Leaving the Campaign for Real Ale

The Cross Keys, Uppermill

Today, my CAMRA membership card runs out, tomorrow, after 50 years, I’ll no longer be a member.

Last summer, I received an email from them telling me that my membership (the senior’s rate) was going up by £3.50 this year. In 2021 it was £18; in 2022 it went up to £20; in 2024 it went up to £22; this year it’s going up to £25.50. Over five years it’s gone up by just over forty percent. This year CAMRA made a loss at the annual Great British Beer Festival (which I find hard to believe given that most of the setup, festival and takedown staff are voluntary). I suspect that membership is going up again next year.

Membership comes with a lot of beer vouchers, worth more than the cost of my membership. So, in theory, my membership is free. The problem is that there are very few pubs for me to use them in. They are mostly for Wetherspoons Pubs, which I don’t like drinking in (I need to be really desperate to drink in one).

I also get a discounted Good Beer Guide in advance of publication (a couple of weeks in advance). For a few pounds more I can pre-order it from Amazon for delivery not long after publication.

Back when I joined, CAMRA really was a worthy cause. If it wasn’t for CAMRA I’d probably be drinking wine in the pub. Back in the seventies and eighties they were desperately needed. Nowadays, it’s easy enough to get decent real ale. I’m a pensioner with limited income. I’ve decided that I want to give my money to other, worthy causes.

I’m a member of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS). We desperately need to change the way we vote in this country; we need to move to proportional representation. I wrote about this here.

I’m also a member of the Free Speech Union (FSU). Free speech in this country is under attack; these people help fight for it. They’ve won a lot of cases defending people taken to court for saying something totally legal. I also donate money to some of their court cases.

I left because I wanted the limited amount of money that I spent on worthy causes to go to those with more need.