Grantham CAMRA branch is the toast of Britain

Grantham’s CAMRA branch is the toast of Britain after being declared the most successful in the country.

The branch, which this month has 319 members, won the national body’s Membership Award for attracting and retaining members.

Attending CAMRA’s national conference recently, branch chairman Neville Lomas was told his branch had achieved a growth in membership of 21.1 per cent in 2017, compared with three per cent nationally, and had also retained 94.7 per cent of its members compared with a national average of 88 per cent.

The citation continued: “Increasing the membership by recruitment is an important revenue stream and, in some ways, increasing retention levels is an even more important part of growing our membership as retaining a member costs significantly less than recruiting a member, thus further boosting our campaigning funds.

“This is an excellent performance and shows the hard work that has been done to get the message of the CAMRA benefits over to the public, and existing members and I can only applaud them for what they have done.”

For Neville, the award came as a surprise, saying modestly, his branch does “nothing special” compared to other branches, though he does credit branch secretary Felicity Hamnett-Day in successfully canvassing potential members at the group’s beer festival last year.

The Grantham CAMRA branch started in 1975, soon after the creation of the nationwide body in the early 1970s.

It sought to promote and protect ‘real’ ales and ciders, something that seemed under threat in those days with the industry then dominated by giant brewers and their industrial processes.

These days, with the growth of craft ales and micro-breweries, CAMRA nationally has been debating whether these smaller breweries who use the same processes as their larger rivals, such as carbonating beers, deserve the same support as draught cask ales made using traditional methods. CAMRA is also campaigning to prevent further rises in beer duty, as well as reduce the grip that national companies have on pub landlords, restricting them to sell certain beers.

For Neville, his role as chairman takes up much of his retirement, especially now that the officer responsible for this year’s beer festival has left the district, leaving Neville to also take up some of that role.

Neville, who is 80 in December, joined CAMRA about 10 years ago, quickly becoming vice-chairman and then chairman.

The father of two, whose career was in the dairy sector, takes a leading role in the branch, surveying more than 70 pubs four times a year, to nominate nine pubs and one club that are published in CAMRA’s Good Pub guide. This also helps with the group’s Pub of the Year awards.

Then there is the beer festival, which this year will be held during October 11-13 at St Wulfram’s in association with the Grantham church.

Neville said: “We started at the Railway Club. We started with 30 beers and this year will be a joint effort with 60 beers, 25 ciders, a gin bar and wine bar. We hope to exceed the 2,500 who turned up to St Wulfram’s last year.”

Grantham CAMRA also stages monthly meetings, which over the summer have been at country pubs but will be in Grantham over the winter.

The branch also recently ran a trip to the ‘Beermuda Triangle’ in Newark, when some of its pubs staged their own mini-beer festivals at the same time. A bus trip around Vale of Belvoir pubs also proved popular and, this month, members will also attend the ‘trade day’ of the Peterborough Beer Festival. Other trips are also planned.

Neville added: “We like to have a good social atmosphere.”