31st Cambridge Beer Festival Programme : Next section

With that in mind, can I please ask you to seriously consider your beers, both British and Foreign, and take part in the voting, as we want this year to be the biggest poll ever at the Festival. We want many more candidates for this year's Champions as this will aid us with next year's beer selection - your Festival needs your input. Voting forms are available at the Glasses counter.

Your Festival also needs you! Most years we win the regional recruitment award for new CAMRA members who join us at the Festival - this is a testament to the passion and support we get from the Cambridge real ale public.

Remember, you have to be in to win - for every new member who joins, CAMRA's national and international voice is one voice louder. At the start of this Festival, CAMRA's voice is at least 72,000-strong - we use this to talk to pubs, breweries, governments and other interested organisations, so you can help yourselves to a fairer deal... Not only do we want you to join, we want you to actively take part in your local branch, and maybe even in organising your local Festival...

With regard to the Campaign, publicity supremo Mike Benner has been promoted after a strongly contested recruiting drive to Chief Executive Officer of CAMRA, taking up his post in June. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate him and wish him all the best on behalf of myself and all Cambridge branch members.

Picture: David, Ron & Shaun at the presentation of the plaque for 30 years of service as licensee

I must mention our licensee, David Short. He's the landlord of the Queen's Head at Newton and has held our Cambridge Beer Festival licence for the entire 31 years we have been in existence. We would like to publicly thank him for his continued support and to remind all of our customers that the entire site is covered by David's licence. This means that within the site perimiter we are the biggest pub in Cambridge for the duration of the Festival and normal pub rules apply to the whole venue! David's licence means as much to us as it does to him and we thank everybody for their continued support in maintaining this relationship. Staff on the back, or wearing yellow and carrying radios.

Our charities this year are the Armed Services Benevolent Funds and the National Association of Bikers with Disability. We trust that you will contribute in your usual generous manner and approve of our choices. If you have a charity you would like to see supported, please contact a member of staff and we will put it on the agenda for next year.

We are very pleased to welcome back many of our regular concession and hope that you will visit our newest, the Cambridge Connoisseur Coffee Company, especially if you are a designated driver. We wish the Army & Navy Stores good luck during their move back to their original premises on St Andrews Street and hope that this year you'll find time to visit them there - they'll hopefully be back with us next year. If you're hungry, there's plenty of choice as usual both inside and outside the tent.

On a sadder note, many of you will know Ken Longford, a previous Cambridge Beer Festival organiser and long-standing mainstay of this and many other beer festivals. It is my sad duty to inform you that he passed away over Christmas 2003 and he is missed by his many friends and supporters from the Campaign. I hope that you will join all of us in raising a glass or two in memory of the Hairy Womble - he would have loved to have been here to drink with us.

Enough of me - now, please enjoy the Festival. Cheers! Mine's a Randalls...

Shaun Marsh
Festival Organiser