Members of CAMRA are being given a final chance to influence the group charged with reviewing its future direction and purpose.

CAMRA’s Revitalisation Project was launched in April and is the most fundamental review of the organisation’s purpose in its 45-year history. Since then tens of thousands of people have completed surveys, almost 2,000 people have attended consultation meetings across the country, and opinions about the future of CAMRA have also been sought from politicians, licensees, brewers, cider makers and journalists.

The committee responsible for carrying out the review is now finalising its proposal – due to be submitted to CAMRA’s National Executive (Board of Directors) in December – and has launched a third and final survey of members. The CAMRA survey includes details of the proposals likely to be made and provides the last chance for CAMRA members to influence the recommendations.

It’s likely the committee will be proposing that CAMRA becomes more inclusive and begins to include other types of beer – not just real ale – into its activities. The committee is also likely to recommend that CAMRA widens its current campaigning for traditional pubs and begins more actively to promote and support all public places where people drink socially, including cafe-bars, restaurants, sports venues and music festivals.

Chairman of the Revitalisation Project and one of CAMRA’s founders Michael Hardman said: “We’re close to the point when we hand over our proposals to the National Executive and it has to get the approval of members for our recommendations and start the process to change CAMRA. We’ve carried out a huge amount of consultation and our recommendations will be the result of what we have heard from members over the past seven months, as well as our assessment of where CAMRA sits in the pub and beer world.

“The consultation has shown us that the majority of members believe that while the organisation will always champion real ale, cider and perry, CAMRA needs to recognise the quality that can exist in other beer types. We should also move away from a focus purely on traditional pubs, and seek to exert an influence over all of the venues where beer is drunk.

“However we realise that any change in CAMRA’s purpose may have an impact on our members and on the activity that CAMRA carries out, so this last survey is essential for members to understand the implications of some of our proposals and give us their views, so we can make the final refinements to our recommendations.”

Once the proposals have been submitted to CAMRA’s National Executive, members will get a chance to debate the recommendations at the organisation’s AGM and Conference in Bournemouth in April 2017. A final vote to adopt the recommendations will then take place at a general meeting of members at a later date.

CAMRA members can visit http://bit.ly/CAMRARPSurvey3 to log in and complete the survey.