University society affiliation
BraveSirRobin
I've just been informed by the secretary of Leeds University Real Ale
Society that the Camra affiliation scheme has ended for societies.
Does anyone have any more information on this, such as why?!
It was a great way to get society members into Camra at a cheap rate,
as was widely used when I was in the society, but perhaps no one uses
it anymore. But then it's not like Camra is particularly advertising
it!
Cheers,
Robin
Leeds Camra YMC
Simon Tailby
It's full of old men with beards and no-one my age and i've given up. I've
tried to get in with the Birmingham branch but never get invited to their
events still. This is yet another set-back, maybe to save funds in the wrong
way.
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Paul Scrivens
Sorry for the late response, the YMGC have all been at GBBF this week.
Thanks for letting us know about this. When your message came through
it was a bit of a surprise, as this was the first we had heard of the
discontinuation of the scheme. As such I went to talk to John
Cottrell, who is the Head of Membership Services at HQ (GBBF is handy
for this sort of thing). He explained the situation as follows:
The student affiliated membership was a bit of an experiment when it
was first put in place. It was an informal arrangement which was
administered on an ad-hoc basis by HQ staff, and was never a formal
membership grade. In order for it to become a formal membership type
with its own rates CAMRA would need to pass this at Conference in a
similar way to the discussion about life membership rates at the
Eastbourne conference last year. Since this was an informal
arrangement, it was considered to be on a trial period, and was also
not discussed formally with the usual campaign committees (such as
Membership and the YMGC). In November last year the decision was taken
to cease the arrangement, similarly with no notice given to Membership
or the YMGC.
Obviously we are not happy with this outcome. One of the major
arguments against such a reduced rate of membership is that it would
end up losing the Campaign money. The cost of administering a single
membership, (including the HQ support functions, production of What's
Brewing, and other costs that a standard membership would incur the
campaign) runs to about £14 per year. Thus allowing students to sign
up for a fiver is financially disadvantageous, and this would make it
tricky to persuade Conference that this is a good idea.
We are reviewing our options and have a few ideas for how we might be
able to reinstate the scheme, ideally on an ongoing formal basis so
that we don't get another surprise like this one. Since we only heard
about this on Tuesday it's all at quite an early stage! As always we
welcome constructive suggestions from other young members.
Simon,
I'm sorry to hear that you have had trouble getting involved with your
branch and within Birmingham. I'll mention this to Joe Roberts and see
if he can get you on a mailing list. I know that getting young members
activated can be tricky at times, but I hope that you won't give up
and can help us make positive steps towards changing the stereotype of
'old men with beards' and make young members more prominent and
involved in the Campaign.
Regards,
Paul Scrivens
Secretary, YMGC
Steve Hill
Simon,
As we now have approx 115,000 members they must be coming from somewhere, I'd like to believe that a large part of the increase is from those under 30. While I, like others, know it can be hard to get that many young members involved at a local level there is a potential.
This does bring me onto another point. I know there may not be many in each university's real ale society but combined it could reach the thousands. How many members could we potentially lose through this removal of affiliation? Many will be surely put off by higher rates, others will complain and pay.
I know from my time in our university Archery club we could pay as a club for GNAS membership. CAMRA couldn't do this financially but a solution may be to give a tiered reduction to societies based on membership size and deal with admin costs as a group (eg single copy of what's brewing sent to society or web access only).
Steve
BYMC Nottingham
Paul Scrivens
Membership figures as of July are 116900, of which 3518 are U26 (up
301 on last year), and 11373 are U30. On average therefore, branches
will have approximately 10% of their members being under 30, although
from personal experience this varies widely, often dependent on the
area having a university.
I think we'd probably be better arranging the rates on a single level
rather than varying at a society level, which would be hard work for
both the membership computer system and the HQ admin, but I'll pass
your tiering idea on. We are considering options for WB.
What benefits did your archery club gain from GNAS membership?
Cheers
Paul
Kev Brook
It's great that CAMRA membership is currently so high and growing at such as rapid rate but surely it is schemes such as the University Affiliation which is fueling this growth and in turn getting many new and younger members involved in Ale and CAMRA. This does seem very short sighted to stop what appears to be a successful scheme with no warning whatsoever. Like Steve already mentioned there will be many a student who will find a threefold increase to their subscription too much to swallow and may give up on CAMRA altogether.
Did anyone know that this scheme was only run on an ad-hoc basis? And if so, why weren't plans put in place to agree it officially. Admittedly if the cost of a single membership really is £14 then I can see that this loss margin would be too much for CAMRA so a perhaps a compromise could be found where the affiliated rate is say £8 and they get a slightly reduced 'service' such as one What's Brewing and Beer between every four members. Also increasing the initial joining fee for a society (was £10) could be increased.
From a personal point of view this is a real set back as I'm am currently in discussions with someone who is looking to set up a new Real Ale Society in our branch area and now I will have to tell him (for the time being) they can not be affiliated with CAMRA. I sincerely hope this doesn't put him off actually setting up the society.
I have also had a reply from Tony Jerome who says this matter will be discussed at the next membership meeting which happens to take place this coming Saturday.
Cheers,
Kevin
(Brighton and South Downs BYMC)
> Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 11:18:36 +0100
> Subject: Re: CAMRA-YM: University society affiliation
> From: pscr...@gmail.com
> To: camr...@googlegroups.com
BraveSirRobin
I am suprised it was cancelled without consultation of those that used
the scheme, and especially that YMGC wasn't informed. I think there
are options available to Camra to adapt and change the scheme to suit
everyone, but it seems they are not interested in pursuing this. In
essence, the main benefit of Camra membership that students would
enjoy is the free or reduced entry to beer festivals (I know this is
the case in Leeds). So if the affiliation only provided a membership
card and web access to What's Brewing etc, I think that would be
enough for most people to get a feel for what Camra does.
It would be a shame to lose something that was a real benefit to the
society over the last few years, and personally, I worked hard to
bring the society closer to Camra and the local branch especially, so
I really don't want for those links to be lost without some effort to
arrange a compromise.
This matter will be discussed at the regional meeting in Guiseley,
Leeds, so if any other BYMCs for Yorkshire are around and feel like a
good discussion, then I think that is a good place to get more people
informed and involved!
Cheers,
Robin
On Aug 10, 1:53 pm, Kev Brook <kevbr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> It's great that CAMRA membership is currently so high and growing at such as rapid rate but surely it is schemes such as the University Affiliation which is fueling this growth and in turn getting many new and younger members involved in Ale and CAMRA. This does seem very short sighted to stop what appears to be a successful scheme with no warning whatsoever. Like Steve already mentioned there will be many a student who will find a threefold increase to their subscription too much to swallow and may give up on CAMRA altogether.
>
> Did anyone know that this scheme was only run on an ad-hoc basis? And if so, why weren't plans put in place to agree it officially. Admittedly if the cost of a single membership really is £14 then I can see that this loss margin would be too much for CAMRA so a perhaps a compromise could be found where the affiliated rate is say £8 and they get a slightly reduced 'service' such as one What's Brewing and Beer between every four members. Also increasing the initial joining fee for a society (was £10) could be increased.
>
> From a personal point of view this is a real set back as I'm am currently in discussions with someone who is looking to set up a new Real Ale Society in our branch area and now I will have to tell him (for the time being) they can not be affiliated with CAMRA. I sincerely hope this doesn't put him off actually setting up the society.
>
> I have also had a reply from Tony Jerome who says this matter will be discussed at the next membership meeting which happens to take place this coming Saturday.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kevin
>
> (Brighton and South Downs BYMC)
>
> > Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 11:18:36 +0100
> > Subject: Re: CAMRA-YM: University society affiliation
>
> > Steve,
>
> > Membership figures as of July are 116900, of which 3518 are U26 (up
> > 301 on last year), and 11373 are U30. On average therefore, branches
> > will have approximately 10% of their members being under 30, although
> > from personal experience this varies widely, often dependent on the
> > area having a university.
>
> > I think we'd probably be better arranging the rates on a single level
> > rather than varying at a society level, which would be hard work for
> > both the membership computer system and the HQ admin, but I'll pass
> > your tiering idea on. We are considering options for WB.
>
> > What benefits did your archery club gain from GNAS membership?
>
> > Cheers
> > Paul
>
> > > It is a tricky one, while I'm all for getting as many involved as possible (and for students the cost can be prohibitive at full rate) as a campaign we need to ensure we aren't losing money. I'll follow this one closely.
>
> > > Simon,
> > > As we now have approx 115,000 members they must be coming from somewhere, I'd like to believe that a large part of the increase is from those under 30. While I, like others, know it can be hard to get that many young members involved at a local level there is a potential.
>
> > > This does bring me onto another point. I know there may not be many in each university's real ale society but combined it could reach the thousands. How many members could we potentially lose through this removal of affiliation? Many will be surely put off by higher rates, others will complain and pay.
>
> > > I know from my time in our university Archery club we could pay as a club for GNAS membership. CAMRA couldn't do this financially but a solution may be to give a tiered reduction to societies based on membership size and deal with admin costs as a group (eg single copy of what's brewing sent to society or web access only).
>
> > > Steve
> > > BYMC Nottingham
>
> > > --
> > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CAMRA Young Members" group.
> > > To post to this group, send email to camr...@googlegroups.com.
> > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to camra-ym+u...@googlegroups.com.
Paul Scrivens
able to attend the Membership meeting on Saturday, so I'm still trying
to get details, but the feedback I got from several of the committee
while I was talking to them at GBBF was similar to that expressed here
- in particular surprise that the scheme had been summarily dropped.
I'm hopeful that we can come up with a replacement arrangement, and
that we can make it more formal this time, but it may take a little
time to push through the appropriate channels.
I'll let you know when I have more information.
Cheers
Paul
Paul Scrivens
"At present CAMRA's Membership Committee is reviewing Uni Real Ale
Society membership and the Membership Director, Keith Spencer, is
taking this to the next National executive meeting to discuss
relaunching a special rate for these members following a successful
trial period where we offered students who were members of Uni Real
Societies that were affiliated to CAMRA, to join and receive full
benefits for just £5 a year.
"One area we are considering, is offering them chance to join for £7 a
year, but they will only receive What's Brewing and BEER mag online.
This would mean we can save the campaign the annual postage costs and
therefore do not lose money on these members and Uni members still get
a great deal but have to access our publications online. Unfortunately
this will not be agreed to perhaps next year.
"Of course, the big selling point still is for students to join for
just £14 and receive £20 worth of JDW vouchers, free entry to beer
festivals, paper copies of BEER and What's brewing plus many more
discounts with companies like cottages4you, Thomas Cook, Hire A Canal
Boat etc."
So there is movement on this issue. The new rate is likely to need
agreement at AGM, which will be next April. However, it sounds as if
Membership committee are on top of it and the proposal seems
acceptable as a student offering.
I hope that puts some of your minds at rest. If you have any specific
questions let me know and I'll see what I can find out.
Cheers
Paul
BraveSirRobin
Nice to hear the affiliation isn't being dropped, but slightly
rejigged, which I think is probably fair after a trial period. I hope
the executive still see the point in the affiliation scheme and it is
able to continue, possibly on a more formal basis.
Thanks again for all the leg work, Paul.
Cheers,
Robin
>
> > I would disagree that we are not interested in pursuing this. I wasn't
> > able to attend the Membership meeting on Saturday, so I'm still trying
> > to get details, but the feedback I got from several of the committee
> > while I was talking to them at GBBF was similar to that expressed here
> > - in particular surprise that the scheme had been summarily dropped.
> > I'm hopeful that we can come up with a replacement arrangement, and
> > that we can make it more formal this time, but it may take a little
> > time to push through the appropriate channels.
>
> > I'll let you know when I have more information.
>
> > Cheers
> > Paul
>
>
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