CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT

CAMRA SW London has been in existence for over 40 years, previously having been part of the larger South London Branch. We exist to support the aims and objectives of the Campaign for Real Ale Limited (CAMRA) within the Branch area comprising the London Boroughs of Merton and Wandsworth and those parts of Lambeth with SW postcodes.

In September 2016 we held the 1st Wandle Beer Festival at Tooting & Mitcham United's KNK Stadium in Mitcham. This was well received by those who attended so we may well be hoding a festival at the same venue in future.

Until 2014 we held an annual beer festival in February at Battersea Arts Centre. [www.bac.org.uk] The venue was closed for extensive refurbishments in 2014 which meant we had no festival in February 2015. The subsequent major fire on Friday 13th March 2015 will see the Grand Hall closed for the forseeable future. Before becoming established at the BAC we previously held seven smaller festivals in Wimbledon and West Norwood and an outdoor one on Tooting Bec Common for a rock concert held there. For members who work at the festival, we run a trip to the lucky brewery whose beer the customers voted beer of the festival.

We hold regular meetings in various pubs in our area, which are business meetings but punctuated by beer breaks and end at a reasonable hour. We also have many socials and pub crawls all over the branch area. One longer meeting we have is when we choose our selections for the annual Good Beer Guide when every member has the right to come and vote for the short listed pubs. We also write to all members asking their views on which pubs should be short listed. All members also receive a vote to select the annual Pub of the Year. From 2006 to 2010 we published a series of local pub guides which covered the whole of the branch area.

We also ensure that CAMRA's comprehensive on-line pub guide whatpub.com is kept up-to-date for the pubs in our branch area.

We have close contacts with an ever increasing number of local breweries and pub companies.

All people are welcome to join us in CAMRA - we have 170,000 members nationwide and over 1,500 in our own area. Come and join us in our quest for decent pubs, decent ale and full pints in our excellent South West London drinking area.

Mark Bravery (CAMRA SW London - Chair)