2 x $2.75 = $5.50
BC Ferries Walk-on Fare 2 x $16.90 = $33.80
Victoria Transit 2 x $2.50 = $5.00
Packing your own food = $0
Total cost: $44.30

Does a day trip make for an exhausting day? Sure! But knowing that some people may be looking to do that day trip, we were sure to hold the AGM at a time that allowed them to take a 9:00 ferry, and be done in time to take an early evening one back. While I would love to see an AGM in Vancouver in the future, I didn’t feel as though the one time cost was exorbitant enough to flip tables and cause a scene. Ultimately, the roughly $44 can be offset by not going to your favourite Barbecue restaurant once, or buying 2 or 3 less beers for your extensive beer cellars. I find comfort in knowing that the AGM will move from location to location year after year, who knows maybe next year it will be in Penticton (we haven’t started discussion yet.) Vancouver’s time will definitely come and I know I can count on every single on of you to be there!

Now, on to the business – first and foremost the election of the directors. Most positions were elected by acclamation. The executive roles in CAMRA BC are rarely contested as it is an incredible time commitment and you have to really be willing to commit 40+ hours a week to it if you want to do it right. Would I like to see more people running, absolutely! Do I think our society is inherently broken due to a lack of competitiveness in the director roles, not necessarily. But I digress! By acclamation, the new executive is as follows:

Julie Hall – Secretary
Ryan Baker – Treasurer
Jeremy Noonan – President

I don’t know Julie (as she extended her regrets, unable to attend the AGM) so I unfortunately cannot speak to her. But I am glad to see someone step into an oft under appreciated position in secretary. Wishing her the best of luck in keeping all us crazies reigned in. But I have worked closely with Jeremy and Ryan.

Ryan was the treasurer of the Vancouver Branch for 2 years and the Treasurer for CAMRA BC last year. He is an incredibly intelligent man, with a great sense of humour and a good understanding of money and financial implications. He plays the devil’s advocate very well (which you need in a treasurer) and is not afraid to tell people when things need to be better. I couldn’t be happier to welcome him back.

Jeremy worked as the CAMRA Vancouver Community Liaison last year and has decided to step in and take a huge responsibility in shepherding the society into the next year. Jeremy is a tremendous leader (don’t want to say he learned it from his Vancouver president but…) He is also a fantastic speaker and writer and knows beer better than most people I know. He has a vision for what this society should be and from what he has told me we are very aligned in our view of the future. This is going to be a big year for this society, change is afoot, and I am very excited to get going!

The last position, that of Vice-President was a contested one between Janna Gabrek and Mike Willis. Janna took the vote unanimously with 100% of members in attendance voting for her. I worked very closely with Janna last year. It cannot be stated how amazing a job she did stepping into the role of President when Ari Dressler had to step down midway last year. Most people would take the role and just make sure nothing burned down until the end of the year. But Janna went full-steam ahead working heavily on resolving website and server problems, digging into the societies act (alongside Paddy) and worked through a very difficult situation in our suspension of the South Fraser Executive. She promised members more of the same hard tireless work and I don’t doubt that is what we will see from her!

I know I speak for the entire Vancouver CAMRA BC community when I say a resounding THANK YOU to our outgoing executive and a huge CONGRATULATIONS to all our new directors.

Beyond the elections, all the branches gave updates on where they were at. I won’t give all the details as the minutes will be made available once they are all finalized, but I will share some highlights with you.

South Okanagan (Presented by Kim Lawton):

• Just celebrated one year and has 78 members
• They are starting their first membership renewal cycle so hoping they can retain those people.
• They started a “refer a friend” program to boost memberships and saw some great increase because of that.
• They are having monthly cask meetups which are seeing a lot of success.
• They are sending their own newsletter, launched a website and their social media streams, and can’t wait for the next year!

Powell River (Presented by Paddy Treavor):

• Just wrapped up their third year of operation – beer in Powell River is exploding.
• They will have a brewpub opening up shortly.
• They have roughly 130 members.
• Have a few events some members are organizing including a women and beer social event as well as “Closet Drinkers” beer and clothing exchange! Lots of very cool stuff going on!

Victoria (Presented by Glen Stusek):

• The have over 150 members.
• Hoping to survey their membership this year to get the community more engaged.
• Bringing in many speakers for education classes regularly.
• Looking to partner more closely with Victoria Homebrew clubs.

South Fraser (Presented by Janna Gabrek and Ryan Baker):

• CAMRA BC suspended the South Fraser branch mostly due to breaches with the Society’s Act (Didn’t do financial reports for 3 years running, worked in cash only; but deposits weren’t going into the bank account.)
• Town hall was held with the South Fraser membership to explain what happened.
• It was agreed that South Fraser does need its own branch; CAMRA Vancouver can support them, but the region does need their own branch.
• Learning for CAMRA BC was that there needed to be more communication with the members; and a better explanation – the suspension did not suspend members it suspended executive members from operating the branch.
• Another learning point for CAMRA BC: They need more reporting from the branches to maintain a finger on the pulse.
• There is a group of excited young members that want to step in and form the new executive. They are aware of the past issues and are keen to see them get fixed.

Of course, I also reported on the health of the Vancouver branch – but that was all said in our AGM, see our 2016 AGM minutes..

Lastly, there were some amendments adopted at the AGM this year. The full amendments can be found written out in the AGM minutes – but I can tell you that we passed 5 amendments in total.

The first change was to put us more in accordance with the societies act in our creation of “Branches” of our society. The Societies act says we need to explicitly authorize branch creation in our bylaws to, this change simply does that so our branches operate in accordance with the act.

The second and third change made it possible to vote for executives and directors digitally. We have never been able to do so before, as our previous bylaws stated that it was done by a show of hands. This just makes it easier for our entire society (especially those that can’t make it an AGM) to vote.

The fourth changed fully repealed one of our bylaws that allowed for corporate memberships. As a consumer advocacy organization, over the last few years, we have moved away from corporate memberships as it was viewed as a conflict of interest. This was a necessary change to fully represent our interests, and repealing this bylaw was (for all intents and purposes) a technicality.

The last change to the bylaws basically changed the definition of “giving notice” to our members. It used to be required that we send you all a letter in the mail (gah!) Now we can simply email you (phew!)

There was one final change undertaken at the meeting, and that was to the Constitution of CAMRA BC. This is an important one, as it represents our mission statement and who we are as a society. The new constitution is as follows:

“(1) The name of the society is the Campaign for Real Ale Society of British Columbia.
(2) The purpose of the society is to advocate on behalf of the craft beer consumers of British Columbia by supporting and protecting BC liquor policies that positively impact craft beer consumers and advocating for changes to those BC liquor policies that negatively impact BC craft beer consumers. The society is a member-funded, consumer organization that believes in the promotion of craft beer related education, the development of a vibrant homebrewing culture in BC, the promotion of responsible alcohol consumption, and that a wide variety of quality, BC-brewed craft beers should be readily available for craft beer consumers everywhere within British Columbia.”

The key changes here are words like “protecting BC liquor policies” “Advocate on behalf of consumers.” Also, we were sure to add in that we are “member funded” as this has become a key proponent to our identity as a society in the last few years. Ultimately, this represents us as a consumer organization more than anything, which wasn’t being adequately state in the past.

Believe it or not, that was the short summary of the AGM – there was a lot of great discussion had. I was absolutely honoured to represent the Vancouver area at the BC AGM this year. I welcome you, as always, to let me know if you have any comments, questions or concerns. You can email me pres@camravancouver.ca or tweet at me @davidjp87 anytime!