CAMRAWaterway Sector Conference

21 March 2015

Presenter – Beverley Gobbett

Agenda •My role at CAMRA•CAMRA – Brief overview•Activation•Perspective on Social Media•Personal reflections

My roles •My role at CAMRA-Festival Trainer-Volunteer Committee-Deputy Regional Director-Competition Organiser – M/cr-Member of the Nat. Tasting Panel-Asst Bar Manager at GBBF

CAMRA – Brief Overview

•Founded in 1971•Independent, voluntary organisation campaigning for real ale, community pubs and consumer rights•UK, Northern Ireland and Channel islands – We have 16 regions, 215 branches and organise over 150 beer festivals per annum

Overview continued

•168,553* members (January 2015)

• In excess of 5,000 committee post holding volunteers• Membership doubled in 8 years•Growth averaging 8.6% per annum over the past 5 years

Overview continued

•Over 60% of our members join via our national website www.camra.org.uk •Membership is £24* per annumo A monthly newspaper and quarterly magazine

o Concessions on publications, including the Good Beer Guide,

o Free or reduced entry to every beer festival

o Numerous third party benefits

Overview continued

•In 2008 we developed an affinity scheme. Now working with numerous organisations offering benefits to our membership•Real Ale Societies•Investing in Volunteers – Training and Support

Activating Members

Activating Members

POINTS TO CONSIDER

• What is YOUR current situation

• Barriers to volunteering

• Sharing of successes and failures and what lessons can be learnt

• What other support is needed

Breakdown of CAMRA members

Barriers to Activation36% of non active members said they would be interested in volunteering in future BUT:•Lack of communication

– Some branches only contact members when they want help at beer festivals. Others not at all.

•Members do not know what they can volunteer for•Afraid of making a fool of themselves•Perception of branches:

– Full of ‘old men’ – Unwelcoming– Set in their ways– Hard sell– Committee members never moving on

•The activities that the branch does do not appeal to me•Geographical barriers/transport•What’s in it for me•Lack of time

Encouraging volunteering

Issue How we could address it

Members do not know what they can volunteer for

Use the volunteer leaflet•Due to be rewritten once the Members’ website is up and running

Volunteer posters• Use the posters in magazines and websites• Create your own poster with local volunteers

- Help is available with set questions and from the Marketing Team

More coverage:•On the website•Investigating What’s Brewing

Role descriptions

What else could we do?

Lack of skills Launch of face to face and online training in 2015

Are you getting the messages right?

Times have move on?

Perspective on Social Media

•Forward thinking – Embracing technology and have a diverse representation online

•Investing – We are investing on our online service provision to members and volunteers. New interactive website to be launched in 2015

•Omni-channel communication -via our website, email campaigns, facebook 40k likes, twitter 47.4k followers

Thoughts

I hope that this has inspired Personal thoughts on what Waterway Societies could be doing more of ...