Pints of View Summer 2026 - the branch magazine of Mansfield & Ashfield CAMRA.
View From The Chair(s)
Hello, and welcome to our Summer 2026 edition of Pints of View...
I've had only limited involvement in the branch so far this year due to ill health, and haven't even had a beer since January 25th (when I had to abandon the #31PubsInJanuary challenge), as I then spent the next 8 weeks in hospital. My thanks, therefore, go to fellow committee members for stepping up and taking on extra responsibilities in my absence. I'll therefore leave it to my Vice-Chair to complete the rest of this piece, but I wanted to mention just a few points first.
Firstly, at the time of writing, it's CAMRA's Members' Weekend/AGM, this year in St. Albans, and the outcome of the election for three posts on the National Executive has just been announced. The candidate with the highest number of votes was Dale Harvey, a Nottingham branch member, some of you may have seen on social media as the man behind The Great British Pub Crawl. Congratulations to him and the other two elected candidates, Dennis Brandrick and Steven Spencer.
Secondly, there's been a review of the model constitution for CAMRA branches in 2025/26, so if a new model is adopted, we may need to align our branch constitution with that at our own AGM in June, so watch out for details in our next branch email and the AGM notice to members.
Finally, I want to mention that we'll be looking again at the branch rules for our Pub of the Season and Pub of the Year competitions, as the former actually stopped some pubs from being eligible to compete in the latter. However, I'm pleased to say that we have seen some public engagement in the nominations process introduced from Winter 2025/26 Pub of the Season but I'd like to see more people get involved, so do please nominate deserving venues.
Our Chair, Karl, has asked me to put a few words together for this quarter's magazine and introduce myself as the current Vice Chair. Although I've been a member and supporter of CAMRA for a good few years, it's only for the last few years that I've been actively involved in the Mansfield and Ashfield Branch Committee.
I think that it's been four years since I initially joined the Committee, initially as a 'Minister without portfolio' as I had no specific reference and was more of a willing volunteer! Over the last few years, I have picked up a couple of roles on the committee. - I'm currently the Branch Vice-Chair and also the Social Secretary. We hold a monthly social gathering either within or outside our branch area, and I'm tasked with putting these together. Additionally, as the committee is a small group, I've also temporarily picked up the role as Branch Cider Rep. I admit that I'm far from an expert in this and am currently 'caretaking' the role. We are actively seeking someone with a bit more expertise to take this from me! I think that it's also worth pointing out that I'm far from alone in having more than one role on the committee. In fact, most committee members wear more than one hat at our meetings, and we'd very much like to see a few more faces, so please think if you'd like to be involved - more on that later!
So, in order to introduce myself a bit more - outside of CAMRA, my main hobbies are spending time with the family, travelling, rugby and allotment gardening. I regularly disappear for a while from the committee as I go off on another jaunt - I even find myself organising social events that I can't attend. It's a good job that it's not a prerequisite of being on the committee to get to every meeting or social event! Although my rugby playing days are behind me (I think!) I'm still involved in coaching the Ladies Section at Ashfield Rugby Club. We've had a pretty good season this time around, finishing third in our league and getting to the cup semi-final. If you're starting to think that my life revolves around holidays, rugby and beer - that pretty much sums it up! However, that's probably more than enough about me; now, back to branch matters!
Within the Branch, this magazine continues to be produced quarterly. After not having a printed magazine for a good number of years, we're really pleased with this and hope that we can continue to get these out to pubs and clubs within our area. I'd like to add a thank you to all our magazine contributors, but especially to our Editor, Kirsten, who somehow manages to put all this together! If you do have any thoughts on how we can improve the magazine or what content we should include, please let us know. Constructive criticism is welcome!
4 | Pints of View Summer 2026