Dear Julian,
At Members’ Weekend earlier this year, the National Executive presented finances that painted a stark picture. As your Chairman I was open with you; we were facing significant challenges.
The National Executive has faced this head on, and we have taken decisive action. We will be making immediate changes to address the budget shortfalls we are facing, which are caused by a range of compounding issues.
Leading CAMRA is a privilege. I am responsible for safeguarding our future. This means that the Board and I must make difficult decisions, and sometimes deliver unwelcome news.
Sadly, this means I must tell you that:
- The Great British Beer Festival and its Winter counterpart did not attract enough visitors to cover the cost of holding them, resulting in a substantial loss.
- Our membership figures – like many other organisations – are simply not growing. The hard truth is we are unlikely to return to pre-2020 levels.
- Our festivals are getting more expensive to hold, with fewer affordable venues.
- The cost of running a membership organisation and business is also increasing.
As a result, we will not be holding either of our Great British Beer Festivals in 2026.
In the simplest of terms, we did not get enough people through the doors to cover costs such as hiring the venue, accommodation for volunteers and buying beer, cider and perry. We are exploring why these events made a loss and identifying lessons learned. Other CAMRA festivals will continue to be assessed through our usual processes to minimise the risk of loss.
The winter edition of BEER Magazine 2025 will only be available digitally. This will save a significant amount of money in the short term.
Alongside this, we are developing a new three-year strategy to get us back on course and we will review internal budgets.
We want to be the leading authority on campaigning for pubs, pints and people. But that comes with challenges.
Our activities will be leaner. We will be streamlined. We will be decisive on where we put our time and resources. We must sadly stop supporting the ‘nice to haves’ and instead focus on our key objectives.
This is in line with my vision for CAMRA that I set out at Members’ Weekend.
I talked about a need for us to remember our roots but also evolve if we are going to grow in our collective strength and voice.
I made it clear that we need to focus on the issues where our campaigning will have the most impact, recruit the most members and activate the most volunteers.
We all want CAMRA to be an effective campaigning organisation. I will need the support of branches to make sure that money is being spent on the right activities at branch level, and in line with our aims.
We have produced a set of FAQs to answer questions you may have.
