Minutes of Ceredigion Branch Meeting: Saturday Feb 19th at The White Lion Talybont at 2.40pm.
Present: Rhys Jones (RJ), Adam Watkin-Jones (AWJ) Nia Richards (NR) Chris Giles (CG), Mark Dyer (MD) Sara Dyer (SD) Llinos Griffith (LG) Paul Adams (PA) Andrew Rawlins (AR) Ringo Holt (RH)
1. Apologies :Mike and Mary Galliers, Kathy Giles, Tim & Ann Rapley
2. Minutes of meeting Sat 15th Jan Black Lion Llanbadarn Accepted after some corrections were made: 1) apologies to Phil who’s surname in apologies should have been spelt Wulstan, 2) The White at Mach referred to in 12 was the White Lion. 3) Under AOB. At the North Wales / Cheshire regional meeting one branch voted against the Welsh region proposal, all others in favour. As a result the two regional directors concerned will propose to the next Branches Committee (in Bristol) that this should go ahead. If they say yes, the National Executive has the final decision. So it could in principle come in for Members' Weekend, although there would need to be a transition period to allow regional director etc for the new region to be elected.
3. Matters arising – not on the agenda We returned to the discussion of the Nag’s Head and whether should be a deletion or not. Although members have visited it is still too early to tell. It will be shut for a while post handover (5th May thought to be the last day) so watching brief to be kept.
Mary Galliers (MG) volunteered to be Membership Secretary – cheers Mary!
4. Treasurer’s report circulated. There has been no movement in accounts and it was discussed if we should send £100 to HQ but it was decided to do this after the Ale Trail in case of unforseen expenses.
5. Correspondence - Contact has been made by KG with Norman at Cambrian re Ale Trail – further info will be provided to Norman by SD nearer the time
6. Aberystwyth Real Ale Festival and Local Pubs Week - Preparations well under way.
Posters printed and leaflets with map of pubs. Thanks to CG, KG, MD & SD who folded over 500 leaflets and made the ballot boxes for the pubs. RJ has offered to distribute these thanks Rhys, he reports that the stuff has been well received in the pubs he has already visited.
AWJ has offered to “leaflet” the student village on Wednesday or Thursday of the week of the festival. SD to print off 150 more leaflets for this purpose and deliver to AJ on Thursday 24th Feb. LG took some leaflets for Mach area.
SD will e mail “local” branches with a link to the website (which now has Ale Trail info) to invite them.
7. Fund Raising / Publicity / Social - we are going to combine our next surveying trip with Branch Meeting at the Talbot in Tregaron. If we can think of a beer we would especially like they may be able to get if for us. Contact RJ with suggestions.
8. Website news – things have moved on leaps and bounds. AWJ held a 5 pint masterclass in the Varsity Aber to introduce SD, MD and RJ to the wonders of the web. Website now fairly up to date. AWJ needs to set up another session for remaining people.
Contact email on website now re established and forwarded to SD as branch secretary.
9. Pub Brewery and Beer News - Talbot at Tregaron showing great promise. Brewer from Purple Moose did a public talk about his beer and tasting session in the pub.
Victoria at Borth is now open again but sadly it has missed being surveyed for the Good Beer Guide this year as it was closed during survey period. It is having a Beer Festival over the weekend of the Royal Wedding which is much anticipated as many member hugely enjoyed the last festival.
Good reports have been heard from members about the Farmers Arms, Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn, Aberystwyth. The food seems to have a good reputation and they are serving Real Ale too. One to visit so we can collect more information please.
10. Pub of the Year(POTY). Judging panel returned their verdict after surveying our 3 nominations for POTY. Judging was done against CAMRA’s National Criteria and comments were made by the judges about the high standard of all the pubs. 3rd place with 192 points was The White Lion at Talybont, 2nd place with 203 points was the Harbourmaster at Aberaeron and 1st place with 209 points was The Ship and Castle in Aberystwyth. Possible date for presentation is 9th April 2011. RJ will ask if date is acceptable after this branch meeting.
11. Good Beer Guide (GBG) Selection – after considerable debate 12 nominations and a reserve were selected but names of pubs are embargoed until GBG is produced.
12. Next Meeting – 14th May at the Talbot Tregaron times to be fixed later to fit with buses from Aber
13. AOB Reminder of RJ’s Bus Pass Crawl on Sat 5th March meeting at Hen Orsaf 9am.
SD suggested we should have a logo for the branch and suggested two designs. Neither was selected so it was agreed there should be a competition posted on our home page for nominations for a branch logo – probably to be judged at the next meeting if there are any suggestions. Winner will get their design on the home page of the website and used on all our official stuff.
Meeting closed 4.10pm