CHAIR REPORT – GRIMSBY NEL AGM 12.03.2025

Good evening, what a splendid turn out tonight, thank you all for supporting our Branch. Well believe it or not, this is my 3rd Annual Chair report, and a lot has gone on in the 3 years plus that I’m not sure if I was voted on, or the fact that no one else applied ? I’d like to think the branch has move forwards in this time, to the days of less than 10 attending meetings to 20-30 regularly, for the past 2 years or so.

Our meet the brewer evenings, not only at Branch meetings but in the Town too, in the last 18 months we have seen Timothy Taylor twice, Thornbridge, 8-sail, Gorilla, Horncastle Ales, Rudgate, too many to remember, we have arranged a 150 birthday special with Batemans, were our two teams in the quiz that night came third and first, modesty forbids me to tell you which team I was on. We have had regular Wetherspoon’s festival invites, rooms reserved and sometimes a day before the festival starts. We have this last year reintroduced the POTS awards, to which at the time gave other pubs not in the good beer guide a chance to win awards.

Our constitution has been updated for the first time in many a year and now represents the model CAMRA constitution.

After a torrid time throughout covid, Branch trips have been organised to York, Kelham Hall, Gainsborough, Chesterfield, Magna, Newark.

Our ITD magazine came a credible 5th place in the recent CAMRA Magazine voting, so a big thanks to Katie in the main as well as Graham and myself for this.

Also our website, again from being practically non existent before I took over achieved 5th Place in the CAMRA National awards, which I still believe is one of the most updated CAMRA websites out there, we’ve introduced lots of new feature pages and also members getting a WhatsApp message when something new is added thus bringing you updates immediately.

It is extremely hard work running a branch, yes I do have a small team behind me [which I will talk about in a minute} but the onus on being the chair is a burden at times, I have on two occasions this week worked until after midnight to reconcile the accounts, which I will give you more details in the Treasurers report. As well as other roles, sometimes the responsibility of ensuring tasks are done, seem to lay with the Chair, and being fully committed to any roles I personally undertake then this adds pressure onto the role. A year ago, this pressure took it’s toll and I was quite prepared to resign but I didn’t want the Branch to decline, and who knows where it would have gone from there, if you look at the Louth Branch it will almost certainly fold and I will attend a Lincolnshire Branch meeting this Saturday to discuss it’s future, I will update you all when I can, fortunately Brian volunteered to be secretary to take some of the strain away, so a big thank you to him, and also to Katie and Anna for their roles and also to David, Sara & Graham who have also supported the running of the club in some way.

We are described by our Regional Director as a very active branch, which is a compliment to what and how we do things, our meetings and events give our members several opportunities to take part, so again I thank you all for your attendance and support.

I’m not going anywhere so with your support in my role as Chair, let’s continue to take this Branch forward.

Thank you, Kevin